Rapid-fire chats, wisecracks and pancakes: how Gilmore Girls became TV's greatest mother-daughter duo

"Twenty-five years ago this month, two highly caffeinated girls made their first appearance on television. Well, girl-women one a bookish 16-year-old, the other her former 16-and-pregnant mother, the two often blended together into one fast-talking, quick-witted unit. They bantered at 2x speed. They drank cartoonish amounts of coffee five cups by 8am, if the mother is to be believed. They riffed on everything from Rosemary's Baby to RuPaul, Jack Kerouac to Britney Spears, West Side Story to Macy Gray."

"Gilmore Girls, which ran from 2000 until 2007, was not a hit in its time. It never reached a wide audience, won any awards, or got the buzz of its more conventionally dramatic peers. But through word of mouth, DVD swaps, millennial nostalgia and the force of Netflix, the show, created by former Roseanne writer Amy Sherman-Palladino, has become one of the most enduring TV hits of the Y2K era, courting fans born long after it aired."

"Though a year-round show, its hallmarks all that coffee, cosy knits, school uniforms have made it synonymous with autumn, a season that does not exist in Burbank, California, where it filmed on a soundstage for the entirety of its run. Every September, like clockwork, viewers flock to fictional Stars Hollow, Connecticut, putting Gilmore Girls in the top 10 most streamed shows in the US."

Gilmore Girls premiered twenty-five years ago, centering on Lorelai and Rory, a fast-talking mother-daughter duo known for rapid banter and excessive coffee consumption. The series ran from 2000 to 2007 and initially had modest ratings and few awards. Word of mouth, DVDs, millennial nostalgia and Netflix turned it into a durable cultural favorite, with Season 1 receiving over 82 million Netflix views between January and June 2023. The show evokes autumnal New England through costumes and cozy sets despite filming on a Burbank soundstage. Its blend of pop-culture riffs, eccentric small-town characters and intergenerational appeal sustains its enduring fandom.

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