1x01 Pilot

[7.6/10] So much of a pilot is establishing the premise and tone of your series. Sure, it’s important to introduce your characters and tell a story, but for the the opening salvo of any show, it’s most important to tell audience what the show is about and also what it’s going to be like on a weekly basis.

What’s impressive about the pilot to Gilmore Girls is that it basically does that in the cold open. You get the gist of the show from the opening three minutes of Lorelai hanging out in Luke’s coffee shop. You have the wholesome small town. You have a quirky lead who knows how to offer old school screwball patter with anyone she comes across. You have her slightly less free-spirited daughter who speaks her language but is a little more down to Earth. And Lorelai had Rory young enough that they share CDs, verbiage, and the ability to repel random dudes hitting on them at restaurants. In just one quick scene, the dynamic and tone of the show is established, and it works as a great thumbnail sketch of the soul of the series.

But the pilot also establishes the way that the titular Gilmore Girls are willing to sacrifice for one another. The big plot happening in “Pilot” is that Rory is accepted into a prestigious private school, and Lorelai desperately wants her daughter to have that leg-up and better education, but does not have the money (or at least, not on the sort of timeline in which it’s needed) to make that happen. That leads her to turn to the last people she would ever want to in order to be able to make the payment -- her parents.

“Pilot” drops the info that Lorelai got pregnant at sixteen and became estranged from her parents in the aftermath during a fight that comes later in the episode, but what’s impressive is that even before those details spill out, the episode sells the awkward dynamic between Lorelai and her parents when we first meet the elder Gilmores. The grandparents’ surprise to see their daughter outside of a holiday is a nice tell on that front, as are Richard Gilmore’s (not unfounded) assumption that she must need money. But even outside the crackerjack dialogue, there is a tenseness to Lorelai and Emily sitting across from one another, a barely restrained level of discomfort that immediately tells the audience what a sacrifice it is for Lorelai to do this, and thus what it means for her to supplicate herself on Rory’s behalf.

The least successful part of the episode is how quickly Rory is willing to throw that away for a boy. Hey, it’s the WB, and so you need some floppy-haired hunk to sweep the protagonist off her feet. In this case, that’s Dean, who has been creepily watching (sorry, “noticing”) Rory’s steely focus when she reads in the park, and they have a traditional meetcute. Despite my snark, they’re actually reasonably cute together and the dialogue makes it work -- it’s just a stretch that after one walk with the local dreamboat, Rory is willing to toss aside the admission to Chilton she was so excited about earlier.

But what makes that palatable is that it’s fodder for a reciprocal sacrifice of her own. Sure, not getting to go to school with a cute boy is pretty low stakes, but it’s not hard to put oneself in Rory’s teenage shoes and understand it feeling like the biggest thing in the world. Rory’s desire to stay at Stars Hollow High (or whatever the local high school is called) is set aside the minute she realized that Lorelai went to Richard and Emily to get the money for this school, and how much it must mean to her. The fact that Rory has an immediate change of heart not only underscores her maturity and the connection and affection she feels for her mom, but also the seriousness of the issues between Lorelai and her parents that the gesture means so much.

Of course, this being a pilot, Gilmore Girls also has to introduce the rest of its cast of colorful characters. Many of them reside at the inn where Lorelai works (or rather the “motel” as her parents call it). There’s a sassy harp player who asks people to move out of the way and brandishes her tip cup with relish (Alex Borstein, of Family Guy fame). There’s Sookie, Lorelai’s cook and best friend who can make a killer sauce but may dent half the cookware (and possibly herself) in the process. And there’s Michel, the sarcastic French front desk attendant who is full of sass and smart remarks. There’s a lot of easy quirk there, but it fits the tone of the show and leaves room for refinement down the line.

They also feed into the comic vibe of the show. What immediately sets Gilmore Girls apart from the surfeit of teen WB dross is the quality of its writing, both in terms of the witty dialogue and the comic asides. Sure, the pop culture references and fast-talking exchanges can feel a bit contrived at points, but they also give the show a distinct rhythm that makes it feel like an old movie brought back to life on network television. The characters are written with realistic affections and fears, but with a preternatural ability to offer loving barbs and comebacks, which smooths over the rougher parts of the pilot.

That’s what you need for the first story a show ever tells. By the end of the episode, you have a good idea who Lorelai is, who Rory is, and what they world is like. It’s full of motor-mouthed comedy but also generational family issues that keep the three generations of Gilmore Girls each trying to do right by one another while ensuring they get to be a part of one another’s lives. That’s no small feat, and sets Gilmore Girls off on the right foot.