Favorite Gilmore Girls Season

Officially, I've seen the first six seasons through ABC Family. The 7th I still haven't seen but read the transcripts. Here's how I rank them accordingly through the official list:

1. Season 3-This is my favorite because nearly every episode is top-notch with great writing, brilliant storylines, great character development, and a fitting season finale. The season saw Rory dealing with her attraction to Jess along with her loyalty to Dean. In the end, she ended up with neither with Jess being a total screw-up and kicked out by Luke where he went to California to live with his long-lost father. We also saw a really dark side of Dean who had proven that he never got over Rory and ended up with a girl he would wound up marrying. For Lorelai, we see her embark in a brief relationship with a guy named Alex, almost rekindling something with Max, and having to lose the Independence Inn to a fire but opening the door for her and Sookie to acquire the Dragonfly.

The reason I think I love the third season the most is because it's the first one that I saw which included some great moments for Lane where she started her own band and get a real boyfriend for once. Yet, the character I felt that really got to shine was Paris where in previous seasons. She was this eager, ambitious, driven young girl striving to go to Harvard by any means. In the third season, we see more dimensions to her as someone who could be easily manipulated and extremely fragile. When she got rejected by Harvard, she lost it and in the process, realized that Rory is one true friend. I think Liza Weil's performance is the real standout of the entire season. I also liked the fact that the season showed Luke getting a new girlfriend but finds himself unsure thus increasing the sexual tension between him and Lorelai.

2. Season 5-I liked this one because it added more dramatic elements and themes to the series. Particularly about changing fortunes for Lorelai and Rory. For Lorelai, she is starting to have everything she has worked for. She's running her own inn to great success while finally being with Luke after years of sexual tension since the series began. The Luke-Lorelai relationship was a real highlight in providing new layers to both of them as we see Lorelai being devoted to someone like him rather than all of her previous boyfriends while Luke seemed to find someone who really gave a damn about him. Despite Emily's disapproval and Christopher's continuing presence.

The season I felt gave Alexis Bledel her best acting performance to date because we see Rory fall apart from beginning to end. She loses her virginity to Dean, their relationship becomes awkward and uncomforting to the point that Dean was never the right guy for her as he could never fit in to her world of Yale and journalist ambitions. We also get introduced to Logan who would take Rory into worlds that she would never venture yet it would be both fruitful and destructive. She becomes a different person around him making Lorelai uncomfortable while entering the world of the Huntzbergers would prove to be crushing after that disastrous dinner and Mitchum Huntzberger's brutal performance review. For Rory, the confident girl everyone knew, saw, and rooted for fell apart as she seeked the security of her grandparents thus creating a huge rift between Lorelai and her entire family.

3. Season 2-I liked this season because we see both Lorelai and Rory go through changes in their personal lives. For Lorelai, she seemed to get ready to have it all to call off her wedding to Max realizing that he's not the one for her. Therefore, she begins to focus on her ambitions while dealing with Christopher's own new life with Sherry. Then when Chris and Lorelai seemed to get back together after he broke up with Sherry, the bombshell of Sherry's pregnancy ruined things forcing Lorelai to come to terms that she waited too long for him to mature. Rory meanwhile, still has this great relationship with Dean until Jess Mariano arrives who is her intellectual equal and there's this great attraction despite his bad boy persona.

The season I felt profiled Richard Gilmore more as he's faced with retirement, having to quit his job when he was about to be phased out, and then deal with retirement. Suddenly with nothing to do and nothing to strive for, he surrounds himself around his wife's world, Lorelai's own world, and Rory's. Yet when he feels all alone, he focuses on meaningless things until Rory asks him to be part of a project where he feels like he can be useful again by going to business on his own. I think it was a great season that allowed Richard Gilmore some dimension while giving more stories to Lane, Paris, Luke, Sookie, and Michel.

4. Season 4-This season has my all-time favorite episode in Girls in Bikinis, Boys Doin' The Twist aka Gilmore Girls Gone Wild along with one of my least favorite episodes in An Affair to Remember due to Rory's study tree subplot. It's really a transitional season since Rory is now in Yale with Paris. Lane leaves her home and gets her independence, Lorelai trying to get the Dragonfly ready, and Richard and Emily's marriage disintegrate due to Richard's neglect in his business affairs with Jason and the secret lunches with an ex-girlfriend.

Yet, there's some very positive moments in that season in which audiences are finally introduced to Liz Danes for the first time realizing that despite her flakiness, she's a good person. There's also more dimension to Luke where his vulnerability is shown over Jess and having to deal with family while being married to Nicole. I kinda liked the Jason character because he's very different from the guys that Lorelai has been with. Yet, I think the last 2 episodes of the season were some of the best which is more to due with the long-held feelings between Luke and Lorelai which culminated with one great romantic moment after another. The season also had a great ending which proved to be the beginning of the end for Rory as she rekindles her affair with a now-married Dean that would cause problems between Lorelai and Rory.

5. Season 1-It's obviously a great start to one of TV's best series in which audiences are introduced to Lorelai and Rory. Plus, revealing the estranged, troubled relationship Lorelai has with her parents while dealing with the changes coming into her life. We see Rory deal with a new school, her first love, her first heartbreak, and all of the things that happen for a 16-year old girl while Lorelai embarks on a relationship with Max while dealing with the idea that she might have feelings for Luke. We're introduced to Christopher in a couple of episodes while getting the idea of why he's been in their life so sporadically. It's a great season and certainly added a breath of fresh air to TV while its soundtrack choice for the most part is more towards indie music.

I also think it's the season that everyone has to see first because there's so much backstory over what happened with Lorelai and the life she ran away from with Rory. It's also clear that Rory might want to venture into the life that Lorelai ran away from as it has a lot of conflict, drama, and humor. It's really a season that's truly on its own place and certainly an amazing start to the series.

6. Season 6-Despite the uneveness and the soap operatic drama that would come in the show's final episodes. It's an excellent season but not a great one. I do think some of the humor was a bit off and forced while there were storylines that did become unpopular to the point that it ended on a very bad note. I did like the fact that it explored Rory's own sense of aimlessness and not striving for anything though it didn't really do anything to help her. At the same time, it showed that Logan had some regret over introducing Rory to his family while Richard and Emily seem like they were doing the right thing until what Mitchum revealed. I think part of the season's themes early on is about regret. For Richard, he realized he was wrong in letting Rory drop out of Yale and also realized that Rory is more like her mother than he wanted to believe.

Once Jess returned to the picture and confronted Rory about her decisions, I think Rory finally lit up and decided to take charge into her life and career again while reuniting with her mother. Then came the season's second half which is a bit messy. The April storyline, though not a popular one, I think brought some new developments for Luke both good and bad. On the one hand, we see someone realizing he has a daughter and wants to get to know her. Yet, at the same time, he is oblivious to the fact that he's neglecting Lorelai, not including her in anything relating to his daughter, and having her postpone the wedding they've been wanting. Then we have Christopher's presence coming around and all hell breaks loose to that godawful ending. I hate it. I think that's when the show really jumped the shark.

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Season 7-While I still haven't seen the entire season on TV or through the net (I prefer to watch them on TV). From the transcripts I've read. It's a mess. It's extremely uneven, there's a lot of disjointed storylines, characters aren't used as much, and it often leans towards very soap-operatic heavy drama and storylines. If I did see this, it's the worst season ever. Not just because Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel aren't involved. It's because there were a bunch of new writers who came to the series and really caused a lot of moments that were confusing. There was a scene where Lorelai cooked snails which seemed baffling since there was an episode in Season 4 where she hated eating snails and couldn't cook to save her life. Plus, there was some awful dialogue. Not to mention a lot of them in what many say is the worst episode ever, French Twist.

Yet, I think there were some positive moments in that season. The one I think that really did save the season from being so awful was about Luke. The season saw Luke in a variety of emotions from anger and frustration over what Lorelai did as he becomes convinced that he and Lorelai were never meant to be together. It showed a side of Luke that was extremely hurtful. Then, when he was with April. Audiences saw him becoming a father while showing there's a softness to him that hadn't been shown. When he realized Lorelai had gotten married and later, was about to lose April. I think the guy everyone had rooted for suddenly was about to become a bigger loser than ever. Already had lost his parents when he was young, nearly losing his diner, failing in several relationships, had just blown the best relationship he had with Lorelai because he was stupid, and now about to lose the daughter he had only known for a year. I think the vulnerability of Luke Danes is what saved the season because audiences see someone who lost so much and is wanting to redeem himself.

I think it was also a season that showed a different Lorelai but not in a good way in some respects. I think with Christopher, she kind of went into an emotional autopilot over the fact that she was hurt about what happened with Luke and with Christopher. I think she wanted someone who can understand her and was willing to be with her always. Then came the trip to Paris where she did the unthinkable. She married Christopher, which some of the people in the world she ran away from expected her to do, but without Rory to witness this. For Rory, it felt like a slap in the face as she later tried to support the marriage. At the same time, Stars Hollow had a mixed reaction to this new marriage while Richard and Emily seemed very excited, at first. Then came all of the emotional baggage over Lorelai's relationship with Luke. Christopher found himself compared to the one guy he didn't want to be compared to. Lorelai not wanting to have a wedding celebration in front of friends and families because she feels embarrassed. Lorelai not wanting to have a baby right away with Christopher, and then having Luke to ask for her help in his custody battle over April.

I think once Luke asked for her help and struggling over who to be loyal to. It was Rory's own memories about how much Luke meant to her during that accidental meeting at the mall with her mother, Luke, and April that really showed in the end, it was about Rory. She would unknowingly make a sacrifice move so Luke could get the chance to be a father to a girl who, for 12 years, never had a father. The letter would give Luke a sense of redemption but for Christopher, the ugly truth that love doesn't conquer all showed an even worse side of him. Then when Richard had a heart attack and Lorelai needed Christopher more than ever, Luke showed up out of nowhere to help out while Christopher was nowhere to be found. When Christopher did show up, the marriage definitely seemed to be in even more shaky grounds as Christopher's immature behavior revealed the person Lorelai should've been with instead of the person people say she should've been with. I think the season was really about Lorelai's own emotional downward spiral and her own revelations of who she is as her parents realize that she is who she is.

Yet, Season 7 is often overwhelmed with the Luke-Lorelai-Christopher love triangle to the point that several characters didn't get much to do which I think made the entire season frustrating. Rory got a bunch of new friends in Yale while dealing with Logan living in London for a while. Lane got knocked up and had twins. Paris didn't get much to do. We saw Richard had a heart attack and try to recover from it. Logan eventually quit working for his father to go on his own. And the show brought Marty back for no reason whatsoever. I think it was until the last few episodes that things did finally come around with Rory not getting the New York Times internship, graduating Yale, and deciding to not be married to Logan to focus on her career. We had Lorelai owning up to her mistakes in marrying Christopher and renewing things with Luke while deciding to continue seeing her parents for Friday Night Dinner. Other than that, I think it ended with a whimper. There wasn't much resolve between Lorelai and Emily. Luke and Lorelai kissed and flirted, that was it. We didn't really know which job Rory take to go on the road. We didn't really know what Paris was going to do after school or what Logan was going to embark on. It's lack of a fitting conclusion I think made the final season a frustrating one.

Then there's Virtual Season 8. Though it's a fan fiction series, it's one that I feel lives up to the splendor of the series thanks in part to the top fan fiction writers of the GG fan community. The eight season really got a lot of things right. Luke and Lorelai got together, faced issues, and became a better, vital couple. Rory faced off with the real world of journalism only to quit her job and reevaluate her own failures and life decisions to finally get a job that showcased her writing talents. The season also saw some great development from Emily Gilmore who took part in expanding the Dragonfly into a spa proving that she's a force to be reckoned with while having her and Lorelai improve on their relationship while being more accepting towards Luke. The eight season, if I were to rank it somewhere, would be in the middle of the list. It featured all of the energy and humor of the early seasons along with some of the dramatic territory of the 5th and 6th.

A new episode of Virtual Gilmore Girls season 9 is coming Tuesday. So far, it started off great but got a bit bumpy. There was a subplot involving Kirk's house-flipping plans that's kind of confusing to follow while Luke and Taylor get into a bit of a war. Yet, it started off with a bang with the Luke-Lorelai wedding at the Gilmore cottage at Martha's Vineyard with family watching plus Sookie and Jackson. There's a great storyline of Rory taking a career as a freelance journalist while living in West Hartford on her own while Emily works at the Dragonfly as a event coordinator much to Richard's annoyance that she's not running the house anymore. Then there was the big news that Lorelai is pregnant with a baby as she and Luke are taking careful steps into making sure Lorelai eats healthy and stuff.

With a new episode is coming, the season is now facing some big changes. With April now set to live in Conneticutt full-time due to the death of her grandmother and Anna later to return. The Crap Shack is facing an uncertain future as a baby is also coming and Rory feeling a bit left out making Lorelai sad. The next episode I think will revolve on the fate of the Crap Shack whether there'll be another expansion or that the entire Gilmore-Danes clan will have to move to a new house. Other than that, Rory is being attractive to her neighbor, Liz and T.J. are awaiting the birth of another kid through a surrogate, Paris is getting married to Doyle, and Michel is trying to recover from spa makeup that's ruined his face due to the shampoo he had been using.

Other than that, there's no show like Gilmore Girls.