(CNN) Did anyone really need a "Gilmore Girls" revival? No more so than an updated "Full House," which doesn't mean the practice isn't smart business-wise for Netflix -- not just tapping into nostalgia, but offering fans an excuse to revisit old episodes.

Enter "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life," four 90-minute installments -- length-wise the equivalent of about eight TV episodes -- served up as a bountiful Thanksgiving weekend binge. Series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino has reassembled practically the entire gang (with the sad absence of the late, great Edward Herrmann), plus some bonuses, kicking off with "Winter" and proceeding through the seasons.

Netflix loaded up its screeners with detailed spoiler warnings, which seems silly given the contours of the exercise. All that really needs to be said -- not quite a decade after the show concluded its seven-year run -- is that 32-year-old Rory (Alexis Bledel) comes back to visit Stars Hollow, where she finds her mom Lorelai (Lauren Graham) as feisty and fast-talking as ever, along with a lot of other familiar faces.

Those include Lorelai's mom (Kelly Bishop), still wrestling with the grief of her loss; and Luke (Scott Patterson), who in one of the amusing recurring gags keeps giving out wrong passwords for his diner's Wi-Fi access.

The four-season structure actually creates some problems. At 90 minutes, the story tends to meander, providing lots of time for rat-a-tat banter (and references to things that weren't on the radar when the show signed off, like "Game of Thrones") but moving the plot along at a snail's pace.

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