Mathematically speaking, 18,840 hours is a long, long time. This translates to about 785 days, or approximately two years—the kind of time it takes to get an MBA, start and break off a long-term relationship, or read 100 books (at the overachieving speed of one book per week). It also clocks the exact time I took to watch the 157 episodes that make up Gilmore Girls, beginning to end, three times over. And that’s the kind of commitment I’ve given it, with my mom in tow. That’s 18,840 hours we’ve spent together, just the two of us.
It started in 2012. I was 14 years old. At-home television viewing hours were still subject to parental controls. Gilmore Girls had just started its re-reruns on television, piquing our interest for its relatability, and had quickly become our at-home ritual of sorts. Every day, after I came home from school, at 2.30 pm, my mother and I would take our place on the couch in Mumbai to watch another mother-daughter duo in Stars Hollow, USA.
With no social media or online fandom to rub it in our faces back then, the show never achieved most-watched status when it first came out in 2000, but it somehow managed to be that you-have-to-watch-it secret that good friends shared. By 2023, over two decades after its premiere, Netflix recorded 500 million viewing hours for the show, surpassing hits like Seinfeld and Stranger Things. Reading that little stat made me feel smug, because by that point I had already re-watched the show twice.
This month marks 25 years since the release of Gilmore Girls. The show is about single mom Lorelai Gilmore and her teenage daughter Rory, who live in a typical small town, surrounded by an ensemble cast of ridiculously endearing characters. It’s about the girls’ life—first loves, friendships, careers, and their complicated relationship with Lorelai’s ultra wealthy parents. In fact, what makes this mother-daughter dramedy so wholesome is the relationships between the characters—other than Rory-Lorelai, there’s Lorelai-Luke, Lorelai-Sookie, Rory-Lane, Rory-The Grandparents. Plus, the small-town setting, the old-school diner, its Y2K era aesthetic, the will-they-won't-they plotlines, the literary and pop culture references, all add to its ongoing appeal.
Most mother-daughter viewers who are fans of the show fall under two camps: either they have the same rock-solid relationship that Lorelai shares with Rory, or they wish they had what Rory and Lorelai have. For my mom and me, Gilmore Girls has been our comfort watch for 12 years now. Sick of new content and don’t know what to watch? Gilmore Girls. Literally sick? Get me some Lorelai and Rory. Six months since our last re-watch? Let's revise S1E1. These days, while the world switches between The Summer I Turned Pretty and Alice in Borderland, we’re now on our fourth re-watch.
Every awk adulting moment I’ve had has played out against the backdrop of the show. At 14, an episode where Lorelai asks Rory whether she’s had sex with her first boyfriend got me a side eye from my mom. At 15, Rory’s valedictorian speech at Chilton made us both ugly cry. At age 23, the episode where Lorelai drops off Rory at Yale prepared us for what would follow when I left for my Master’s to Chicago. When I was 27, that same scene roused another familiar emotion as my mom started preparations for my wedding. No matter how old we were, season six, where the duo has a fight, made us sad.
Amy Sherman-Palladino (legend, who has also written shows like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) has provided the soundtrack to the most mundane moments of my life. Watching an episode often segues into gossip about that one pesky relative, unpacking what went down at office, or more recently, our unending worries around wedding planning. And because each episode features scenes so universal, every moment is lurking with some form of conversation starter and newer ways for us to get to know each other even more deeply. Just yesterday, S4E1 made my mom ask me how I felt after she dropped me off at college. For her, the Gilmores seem like a good place to launch some tough questions we would otherwise avoid.
Over the years, we’ve both grown with the show; every re-watch brings with it newer perspectives and a new character we find annoying. I also relate to a different Gilmore every time—first it was Rory, because I too am a bookish girl (and we have the same initials)! Then it was Lorelai. These days, it’s even Emily at times. I’ve (always) been Team Jess, but now I understand Lorelai’s hesitation with the boy. My mom has always been Team Logan, but we can firmly agree on being Team Luke all the way. We also whole-heartedly agree that the writers did Lane Kim dirty. We’re not blind to the show’s faults—the childish ways of Rory and Lorelai, problematic Paris, the entire April storyline, and of course the heartbreak of Rory and Jess not ending up together — but the characters, the chemistry between Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel, and the show’s endearing familiarity hook us in every time.
Everything in the show is about the two of them, but for me it somehow feels personal. My mom and I, we’re Lorelai and Rory 2.0—just a little less co-dependent and little more parent-and-child than BFFs. At an age when parents are your worst enemies, the show allowed us to spend more time together and think about what our relationship could look like (aspirational lifestyle, the Gilmore Girls edition).
Our fourth and current re-watch has confirmed what my mom probably knew all along. The comfort that I get from Gilmore Girls isn’t just from watching Gilmore Girls but also from sitting next to her. So, even 25 years from now, you’ll find the Gilder Girls sitting in an imaginary gazebo, debating the show’s best season, muttering “oy with the poodles already”.
