Gilmore Girls: The Ultimate Comfort Show -

By Ryn Cole

When the weather gets cooler and the scent of pumpkins fills every coffee shop, comfort shows become a staple of entertainment. In the midst of the chaotic start to the school year and the chaos of gearing up for the holidays, many people want to wind down from stressful days with a show that will make them feel warm and cozy on the inside. One of the most popular shows during this chilly fall season is Gilmore Girls.

A comfort show is usually one that a person has seen before and evokes a sense of happiness and nostalgia from the viewer. Most of these shows have happy themes and end in satisfying ways. The idea of comfort media is not a new concept, but what truly counts as a comfort show? This is a decently subjective question, as this sense of autumnal comfort varies from person to person, but some aspects of coziness are universal. For example, during the chilly months, people want to feel warm and comfortable inside their homes, so watching television that one knows fulfills that feeling inside of themselves is a foolproof way of enjoying a restful night-in. Gilmore Girls perfectly fits into the category of cozy, 90/00’s nostalgia, which makes it one of the most popular and widely agreed upon comfort shows.

The pilot episode of Gilmore Girls originally aired on October 5, 2000, which automatically situated it as a fall show from its early days. Plus, practically half of the episodes take place during the fall season. The initial release of the show began during the start of Halloween season which allowed fans to associate fall with the town of Stars Hollow, the fictional setting of Gilmore Girls.

Fans also make this association because this picturesque, small town in Connecticut embodies the autumnal season –everyone knows each other, every place feels safe and quiet, and the characters can walk anywhere they need to without a care in the world. Fans of the show watch characters bundle up in coats and scarves to stay warm during chilly nights with color-changing trees. Along these streets, there are also inherently cozy places: a diner, a home, and a school. While the sets change and expand throughout the seven seasons of this show, the feeling of comfort that Stars Hollow exudes reaches out to the audience, making viewers feel like they, too, are sipping cups of coffee at Luke’s Diner or ordering takeout food in Lorelai Gilmore’s living room.

The characters of this sitcom are well-known and decently likable. While they have their faults, their stories are entertaining and enjoyable to watch. The show’s main themes include community, family, love, and friendship, which act as life lessons in any comfort show. Gilmore Girls follows numerous different plot lines that explore these ideas and challenge them throughout all of the seasons, which allows for viewers to still be entertained.

While the plot of Gilmore Girls might not always coincide with fall, the concepts and emotions that the show evokes place the audience into a cooler, simpler time, leaving viewers with a comfortable, nostalgic feeling. This sitcom has remained a constant throughout the past twenty-three years it has been around, and it continues to draw in new audiences. If you find yourself aimlessly scrolling through Netflix’s options for a comfort show to watch this fall, Gilmore Girls is one of your best bets.