In This Section
TV Guide Spotlight
Also on TVGuide.com
|
« Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls Finale
We all know by now that it's over. No more Tuesday night trips to Stars Hollow. No more Friday night dinners for the Gilmores, one and all. It's over, finished, done, kaput.
The cardinal rule of a SEASON finale is to leave them wondering...wanting more, waiting for the first show of the fall after a summer of reruns. A SERIES finale is different though; and it would be nice if writers checked the dictionary about the word "finale" before putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Since you didn't, I'll do it for you: it comes from the word final...ended, finished, all the t's crossed and i's dotted.
It would have been nice to have the major GG storylines ended as well. I cannot begin to believe that Logan and Rory ended their years-long relationship with nothing more than a "goodbye Rory." I'd like to believe that Luke and Lorelei actually found their way back to one another...or ended it completely.
Writers, you cheated us! But then, you cheated us all season long, who what could we expect in the end. Shame on you, and while I'm at it, the same goes for CW.
You took a station known for quality family programming - shows that weren't afraid to deal with sensitive topics, yet do it in an equally-sensitive and totally believable way - and you totally trashed it. Moreover, you did it in just one TV season of who-knows-how-many-weeks-because-of-all-the-reruns. You ended at least two fantastic series, not with a bang, but a whimper. Well congratulations - you have your black Mondays (isn't that racist, by the way?), and I guess you have some other shows as well, but you don't have me...not any more...so there!
|
|
|
|
May 17, 2007 5:13 PM
|
|
I never missed Gilmore Girls. I was a true blue FAN! There was no need to stop the show there was so much more the show could have went on, This was the time that could really have gotten interesting with Rory grown. I hated the ending, you could have gave us a L & L wedding. You could have let us share that with Lorelei you could have let us see her in a Wedding dress the whole sha bang!! If you had to end the show and YOU DIDN'T!!!! You could have gave us something good!!!
|
|
May 18, 2007 12:03 AM
|
|
I agree why did you have to end the show like that. Too many questions left unanswered...
|
|
May 19, 2007 12:06 PM
|
I haven't watched GG as much in the past two years, but I made sure I taped the last two episodes. I agree that more loose ends could have been tied up, but at least we were left with the hope that Luke and Lorelai FINALLY got together. I didn't really like Logan, so it made sense for her to say no, but that sure made the graduation episode a downer. I liked the ending with the whole town together celebrating.
While it would have been nice to have one more year, ending with Rory's graduation made sense. I will miss Lauren Grahm and Alexis Bledel. Their acting made the show. Will Lauren finally get the Emmy she so richly deserves?
--
Edited by dcben1 at 05/21/2007 2:53 AM
|
|
May 21, 2007 5:52 AM
|
I have to say that Gilmore Girls was and always will be my absolutely FAVORITE show.....I will so miss them...Tuesday nights will definitely not be the same...and how can they let the Gilmore Girls go, and keep some of the other dumb dribble on tv...who knows...
I thought the ending was good, could perhaps have been better...but it did leave you where it started...and Luke and Lorelai, found each other again...but I do think that it really left it wide open for another show...if they decided to bring it back...but I don't want them to bring it back, and make it as lame as the last season comeback of 7th heaven...that was such a waste of film, and I loved that show too...oh well...
I do think a off shoot of following Rory on to her career could be interesting if done right...not that anyone ever listens to my opinion on anything...but I have one nevertheless.
I think a movie of the whole thing could be great if done right...but there again...if they make it a lame O one,...what is the point...
I so cryed during the last farewell...it is like losing an old friend.
I watched every single episode from day 1 and watched every single rerun, have 5 seasons on DVD and plan to buy the last 2....I never tire of watching them over and over...
Sounds like I have no life...but I actually do....I just make friends with my favorite shows...and people that say Gilmore Girls is lame...are stupid...
|
|
Jun 7, 2007 12:00 PM
|
|
I disagree. It was a perfect ending. I have been a loyal fan from the beggining. At first, I did want it to go on another season and didnt think I would be satisfied with the finale but it was great. I Cried from the moment we saw the Bon Voyage sign from the whole town of Stars Hollow. Like they said, they would have had to think of things to write. It had to end with Rory graduating and it was about their relationship which is why it almost mirrored the pilot in many ways. Maybe if there was more with Luke and Lorelei but I liked it jusy the way it was.
|
|
Jun 9, 2007 10:28 PM
|
sonshine: if they decided to bring it back...but I don't want them to bring it back, and make it as lame as the last season comeback of 7th heaven..
Dude, even on its worst day (Eight O'Clock at the Oasis), Gg was never even a tenth as craptacularly bad as 7th Heaven was on its best day (Did 7H ever have a best day?) So there would be no chance whatsoever of Gg coming back anywhere near as lame as 7H . . . unless Brenda Hampton were to write and direct it. (Knock on formica.)
Here's the thing: Gg wasn't cancelled by the CW due to ratings like Veronica Mars was cancelled. As much as I also liked Veronica Mars, its ratings not only weren't there, the show was actively alienating a substantial percentage of Gilmore Girls viewers (or else a lot more Gg viwers liked House more than they liked VM.)
Gg was cancelled because at least one of the two lead actresses wasn't willing to come to any sort of an agreement on coming back for season 8, despite storylines clearly being set up for it, despite actors (including her partner) feeling that the wrap party felt like a season wrap party and not a series wrap party, etc. This was a massive falling out -- a bridge was burnt.
IMO, Bridges *can* be rebuilt if the parties involved want to rebuild them.
We know that the concept of that season finale, no matter how good it was (and it was) working as a series finale is clearly absurd. We know that the network got fed up with the negotiations, we know that one of the two lead actors has been more reluctant to talk about the end of the show than any other actor on the show. We know that several actors have voiced displeasure with the way the show ended, with Kelly Biship blasting the end of the series (and correctly, I might add) as "disrespectful" to the fans. Those of us working on the Season 8 Mandate *know* that advertisers are flat out "disappointed" with the end of the show -- one of them -- a major one -- actually replied to our main person on the advertising campaign describing the company's feelings about the end of the show with exactly that term.
We also know from the end of the season that too many plotlines were left dangling for the season finale to be a credible series finale. Rory's codependency on Lorelai returned in the last arc when she ran home to Mommy after being rejected for the Reston fellowship and then being in such a funk that she blew a final -- not stealing a sexboat this time only showed that she's learned how to not commit a crime during meltdowns, it's done nothing to turn the intensity of her meltdowns, uh, down. Sookie's pregnancy is done, they introduced Emily's spa idea in the final episode, Richard's health is still a HUGE question mark, Lorelai turns 40 in season 8, which is a HUGE rite of passage in any coming-of-age for an adult, we still don't know what mental illness(es) Kirk has, we don't know why a rich Irish couple (even a Protestant one) uncharacteristically had only one child -- and I speak this next one not as a Lor-Luke 'Shipper because I'm NOT one, but we don't even know if Lor and Luke have learned how t NOT try to destroy each other every time they get into a fight. The "direction" that certain actors were alluding to isn't a hopeful one, it's the very direction that the dysfunctional, codependent Edies of Grey Gardens took -- the direction that the show was meant to *deconstruct and refute.* We are left with the two main characters being in a very, very sick place and trying to cover all that denial with graduation schmaltz. That's why the season ending with the final scene matching the final scene of the pilot was a horribly bad choice -- because individuals coming full circle isn't progressive, it's regressive. The only full circle that is healthy is passing down healthy traits to your children and (cue Elton John) and fulfilling your part in the (cue that darn Elton John song already, willya?) Circle of Life.
It doesn't even qualify as an "open" ending like the series finale of The Sopranos -- it's not coherent enough a tie-in to the rest of the *series,* much less the rest of the *season* to be an open ending. It's essentially tearing out the last one-hundred pages of the book and saying, "Well, it's going in a direction. And we hope that it's a hopeful one." Uh, no, it's bad writing to end a series before it's done, to write a season finale that, because no one knows in advance whether it was going to be the season finale or the series finale, it ends up being *neither* in content. In attempting to be all things to all people, cast, crew and audience alike, it ended up being a mess. And what's worse is that I think the season finale was good enough on its own, as the finale of a five-episode arclet, to stand on its own on that basis, but it simply is not acceptable as a summation of the entire series, whether as a closed ending or an open ending, because by the semi-accidental good intentions of David and Lauren, it was never decided *which* kind of an episode it was going to be. Or hey, is it a half-open/half-closed ending? The problem is that the story only fulfills its function as the ending of an arc but is too muddled by deliberate design to fulfill the more ambitious function of a series finale.
So that's why the show *must* come back not as the 2-hour movie that would never happen anyway because well, Joss promised that too with Angel and *that* didn't happen. The show's got to come back as a midseason replacement. TheCW is going to need more than a few, after all, since, forget the sad fall lineup for a minute -- even their lineup of midseason replacements looks pretty slim.
However, they can't really do anything about it until the mind of at least one of the two actresses is changed and then the situation is all about repairing the bridges and making the schedules work. That's why the Great 8 Mandate Campaign (btw, Mandate is a reverse pun on the Jackson-Christopher Man-date, which was a pun on the term Mandate itself.) Now, like I said before, nothing could ever have been done to save Veronica Mars -- the ratings were never there even to justify contemplating the FBI update scenario (and I say that as a fan of the show who would have watched such a revamp) -- but the CW *has* to know that the premature cancellation of Everwood at the expense of renewing 7th Heaven and the cancellation of Gg and Veronica Mars and then going back through the network's WB days and the premature cancellation of Angel, the push-off of Buffy (to be picked up for two more years by UPN) and similar mistreatment of shows (Popular, Felicity, the mess of the last season of Dawson's Creek) means that the CW has built up a LOT more ill-will in its target audience than it really understands that it has. That's why, IMO, the best bet to get them out of this premature cancellation cycle is to go after a revival of Gg for a real final season -- and yes, of course, I'm biased in that the show is my favorite show and one of the best shows ever, period. I stipulate the bias.
The reason IMO that reviving Gg represents the CW's best bet to turn around its reputation for repeatedly cancelling shows too soon, with little warning, with little chance to let the series end well (and Gg didn't end well) -- is because Gg has the ratings sufficient to justify the fan outrage at its ending prematurely. Moreover, the show wasn't cancelled because the network didn't want to air it anymore, it was cancelled because an actor rejected their most recent contract offer, causing the network to throw up its metaphorical hands in frustration at the very last minute. It's a situation where convincing an actor or two to return to the show would/could actually result in the show's return.
So contribute to the Great 8 Mandate Thread at: http://www.gilmoregirls.org/forum/index.php?topic=6630.6120 and sign and Digg the Season 8 petition at http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/great8mandate and we're going to see what we can do to get the show the real conclusion that the story, the audience, the cast and the crew deserve to see made.
-- Rob
|
|
Jun 12, 2007 1:54 AM
|
|
I just wished that they had gotten Luke and Lorelai back together before the last episode of Gilmore Girls. Yes it did give us the satisfaction that they did get back together I just really wanted Lorelai's dream to come true where she woke up and she was married to Luke and was pregnant with twins. That would have been nice, but maybe ASP will give us what we want if she decides to go along with the movie, which I really hope she does.
|
|
Nov 28, 2007 12:54 PM
|
|
|
