Alright peeps, next up in my "Rating the TV Romance" list, we have Luke and Lorelai from Gilmore Girls (2000 - 2007). O.k. I know that pic above is not Lorelai and Luke, it's Lorelai and Rory. But I wanted to start off with the main logo for the show, and I think Rory should get a shout-out there, shouldn't she? Anyway, for reference, here are the two blog posts that led into this:
Confessions of a Former Soap-aholic
Rating the TV Romance, Part 1: Felicity and Ben
My rating system is explained in the Felicity and Ben post, but it basically involves the typical romance-related categories, plus two categories that came from my "Former Soap-aholic" post that kind of kicked off this whole thread. The purpose of those categories is to see how much the "soapy" elements of the t.v. show factor into my enjoyment of the romance storyline (positively or negatively). Some of the shows on my list have PLENTY of soapy elements to them, and some don't have many at all. So let's get to the ratings for Luke and Lorelai, shall we? (Warning: SPOILERS ahead, though when a show has already been off the air for 5 years do they really count as spoilers?)
Danger Factor: 1/10
Similar to Felicity, the "Danger Factor" (one of the soap-related categories) for Luke/Lorelai and Gilmore Girls in general is VERY low. The show is about a mother and daughter living in an idyllic and picturesque little town in the Northeastern U.S. called Stars Hollow. How much danger could they be encountering in their day to day lives? Pretty much the only dangerous situations these characters were ever put into involved the success or failure of Lorelai's Inn, or the situations in which her very rich parents jerked Lorelai and Rory around with threats involving their purse strings. It's been a long time so my memory is fuzzy, but I recall that Lorelai's parents were pretty instrumental in funding Rory's schooling. I also don't recall the show throwing too many soapy wrenches into the storylines like major car accidents suddenly putting characters on their death beds or anything like that. Oh wait I think there was a storyline like that with Rory's idiotic boyfriend Logan (a skydiving accident?) in a later season, but I'm not even going to count that because let's be honest, no one gave a crap about that dude. So I think overall they kept things quite tame and UN-soapy in Stars Hollow in this regard.
General Soap Factor: 1/10
You know, honestly, I think out of all the shows and couples in my list, Gilmore Girls had by far the least number of soapy elements of all of them. Take what I'm saying with a grain of salt because I have to admit it's been a good number of years since I've watched it, and there were a LOT of seasons of this show to try to think back on, but I am racking my brain and can think of almost nothing. And given that the premise of this show starts with an accidental teen pregnancy, they definitely could have gone this route, but they didn't. There were some love triangle situations throughout the years, such as Luke, Lorelai, and Lorelai's ex Christopher (Rory's dad) ... I also recall a slight scandal when Rory loses her virginity to her ex Dean even though he's married ... but other than a few minor things like that, they kept things REALLY down to earth on this show, which was one of the things that made it so great.
Overall Rating of Show Itself: 8.5/10
I LOVED this show, and I want to give it a 9/10. I think it's still one of the best t.v. shows of the past decade plus, but unfortunately it did follow the same trajectory as Felicity, where it went downhill towards the end (but again that's also the trajectory of 97% of t.v. series that have ever been made). But like Felicity, that's the only reason my rating of the show is 8.5 rather than 9. As you can see from the low "soap" factors above, this was a quality show that didn't have to rely on any "crutches" in its storytelling. It was busting at the seams with interesting and eccentric characters ... witty dialogue ... incredibly relatable storylines that felt very true to real life ... and drama and hilarity mixed together perfectly. And we can't forget the excellent actors either - just look at how insanely famous Melissa McCarthy is these days, and meanwhile we Gilmore Girls fans have known how awesome she is for over a decade now. The rest of America has just woken up and discovered her after Bridesmaids. Losers!
Couple's First "Getting Together" Scene: 8/10
First Sexy Times Scene: 7.5/10
I'd say a better title for this category for GG would be "First Sexy Times Episode" more than "Scene" ... NOT because they spend the entire episode sexing it up, ha. But more so because in typical GG fashion, they don't make a huge deal out of it. In ep 3 of season 5 (btw I've had to go back and re-watch these few episodes so I can actually remember what happens and when heh) ... L&L go on their first "official" date. It's the date itself that's the most interesting thing here, because it's cute and awkward, and there's a very nice scene where Luke remembers every single detail of how he met Lorelai, and reveals that he has kept a horoscope she gave him that day in his wallet for the past 8 years. Lorelai then has a moment where she has to decide if she's freaked out by this, and she decides that she is not. We then cut to L&L in bed post-sexy-times. So, we don't get anything overly dramatic, exciting or hot/sexy, but that was never GG's style. Instead we get what GG was so reliable in delivering: A fun, humorous, smart, entertaining episode of the show.
Overall Rating of the Romance: 7/10
The reason my overall rating of the Luke and Lorelai romance isn't higher than a 7 is for the same reason I gave Felicity an 8 - They screwed everything up for this couple in the last couple seasons of the series, and they never really properly fixed it again. I felt that they screwed the pooch with L&L even worse than Felic and Ben in a sense, because at least Felicity and Ben had some legitimately major obstacles messing up their relationship. With L&L however, I never even thought the obstacles were valid. Again, my memory is very fuzzy so take this with a grain of salt, but I remember the key issue being Luke's surprising discovery that he has a 12 year old daughter, who suddenly comes to town and acts as a HUGE cock-block for L&L. At this point, L&L are in wedding planning mode, and suddenly Luke starts to get all wishy-washy and weird, and won't even let Lorelai meet his daughter (April) for quite a few episodes. I believe that he then insists that they postpone the wedding for a while too, which eventually causes Lorelai to give him an ultimatum, which leads to them breaking up.
I remember that it never made any sense to me at the time why the introduction of
Anywho, so there you have it. Gilmore Girls follows a similar trajectory to Felicity (in terms of both L&L as a couple and the series), and also manages to give us an entertaining fictional romance (at least until it goes downhill in the last 1.5 seasons) without any overly crazy, salacious, wacky, soapy storylines to give the audience "cheap" thrills. It relies simply on good storytelling and a talented cast. So great job to the writers and actors for that. ;-) In the next post we'll take a look at Sydney and Vaughn from Alias. DUN DUN DUUNNNN!!
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