As mentioned a while back, Sherlock is one of only a handful of programmes that I actually watch on TV. For those not in the know; Sherlock is a television series about Sherlock Holmes, a detective living at 221B Baker Street and solving crimes together with John Watson. If that all sounds familiar, that is kind of the point. The episodes are 1.5 hours and three a season, after which we have to wait two years for the next season. Why so long? The main characters are played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and they have been quite busy over the past few years, traipsing around New Zealand pretending to be hobbits and dragons, for one thing.
So it is rather a long wait. But it is worth it. The makers (Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss) have really brought the nineteenth century Sherlock Holmes to life, with all his weird habits and personality, but in a very modern coat. Watson's diary has become a blog, where the old war veteran (still Afghanistan, ironically) gives his accounts of Sherlock's work (who likes to communicate more by mobile phone). The opium addiction is still there, in a modern sense, as is the ignorant police detective and the busy landlady, with a sharp feminist touch. The episode titles refer to Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories, but often with a twist. A Study in Scarlet becomes A Study in Pink, The Sign of Four becomes The Sign of Three, etcetera. Plot-wise the episodes are only very losely based on the originals, but that's fine. We have the proper characters in a modern-day setting, it wouldn't do to keep everything else the same.
There are many Sherlock Holmes adaptations around these days, so what makes this one special? The big obvious thing is the Cumberbatch-Freeman connection. They have an undeniable chemistry, not just in character, but they clearly get along very well (the Internet has found enough material for slash fiction to last us at least a decade). But the rest of the cast is well-picked too. Gatiss himself plays an elitist, arrogant Mycroft, while Martin Freeman's real-life girlfriend plays Mary, his kick-ass wife in the series. They just work together. Apart from the great cast, the storylines are just brilliant. It is one of those series that takes its viewers extremely seriously. The cases are difficult and mysterious (and we only get the difficult and mysterious ones, because all the mundane ones are waved aside with a 'boring!' by Sherlock), and there are several plot lines spanning multiple seasons, so characters keep resurfacing where you don't expect them. The images are grey and dark and a bit gritty, but not in an overdone way. This is still very much modern day London.
Now all of this sounds great. And all of it is true, for the first three seasons. The fourth season came out on the first of January, and I am sad to say that episode 4.01 was the worst I have ever seen. It didn't grip me in any way, even with the harrow plot twist at the end. I won't spoil too much, as this is a series easily spoiled, and you won't see what is coming until it is right in front of you.
But what went wrong? In my opinion, the BBC fell into the trap it set for itself when it marketed Sherlock, amongst many other series, as "Real drama". The BBC has been producing a lot of drama series over the past few years, and now they've thrown them all (costume drama, Dr Who, Eastenders and the rest) on one big piled and marketed themselves as the drama channel. But Sherlock has been wonderfully drama-free so far. Sherlock can be an absolute ass to Watson, but he doesn't go moping about that to someone else. He just lets it slide, or has a good comeback. But in the fourth series, everything became very soap seriesy. Including 'I never want to see you again!' shout-outs in the middle of dark streets. Luckily, in the second and third episodes, things got back to normal a bit, but still; somehow it doesn't feel the same anymore. It is as if the world of television has creeped into this nice little cocoon that Sherlock has always been, as if the laws of drama series have imposed themselves upon the script.
Moffat and Gatiss have announced that the fourth season will be the last for now, but that they keep the possibility of a fifth season open. I hope they take a nice long break, generate new ideas for the fantastic characters they have created, and bring back the old Sherlock in style; drama-free, intelligent detective work. Until then; the first seasons are on Netflix, ready for (re)watching!
Sunday 29 January 2017
Saturday 21 January 2017
Survival mode
So these last two weeks I've been running on what I call 'survival mode'. This sounds very dramatic, but what it basically means is that I've been busy. Really busy. Not just with work stuff (although I do go quite a bit over the amount of hours agreed to when I was employed) but also with a lot of social things. Late nights, little sleep, lots to do, and not a lot of time to just sit back and relax.
So at some point during such busy times, my 'survival mode' kicks in. This means shutting down of all processes not strictly necessary, and focusing on the 'essentials'. During this time, I turn into the most efficient planning machine known to man ('efficient' seems to be a word people use a lot to describe me at any time, but it may be a bit disconcerting during survival mode): doing the things that need doing in the most logical and least time consuming order, delegating when possible, and letting everything else just fall by the wayside. This can take extreme forms: I find myself not taking off my shoes because I know I have to leave the house again in an hour's time, and taking them off and putting them back on again just takes too long. Or I will ask people to do the most mundane things for me (throw away used coffee cups) because it saves me a trip. Usually, when I catch myself doing those things, I can laugh at myself and tell myself I'm taking things a bit too far.
But the scarier part of this goes on inside my head, and I usually don't realise that until it's over. What happens is that I can only think in terms of actions. What do I need to do? How much time does it take? How important is it compared to the other things I still have to do? Is it dependent on the outcome of something else? Can I delegate it? What will people think if I don't do that thing? It's all about planning the next step, the next move. Things such as feelings or ideas, creative processes or general opinions just disappear from my head all together. I can look at angry people in amazement: who can waste time and put energy into something as mundane as being angry or annoyed? I waste no time in idle chit-chat, and talk about work stuff even during lunch breaks, because why would I spend time talking about someone's private life? When people ask me what I think of something, I can make up an opinion off the top of my head, but it's generally a then-and-there thing, not something I've been mulling over for a while. And even when I sleep, my head doesn't waste any time; I basically stop dreaming. Now I usually dream a lot, and quite vividly too, but I know I've entered survival mode when that stops.
Reading back the above, this sounds quite scary, but when I'm in survival mode, I don't realise that. I just keep on going. It's when I get out of it, and start having opinions, discussions, dreams, and conversations about movies or politics or holidays again that I realise; I have been removed from the real world. I was there, I took part, but I in my head I was somewhere else.
Basically, what it boils down to, is that I've been too busy. Not too stressed, because I don't suffer from the situation and can get out if it pretty quickly, but just doing too many things in a too short period of time. I haven't taken enough 'me time' (oh, how brattish that sounds). Generally I'm pretty good at focusing on the here and now, and taking time to read or write or just sit and think, but there are times when this 'mindfull' state of being is just not possible. Yes, I just wrote about 'mindfullness', and to get really new-agey, I have a quote for you:
When you are depressed you are living in the past
When you are anxious you are living in the future
When you are at peace you are living in the present
This is by Lao Tzu, and it doesn't really completely apply to my survival mode, but I still try to remind myself of it every now and then.
This morning I woke up with my head full of dreams, intentions to be creative (write, bake, blog) and the energy to take a long walk. To be sure, I have left my survival mode and am back in the real world. And I don't think my survival mode is a bad thing per se, because it gets me through the (sometimes unavoidable) busy times, being able to do everything I want without forgetting essential things or actions or people, but I prefer the creative, active, opinionated me. And after such a busy period, in the sharp contrast to the survival mode me, I like this me even better.
So at some point during such busy times, my 'survival mode' kicks in. This means shutting down of all processes not strictly necessary, and focusing on the 'essentials'. During this time, I turn into the most efficient planning machine known to man ('efficient' seems to be a word people use a lot to describe me at any time, but it may be a bit disconcerting during survival mode): doing the things that need doing in the most logical and least time consuming order, delegating when possible, and letting everything else just fall by the wayside. This can take extreme forms: I find myself not taking off my shoes because I know I have to leave the house again in an hour's time, and taking them off and putting them back on again just takes too long. Or I will ask people to do the most mundane things for me (throw away used coffee cups) because it saves me a trip. Usually, when I catch myself doing those things, I can laugh at myself and tell myself I'm taking things a bit too far.
But the scarier part of this goes on inside my head, and I usually don't realise that until it's over. What happens is that I can only think in terms of actions. What do I need to do? How much time does it take? How important is it compared to the other things I still have to do? Is it dependent on the outcome of something else? Can I delegate it? What will people think if I don't do that thing? It's all about planning the next step, the next move. Things such as feelings or ideas, creative processes or general opinions just disappear from my head all together. I can look at angry people in amazement: who can waste time and put energy into something as mundane as being angry or annoyed? I waste no time in idle chit-chat, and talk about work stuff even during lunch breaks, because why would I spend time talking about someone's private life? When people ask me what I think of something, I can make up an opinion off the top of my head, but it's generally a then-and-there thing, not something I've been mulling over for a while. And even when I sleep, my head doesn't waste any time; I basically stop dreaming. Now I usually dream a lot, and quite vividly too, but I know I've entered survival mode when that stops.
Reading back the above, this sounds quite scary, but when I'm in survival mode, I don't realise that. I just keep on going. It's when I get out of it, and start having opinions, discussions, dreams, and conversations about movies or politics or holidays again that I realise; I have been removed from the real world. I was there, I took part, but I in my head I was somewhere else.
Basically, what it boils down to, is that I've been too busy. Not too stressed, because I don't suffer from the situation and can get out if it pretty quickly, but just doing too many things in a too short period of time. I haven't taken enough 'me time' (oh, how brattish that sounds). Generally I'm pretty good at focusing on the here and now, and taking time to read or write or just sit and think, but there are times when this 'mindfull' state of being is just not possible. Yes, I just wrote about 'mindfullness', and to get really new-agey, I have a quote for you:
When you are depressed you are living in the past
When you are anxious you are living in the future
When you are at peace you are living in the present
This is by Lao Tzu, and it doesn't really completely apply to my survival mode, but I still try to remind myself of it every now and then.
This morning I woke up with my head full of dreams, intentions to be creative (write, bake, blog) and the energy to take a long walk. To be sure, I have left my survival mode and am back in the real world. And I don't think my survival mode is a bad thing per se, because it gets me through the (sometimes unavoidable) busy times, being able to do everything I want without forgetting essential things or actions or people, but I prefer the creative, active, opinionated me. And after such a busy period, in the sharp contrast to the survival mode me, I like this me even better.
Friday 6 January 2017
The High Mountains of Portugal
So, my first novel of 2017 is a proper start of any literary year. The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel, known to all because of his famous Life of Pi. Since that Man Booker prize, Martel has written several novels, of which I've only read Virgil and Beatrice. That left me so bewildered, with its religious commentary, its animal imagery, and its gruesome WWII references, that I haven't been tempted to pick up any of his new novels since.
Until The High Mountains of Portugal. This novel got lots of positive reviews, the main gist of which was that here we had a proper story again, not just religious ranting. The blurb was also promising:
A man thrown backwards by heartbreak goes in search of an artefact that could unsettle history. A woman carries her husband to a doctor in a suitcase. A Canadian senator begins a new life, in a new country, in the company of a chimp called Odo. From these stories of journeying, of loss and faith, Yann Martel weaves a novel unlike any other: moving, profound and magical.
And really, that says it all.
The first story takes place in 1904, in Lisbon. A widower sets off for the high mountains of Portugal to find a religious artefact. He will travel by his uncle new automobile. I really liked the story at first, because the protagonist is very likable, and the description of the journey and the world of that time is well done. But there was a point, when the car has almost burnt down, his supplies dwindle, he gets lost, and is at a tragic low point, that it felt like the tragic low point in a really desperate novel, something like Beyond Sleep, that I almost lost interest. There is only so much drama you can take before you become indifferent to it. But then he finally makes his way to Tuizelo in the high mountains of Portugal, and the story finishes strongly.
The second story takes place in 1938, in a larger city close to the high mountains. A pathologist working late on New Year's Eve is troubled first by his wife, who delivers a ranting monologue on Christ and Agatha Christie, and then a woman from Tuizelo, who carries her husband in a suitcase. This story was the most perplexing of all, especially in hindsight, when you realise how it all fits together; not just the allegories in the story itself, but also how the story fits within the two other stories in the novel. There are many links, but you don't see them at first.
The third story is set in Canada in 1981, and involves a senator whose wife has also just died. In a weird turn of events, he also ends up in Tuizelo, with a chimpanzee by his side. Chimpanzees also played an important part in the first two stories of this novel, but to explain how would be giving away most of the finer details that are best left to discover for yourself. This story is by far the best of the three; the plot is moving, the protagonist is the most likable and believable, and somehow the language seems to flow better. I was reminded of Life of Pi, where a human protagonist also finds himself living together with a strong, wild animal. Only this time, the human does so out of his own free will, of course.
The standard Martel elements are there; lots of animal imagery, lots of religious commentary, but also beautiful figurative language; "Loneliness comes up to him like a sniffing dog. It circles him insistently. He waves it away, but it refuses to leave him alone." And in the end, you're not really sure what to believe. Was this (again) all one big allegory? Was it another commentary on the way humans and animals live side by side on this planet? Or was it all about grief, and loss, and how that makes you see things that aren't there?
I've read some reviews, and people are split right down the middle on this one. Half of them love it, half of them hate it. Funnily enough, I don't really fit in either group but find myself somewhere in the middle, because I loved the last story, but the other two not so much. I do like how they are connected, how elements from the first story suddenly reappear in the most unexpected places in the other ones, but in some cases, it is a bit too obvious. You can see them coming for mile.s Also, it would be nice to have some sort of closure other than the relatively open ending we now have. It was beautiful, and moving, but it does leave you with the feeling of 'now what?'. What was the point of it all? And maybe that is exactly what Yann Martel intended, but even so, a novel of this magnitude deserves a better ending.
Until The High Mountains of Portugal. This novel got lots of positive reviews, the main gist of which was that here we had a proper story again, not just religious ranting. The blurb was also promising:
A man thrown backwards by heartbreak goes in search of an artefact that could unsettle history. A woman carries her husband to a doctor in a suitcase. A Canadian senator begins a new life, in a new country, in the company of a chimp called Odo. From these stories of journeying, of loss and faith, Yann Martel weaves a novel unlike any other: moving, profound and magical.
And really, that says it all.
The first story takes place in 1904, in Lisbon. A widower sets off for the high mountains of Portugal to find a religious artefact. He will travel by his uncle new automobile. I really liked the story at first, because the protagonist is very likable, and the description of the journey and the world of that time is well done. But there was a point, when the car has almost burnt down, his supplies dwindle, he gets lost, and is at a tragic low point, that it felt like the tragic low point in a really desperate novel, something like Beyond Sleep, that I almost lost interest. There is only so much drama you can take before you become indifferent to it. But then he finally makes his way to Tuizelo in the high mountains of Portugal, and the story finishes strongly.
The second story takes place in 1938, in a larger city close to the high mountains. A pathologist working late on New Year's Eve is troubled first by his wife, who delivers a ranting monologue on Christ and Agatha Christie, and then a woman from Tuizelo, who carries her husband in a suitcase. This story was the most perplexing of all, especially in hindsight, when you realise how it all fits together; not just the allegories in the story itself, but also how the story fits within the two other stories in the novel. There are many links, but you don't see them at first.
The third story is set in Canada in 1981, and involves a senator whose wife has also just died. In a weird turn of events, he also ends up in Tuizelo, with a chimpanzee by his side. Chimpanzees also played an important part in the first two stories of this novel, but to explain how would be giving away most of the finer details that are best left to discover for yourself. This story is by far the best of the three; the plot is moving, the protagonist is the most likable and believable, and somehow the language seems to flow better. I was reminded of Life of Pi, where a human protagonist also finds himself living together with a strong, wild animal. Only this time, the human does so out of his own free will, of course.
The standard Martel elements are there; lots of animal imagery, lots of religious commentary, but also beautiful figurative language; "Loneliness comes up to him like a sniffing dog. It circles him insistently. He waves it away, but it refuses to leave him alone." And in the end, you're not really sure what to believe. Was this (again) all one big allegory? Was it another commentary on the way humans and animals live side by side on this planet? Or was it all about grief, and loss, and how that makes you see things that aren't there?
I've read some reviews, and people are split right down the middle on this one. Half of them love it, half of them hate it. Funnily enough, I don't really fit in either group but find myself somewhere in the middle, because I loved the last story, but the other two not so much. I do like how they are connected, how elements from the first story suddenly reappear in the most unexpected places in the other ones, but in some cases, it is a bit too obvious. You can see them coming for mile.s Also, it would be nice to have some sort of closure other than the relatively open ending we now have. It was beautiful, and moving, but it does leave you with the feeling of 'now what?'. What was the point of it all? And maybe that is exactly what Yann Martel intended, but even so, a novel of this magnitude deserves a better ending.
Monday 2 January 2017
A year in the life
I think my readership will be split down the middle upon reading the title: half of you will know exactly what I'm talking about, the other half will be wondering, or maybe even thinking that this will be a New Year's resolutions post. Sorry to disappoint, but this will be about something a bit more prosaic: the television series Gilmore Girls.
Now I've only written about a tv series once before, and with good reason. I hardly watch any television (by which I also mean; I hardly watch any Netflix, as that has become the standard substitute for watching anything for my generation). The most notable exceptions are Sherlock (I was poised for the start of the forth season last night) and Wie is de mol? (a brilliant Dutch programme in which contestants have to complete assignments while rooting out the mole in their middle). Otherwise, I don't really watch tv; I'd rather read a book. Or go to the movies. Or better still; hang out with actual other people.
This used to be very different. When I was a teenager, I would know exactly which series aired each evening, and either plan to see them or record them. Dawson's creek, Roswell, Friends, Sex and the City, Everwood; I've seen them all as they first aired in the Netherlands. But the most important of all, the series I watched and rewatched (on dvd) the most, and the one most of my friends watched with me, was Gilmore Girls.
For those of you who know what I'm talking about, you can skip the next three paragraphs. For the rest of you: I find it almost impossible that people have gotten to this point in their lives without knowing what Gilmore Girls is, but here goes; Gilmore Girls is a tv series about Lorelai Gilmore, who got pregnant at 16, moved out of her (rich) parent's house to the small village of Stars Hallow, and raised her daugther Rory on her own. The tv show starts when Rory has just turned 16 and has been accepted into a very prestigious high school, which will surely catapult her into Ivy League spheres. Lorelai has by that time managed to work herself up from a maid to the manager of the hotel she works. All this sounds very dramatically 'rags to riches', but it is brought with a big dose of fun, quirky characters, high speed talking, and more (cult) references you could ever manage to look up.
The series ran for seven seasons, after which it was discontinued. The original writer, Amy Sherman-Palladino, was somehow removed from the writing staff, and this caused an abrupt ending to the show, which is very noticeable in the last four or five episodes; everything is rushed along to a forced ending.
However, this was not the ending Amy had been planning for us all along, and as soon as the show had ended, people were muttering that it was sad to see such a brilliant show go in this way. Then, last year, there were rumours about a restart, with most of the original cast. Then, the show was bought by Netflix (hint: you can see all seven seaons there), and the rumours became reality: we would get four 1.5 hour episodes, written by Amy, with all the original cast, in a brand new series: Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.
Right, now that we're all on the same page: as soon as they had annouced this for real, I had that weird combination of profound joy and bottomless anxiety. Joy upon getting another fix, another six whole hours of Gilmore Girls, and fear that they would mess it up. Because this is a series that is easily messed up. There is a certain tone, a certain way of communication and characterisation, that is very hard to get right. They missed it for a long chunk in the sixth season, and it was heartbreaking to watch.
Anyway, November 25th was a date underlined in my agenda, as I would binge-watch the entire season in one go, together with one of my best friends and fellow Gilmore Girls-rewatcher. And so we watched it. And we judged it. This was our baby, our Gilmore Girls experience, our many nights of sitting under a blanket, stuffing our faces with junk food, rewatching episodes we'd already seen five times. Had they messed it up?
The truth is; yes and no. There are many things I really liked about this new series, and many things I didn't like. I tried to put these into a pro/con list to come to some sort of final judgement (Rory does this a lot) but I don't think it really works that way; your overall opinion is more than just the longer list. So I'll describe some things instead. For those of you who haven't watched it, probably blantantly obviously, but better safe than sorry: there will be spoilers.
At first, it felt like slipping back into that familiar world again, like we'd never left. Lorelai gives Rory an update on everything that has happened in Stars Hallow, we meet some familiar faces (Lane! A super-thin Miss Patty! Kirk! Taylor! Michel! And he's married!), Lorelai has had a fight with her mother, Paris is still positively insane but good-hearted beneath it all, there is a weird Friday-night dinner, troubadours sing; all is well with the world.
Then, you realise what the main issue of the episode was; both Lorelai and Rory are searching. Still? At 48 and 32 respectively? Yes, they are still searching for what they want to do, who they want to be. Lorelai wondering whether she should have become a mother again, and Rory is an anchorless freelance writer, drifting between the US and London. Relationshipwise, Rory appears to have found a steady boyfriend, but she keeps forgetting him (seriously, they should have ended that joke after the first half an hour) and is also very much cheating on him. They are both still searching, still unhappy, but really, without any good reason. They should be happy. They're just full of their own first-world problems. They should get over themselves.
I realise that six hours of people who have cleaned up their lives and gotten their stuff together may have seemed tedious to the scriptwriters, but it wouldn't have been boring at all to the fans of the show. We just want to see all those characters happily settled in life, to peek in on how they're doing, and then silently move away again. Ironically, there is a very strong focus on Lorelai's and Rory's (forced) personal problems, and all those other characters we just get minute glimpses off, before they disappear again. I would have loved to know more about Lane, or Michel, or Jess, or Dean, or April, or any of them, really. Less drama, more story.
The only person whose life isn't going like they'd planned, but with good reason, is Emily. What I thought was really good about this series, is that they explicitly portray her as the third Gilmore Girl. Which she was all along, of course, but it somehow didn't really come across that well. But now, with Edward Herrmann gone, her character is also widowed. And searching. But Emily is the only one really willing to deal with the situation she finds herself in, to tackle her problems head-on, to invite new people into her life and share her grief with them. And in the end, I felt, she is the only one who truly finds happiness.
Speaking of the end, there is a bit of a bombshell there, of course. Those words were the exact words Amy had always wanted to end the series with, and they must have been really nice to hear at the end of season seven, but here they sounded hollow and unreal. Also, I was unaware of any mystery surrounding the father until a friend pointed it out to me: I was just assuming it would be Logan's. But she has that weird thing with the furry in the middle of the series, so it may well be a Wookiee baby. Which I just find annoying. What is with the open endings? Really, can't you let it go? To top it all off, Netflix posted a message referring to April's quest to find her father, hinting both at three possible fathers (but really, Paul?) and at new episodes. Let's hope they don't. Really, don't.
Like I said; an overall opinion isn't made up of only the number of good and bad things, and reading the above, you may well think I hated this new series. Which I didn't. There were many, many things I disliked about it, but the overall feeling it gave me was good. The atmosphere, the pacing, the characters, they all felt right. This truly was Gilmore Girls again, ten years later. The only sad part about it is; the main characters hadn't matured during those ten years.
And maybe that is the problem; we have. We have become ten years older. And where the drama of the original series is steeped in nostalgia, we see this series with our new, critical eye. And seen as such, it is lacking in some ways. Not all, obviously, and it is still a sibling of the original, but clearly the lesser sibling, the unsuccessful kid.
But in the end, I'm glad we now have this series, and have seen the ending Amy originally wanted, and had a chance to sneak a peek at all of their lives and the little town of Stars Hallow. After all, I've spend a lot of time there, and it's good to know it's still going strong.
Now I've only written about a tv series once before, and with good reason. I hardly watch any television (by which I also mean; I hardly watch any Netflix, as that has become the standard substitute for watching anything for my generation). The most notable exceptions are Sherlock (I was poised for the start of the forth season last night) and Wie is de mol? (a brilliant Dutch programme in which contestants have to complete assignments while rooting out the mole in their middle). Otherwise, I don't really watch tv; I'd rather read a book. Or go to the movies. Or better still; hang out with actual other people.
This used to be very different. When I was a teenager, I would know exactly which series aired each evening, and either plan to see them or record them. Dawson's creek, Roswell, Friends, Sex and the City, Everwood; I've seen them all as they first aired in the Netherlands. But the most important of all, the series I watched and rewatched (on dvd) the most, and the one most of my friends watched with me, was Gilmore Girls.
For those of you who know what I'm talking about, you can skip the next three paragraphs. For the rest of you: I find it almost impossible that people have gotten to this point in their lives without knowing what Gilmore Girls is, but here goes; Gilmore Girls is a tv series about Lorelai Gilmore, who got pregnant at 16, moved out of her (rich) parent's house to the small village of Stars Hallow, and raised her daugther Rory on her own. The tv show starts when Rory has just turned 16 and has been accepted into a very prestigious high school, which will surely catapult her into Ivy League spheres. Lorelai has by that time managed to work herself up from a maid to the manager of the hotel she works. All this sounds very dramatically 'rags to riches', but it is brought with a big dose of fun, quirky characters, high speed talking, and more (cult) references you could ever manage to look up.
The series ran for seven seasons, after which it was discontinued. The original writer, Amy Sherman-Palladino, was somehow removed from the writing staff, and this caused an abrupt ending to the show, which is very noticeable in the last four or five episodes; everything is rushed along to a forced ending.
However, this was not the ending Amy had been planning for us all along, and as soon as the show had ended, people were muttering that it was sad to see such a brilliant show go in this way. Then, last year, there were rumours about a restart, with most of the original cast. Then, the show was bought by Netflix (hint: you can see all seven seaons there), and the rumours became reality: we would get four 1.5 hour episodes, written by Amy, with all the original cast, in a brand new series: Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.
Right, now that we're all on the same page: as soon as they had annouced this for real, I had that weird combination of profound joy and bottomless anxiety. Joy upon getting another fix, another six whole hours of Gilmore Girls, and fear that they would mess it up. Because this is a series that is easily messed up. There is a certain tone, a certain way of communication and characterisation, that is very hard to get right. They missed it for a long chunk in the sixth season, and it was heartbreaking to watch.
Anyway, November 25th was a date underlined in my agenda, as I would binge-watch the entire season in one go, together with one of my best friends and fellow Gilmore Girls-rewatcher. And so we watched it. And we judged it. This was our baby, our Gilmore Girls experience, our many nights of sitting under a blanket, stuffing our faces with junk food, rewatching episodes we'd already seen five times. Had they messed it up?
The truth is; yes and no. There are many things I really liked about this new series, and many things I didn't like. I tried to put these into a pro/con list to come to some sort of final judgement (Rory does this a lot) but I don't think it really works that way; your overall opinion is more than just the longer list. So I'll describe some things instead. For those of you who haven't watched it, probably blantantly obviously, but better safe than sorry: there will be spoilers.
At first, it felt like slipping back into that familiar world again, like we'd never left. Lorelai gives Rory an update on everything that has happened in Stars Hallow, we meet some familiar faces (Lane! A super-thin Miss Patty! Kirk! Taylor! Michel! And he's married!), Lorelai has had a fight with her mother, Paris is still positively insane but good-hearted beneath it all, there is a weird Friday-night dinner, troubadours sing; all is well with the world.
Then, you realise what the main issue of the episode was; both Lorelai and Rory are searching. Still? At 48 and 32 respectively? Yes, they are still searching for what they want to do, who they want to be. Lorelai wondering whether she should have become a mother again, and Rory is an anchorless freelance writer, drifting between the US and London. Relationshipwise, Rory appears to have found a steady boyfriend, but she keeps forgetting him (seriously, they should have ended that joke after the first half an hour) and is also very much cheating on him. They are both still searching, still unhappy, but really, without any good reason. They should be happy. They're just full of their own first-world problems. They should get over themselves.
I realise that six hours of people who have cleaned up their lives and gotten their stuff together may have seemed tedious to the scriptwriters, but it wouldn't have been boring at all to the fans of the show. We just want to see all those characters happily settled in life, to peek in on how they're doing, and then silently move away again. Ironically, there is a very strong focus on Lorelai's and Rory's (forced) personal problems, and all those other characters we just get minute glimpses off, before they disappear again. I would have loved to know more about Lane, or Michel, or Jess, or Dean, or April, or any of them, really. Less drama, more story.
The only person whose life isn't going like they'd planned, but with good reason, is Emily. What I thought was really good about this series, is that they explicitly portray her as the third Gilmore Girl. Which she was all along, of course, but it somehow didn't really come across that well. But now, with Edward Herrmann gone, her character is also widowed. And searching. But Emily is the only one really willing to deal with the situation she finds herself in, to tackle her problems head-on, to invite new people into her life and share her grief with them. And in the end, I felt, she is the only one who truly finds happiness.
Speaking of the end, there is a bit of a bombshell there, of course. Those words were the exact words Amy had always wanted to end the series with, and they must have been really nice to hear at the end of season seven, but here they sounded hollow and unreal. Also, I was unaware of any mystery surrounding the father until a friend pointed it out to me: I was just assuming it would be Logan's. But she has that weird thing with the furry in the middle of the series, so it may well be a Wookiee baby. Which I just find annoying. What is with the open endings? Really, can't you let it go? To top it all off, Netflix posted a message referring to April's quest to find her father, hinting both at three possible fathers (but really, Paul?) and at new episodes. Let's hope they don't. Really, don't.
Like I said; an overall opinion isn't made up of only the number of good and bad things, and reading the above, you may well think I hated this new series. Which I didn't. There were many, many things I disliked about it, but the overall feeling it gave me was good. The atmosphere, the pacing, the characters, they all felt right. This truly was Gilmore Girls again, ten years later. The only sad part about it is; the main characters hadn't matured during those ten years.
And maybe that is the problem; we have. We have become ten years older. And where the drama of the original series is steeped in nostalgia, we see this series with our new, critical eye. And seen as such, it is lacking in some ways. Not all, obviously, and it is still a sibling of the original, but clearly the lesser sibling, the unsuccessful kid.
But in the end, I'm glad we now have this series, and have seen the ending Amy originally wanted, and had a chance to sneak a peek at all of their lives and the little town of Stars Hallow. After all, I've spend a lot of time there, and it's good to know it's still going strong.
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