I was on a call Monday when I got a text from Kevin: “DUDE”. This generally means good news – no one follows up a “DUDE” with, “sorry about your grandma”. Kevin and I cohost a Gilmore Girls podcast called Gilmore Guys, where we discuss each episode, sometimes for up to three hours at a time. He’s a life­long fan and I’m watching for the first time, which gives me the unenviable task of forming opinions as I deliver them to an audience of existing fans.



Kevin told me to check our show’s Twitter, and there it was:­ “Gilmore Girls limited-series revival set at Netflix” – news that carries the heft of “sorry about your grandma”, but with way less bereavement. (Maybe the same amount of crying, though.)



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Texts and emails of congrats started pouring in, as if I was responsible for any of it, or as if the birth of my first child would forever live in the shadow of the day Gilmore Girls returned. I think people expected me to be cartwheeling through my office, or completing whatever devil’s pact got us new episodes in the first place, but I just reread the news, again and again. I didn’t feel anything. At first it just felt like information.

That was worse than feeling bad. Feeling bad at least feels arguable, like if I reacted with, “Boo! The ending is fine” (it’s not), or “everybody’s too old for those characters now” (they aren’t).

Being someone without a discernible reaction makes for a terrible podcast where, you know, you have to react to something. Discernibly. So I talked out my opinions on-­air to some conclusion, and even after recording a whole episode about it, my thoughts came back to a pithy “we’ll see”.

It’s healthy to be cautiously optimistic, right? The concept of a show revival is so hotly debated. Why raise the dead and risk birthing a Frankenstein? Gilmore Girls is a show that exists in this strange 2000s bubble, where a well­-written family dramedy makes for better must­-see TV than most procedurals. It was a world where the tech boom isn’t something that can make or break a communication storyline, where the struggles of Rory dating ‘the right guy’ outweigh any overwhelming social or political cause the show could shed light on.

Could that work in 2015? Can the characters work nine years later, and without the grandfather character, since actor Edward Hermann died in December? I’m trying to give series creator Amy Sherman-­Palladino the benefit of the doubt; she wouldn’t bring the show back without knowing she could do it right.­ But even in the worst-case scenario, having it return is great news for all of us fans.

I think modern-­day television works at it’s best when it’s ‘event television’, when must­-see TV creates a community of astounded live-­tweeters, podcasters, recap bloggers and forum-goers all wholly dedicated to extending the culture around a TV show. As much as that culture feeds off of television, it also gives the show a responsibility to its fans not to recklessly marginalize any part of it or dismiss characters for gimmicky storylines. While communities like this have existed for decades, they’ve never been as prevalent as they are now.

Heck, three of the four types of dedicated fans I mentioned didn’t really exist en masse when Gilmore Girls first aired. Reboots are big now because fans are louder. Together, the persisting fandom proved that it’s worth going back to Stars Hollow.

However it turns out, we get to relive the excitement of good 2000s television under the lens of contemporary discussion culture. While I’m not looking forward to reopening the can of worms that is “which boy is best for Rory,” I’m really excited to reopen the doors to Luke’s Diner, because this time we all get to go inside. The show won’t find success if it doesn’t take its digitally vocal champions into account, so we all have at least an indirect say in what happens there this time around.



Should you be excited for some new Gilmore Girls? I certainly hope you are. Because you’re making it happen.