Friday, February 13, 2009

Episode 105

I despise Gilmore Girls.

My tiny hometown's small claim-to-fame was that a portion of the pilot for the Gilmore Girls was filmed there, and I have read that the feel for Stars Hollow (yeah, what?) is loosely based on our little downtown. To be honest, I think of it more as a claim-to-shame. I'm pretty tolerant when it comes to television -- I can watch an entire episode of Wife Swap without changing the channel -- but I literally cannot sit through more than about 30 seconds of Gilmore Girls. And believe me, I've tried.

In my hometown, as far as I know, people didn't sit around bantering with each other sardonically as if their indifference were a sign of true genius and hilarity. In Stars Hollow, that's all that ever happens. It's this back and forth one-liner obnoxiousness between that unflatteringly immature mother and overly precocious teenage girl that gets me. My head literally wants to explode whenever those two are involved in a conversation, which is every second of that plotless show (well, I shouldn't say plotless since it would be difficult for me to string together any plot from the 30-second clips I have floating around in my head). I mean really, are you seriously so witty that you can't calm down for two seconds without a comeback?

Anyway, last night I was watching yet another brilliant episode of 30 Rock when something dawned on me. Not all back and forth one-liner exchange is bad. Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey have absolutely perfected the art of banter (See minute 2:50). I think it's the feigned indifference that gets me with the Gilmore girls. It's okay to care, people, and Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy...they care. And it makes me care. About them and about television.

1 comment:

  1. A certain first-year college roommate of mine was obsessed with Gilmore Girls. I feel like this was justification enough to despise him.

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