Gilmore Girls
Various people (especially Susan and Karen, I think) have been telling me for years how great Gilmore Girls is. The disc of the first four episodes finally made it to the top of my Netflix list, so I just watched 'em.
I'm finding it mostly very funny and really charming. I loved the pilot; the next three episodes were also pretty good. There's a little bit too much humor-of-embarrassment for my tastes, and I find Lorelai's mother really annoying (I know she's supposed to be, but I don't mean in an interesting way, I just dislike her and feel like the show bogs down when she's onscreen), and although Rory is sometimes great, there are certain lines that come out not entirely convincing, sounding to me like an actress reciting lines. But Lorelai is great (and hot), and of course the central Lorelai/Rory dynamic is excellent, a really solid core for the show.
There are a few one-note characters (like the harpist), but I'm hoping that everyone will stretch a little and that various people will grow into their roles a little more as the series goes on. (For example, I really like Sookie, but I'm hoping there'll be a little more to her than we've seen so far.) And there are a bunch of nicely quirky and charming minor characters, like the Gilmores' neighbors.
Anyway, of all the series that I've sampled on DVD in the past few years, this is the first one since Veronica Mars that has made me interested in continuing past the first few episodes. Looking forward to seeing more.
It occurs to me that very few of the TV series I've ever watched have had major characters who were mothers, and few of those have also had major characters who were those women's daughters, and very few of those have had a positive relationship between the mother and the daughter. Which may be why I had a moment, while watching Gilmore Girls, of thinking "It's like AbFab if it were written by nice people!" Which it isn't really, but having a mother/daughter relationship that prominent (and having the daughter be smart and nice and at least fairly responsible, and the mother be at least a little bit irresponsible) brought AbFab to mind despite the huge differences.
