Perfectly timed to coincide with the start of the holiday shopping season comes this TV Addict’s Deal of the Day. For 24 hours only, Amazon.com is offering up GILMORE GIRLS Complete Series Collection on DVD for a mere $109.99. That amounts to a whopping 58% off the regular price of $258.82 for one of this TV Addict’s all-time favorite shows.

Simply click here to check it out and get ready to enjoy over 42 discs of coffee-induced witty dialogue and romantic hi-jinx.

Inglorious Bastards! Why didn’t anyone — and by ‘anyone’ we of course are referring to the studio behind the new movie POST GRADS — bother telling us that this weekend we could have spent one hour and twenty-nine minutes in a darkened air-conditioned room with GILMORE GIRLS’ Alexis Bledel and FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS’ Zach Gilford!? Luckily, this all-but-forgotten release didn’t sneak past our good friends over at theREELaddict.com, which is why we thought we’d share with you their take on Alexis Bledel’s Mission Impossible: The Search for a Post-GILMORE GIRLS Career.

In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that because my affection for them runs so deep, when it comes to anything featuring Rory Gilmore and Matt Saracen (aka Alexis Bledel and Zack Gilford) it’s very hard for me to maintain any sort of critical objectivity. All the more so with POST-GRAD, since they are almost exactly appearing as they did/do on their respective shows, Gilmore Girls and Friday Night Lights. It’s like some sort of inter-serial crossover fan fiction fantasy come true, which is why in my book POST-GRAD gets away with a lot more mediocrity than I know it probably deserves to.

POST-GRAD begins almost exactly like a deleted scene from the Gilmore Girls. On the day of her graduation Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) speaks to us video blog style, catching us up on her very Rory-like “The Plan” of using her straight A’s to land her dream job at renowned literary firm. She also introduces us to her best friend since childhood, Adam (Matt Saracen), who is a sweet, sensitive, supportive guitar playing guy. If you can’t see where either plotline is going, then you might be one of the few people to be graciously spared the pervasive sense of worn out familiarity that bogs POST-GRAD down.

In addition to those storylines going in precisely the direction you would expect, the film seems to almost want to distract you from it by inexplicably throwing in numerous additional characters and sub-plots that really don’t amount to anything beyond adding superficial quirky sheen to the film. What starts as an attempt to address the ever growing problem of post-grad reality and quarter life crises mixed with a SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL romance, veers in and out of plotlines involving her zany family members. Granted, they are played by an all-star cast that includes Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch and Carroll Burnett, who do better with the material than should be possible, but all their plotlines – nor one involving Ryden romancing her older neighbor (Rodrigo Santoro) – don’t amount to anything more substantial than a college course on humor. In effect, it seemed the movie never was sure what kind it wanted to be, and instead we get somewhat of a jumbled, inconsistent film.

Even more disconcerting is the fact that once POST-GRAD moves into its third act it turns completely into a romantic comedy (not that it ever really offered any deep insights into the post-grad experience), one that contributes to an unsettling trend in the genre of ambitious career oriented women being forced to learn that – to paraphrase one character’s apparent sage words – who you spend your life with is more important than what you do with your life. Maybe not an untrue sentiment, but an unfortunate one when in movies that always seems to mean a woman giving up her promising and ambitious career prospects for a boy. It’s all the more surprising when – like here – that narrative path is taken by not just a woman screenwriter, but a woman director.

But, here’s the thing. Despite all of that, it’s still Rory Gilmore and Matt Saracen. That makes a lot of things better in my book, especially when Alexis Bledel and Zack Gilford do demonstrate a cute, sweet chemistry together. Whether scenes involved them on their own or together, it always sort of made me smile to see their television characters unintentionally reprised and brought romantically together. For those of you unfamiliar with either show, or those of you who don’t love those characters, POST-GRAD may be harder to sit through. For me? It just made me a happy fan, and made me wish somebody would make a movie where Chuck Bartowski and Lorelei Gilmore hook up. Grade: C

Good News: The CW is officially developing MELROSE PLACE Version 2.0 for Fall 2009. Bad News: 90210 Version 2.0 isn’t exactly must see TV. Although for some inexplicable reason, we’re still watching. [Source]

Good News: The TV Addict just became friends with HEROES stars Greg Grunberg and Brea Grant. Bad News: And by ‘friends,’ I of course am referring to friends on Twitter, not friends in real life. Even though I know Greg Grunberg and I would so be “BFF” if given the chance! [Follow theTVaddict on Twitter]

While watching last night’s installment of TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES, this TV Addict couldn’t help but thinking of one thing; GILMORE GIRLS. Weird, I know… but having visited the set of THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES last fall, one can’t blame me for the skewed perspective.

What the average viewer might not realize is that TERMINATOR shoots its series on the exact same Warner Bros. lot that used to be occupied by none other than America’s favorite mother/daughter duo, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. Oddly enough, the similarities don’t end there. Consider the following.

• Overbearing and controlling mother Emily Gilmore was intent on molding Lorelai into the ideal replicant of herself. Lorelai rebelled by running away to Stars Hollow. Sarah Connor ran away as well. Well, time-travelled to Los Angeles to escape a group of power mad robots intent on annihilating the human race. An angry Emily Gilmore or a killer robot — who’s scarier?

• Lorelai raised a teenage daughter with the help of random townspeople. Sarah raises a teenage son with the help of random robots.

• Cameron, being a robot has issues fitting in. Looking back on seven years of GILMORE GIRLS, the same exact think could be said about Kirk. Did anyone even bother to ask creator Amy Sherman-Palladino if Kirk was human? Think about it!

• Did anyone else notice the jeep Sarah drove in last night’s episode? Call me crazy, but is that not the same jeep made famous by Lorelai GIlmore?

Just in case you needed further incentive to tune into tonight’s stellar episode of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS — and judging by the show’s anemic rating, you clearly do — this TV Addict thought he’d remind all of you still suffering through GILMORE GIRLS withdrawal that Matt Czuchry (Logan Huntsburger) shows up in Dillon Texas for the first of four appearances. Czuchry plays a conservative Christian radio show host who not surprisingly, catches Rory’s Lyla’s eye.

Which means, it’s time to help out the perennially under-watched FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS and prove you really believe in TV theme songs. Will you really ‘lead where they follow.’ And by ‘they’ I naturally mean GILMORE GIRLS alumni? Lorelai would, as would Sooki. So don’t be an Emily. Don’t miss tonight’s incredible and completely reality TV free installment of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. Airing tonight at 9PM on NBC and Global TV in Canada.

Thanks to KnoxNews.com for the Tip!

First things first. Lauren Graham may be returning to the small screen far earlier than expected. Variety reports today that NBC managed to do the one thing the CW couldn’t — get Lauren Graham to sign on the dotted line. In one of the year’s richest development deals, NBC has signed Graham with the hopes of having her star in her own comedy or drama next fall. Explained Graham as only she can, “After having spent so many years representing the frog on the WB, I am especially comforted to be part of the only other network with an animal mascot.”

For more fantastic GILMORE GIRLS news…. check back later in the day [How's that for a cliffhanger!?]

A Eulogy for Gilmore Girls
By Erin Gardhouse

SPOILER WARNING!

It’s no surprise that many Gilmore Girls fans were left disappointed by the absence of a last-minute engagement for at least one of the girls on the series finale that aired May 15, 2007, and signaled the end of the beloved show’s seventh and last season. For a show about two colourful small-town single women, isn’t an engagement the closure we expect when they bid adieu, in exchange for the years of racing home and eating dinner in front of the television? But no Gilmore Girls fan should have really expected a perfect romantic happy ending. If Rory first rejecting Logan Huntzberger’s heartfelt marriage proposal at her graduation party and then leaving in a horse-drawn carriage with — that’s right, her mother — didn’t already clue us in during the second-to-last episode, it was driven home in the finale: above all, this was a show about two strong, ambitious and funny women, who only need each other, and happen to be mother and daughter.

Despite the idealistic concept of a mother and daughter who are truly each other’s best friend, most viewers — daughters, moms, and men who have confessed in exchange for anonymity (TV Editor: I don’t know what she’s talking about) — always felt like they were in the presence of something familiar and real, eerily echoing their own lives. Many young women who have followed the show devotedly and are in their early twenties now, found in the trials and triumphs of Rory Gilmore parallels to their own lives. Even if they didn’t have to make the painstaking choice between attending one of two top universities in the United States, and their idea of a job search requires less than seventy-four resumes, they — like Rory — probably settled into university at the same time, challenged their deepest friendships, and broke down when it looked like everyone else around them had a plan after graduation while they were still grasping at straws. And while we admired Rory for her tenacity and grace, we were admittedly relieved when she proved to be less than perfect — whether it was losing her virginity to a married ex-boyfriend, or not getting the New York Times Fellowship — because that just made her more like us. A true “girlfriend girl,” Rory made geeky cool, and her understated sexiness and increasingly enviable wardrobe never overshadowed her ambition and heart.

No doubt Rory got her spunk — not to mention her fast-talking habits and diet — from her mother. But Lorelei Gilmore is more than just the other half of a duo that can eat “pancakes with a side of pancakes” and stay thin, for she is witty and complex in her own right. At times the adolescent that never got to be an adolescent (due to her teenage pregnancy) comes out, but ultimately Lorelai is a picture of strength for anyone who doesn’t fit in with their environment. She rebelled against the high-society life of her parents, and has always felt alienated from the other mothers at Rory’s schools, because she didn’t have the same car, the same clothes, and was young enough to be their daughter herself. But Lorelai carved a life for herself and her daughter in the gossipy small town of Stars Hollow, working her way up from being a maid at an inn to being the owner of her own establishment. So when the town celebrates Rory’s accomplishments, they are really celebrating Lorelai’s. As her own father says at Rory’s farewell party: “It takes a remarkable person to inspire all this.”

With strong leads like these, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino showed a remarkable talent for writing women’s voices. After Sherman-Palladino left the show at the end of the sixth season, the rapid-fire dialogue, littered with obscure pop-culture references (affectionately coined Gilmore-isms) continued, but fans worried about the fate of the Girls. Not the least of these worries was that Lorelai would wind up with two-dimensional Christopher (Rory’s father) over the miserly but lovable Luke. Indeed, the whirlwind marriage early in Season 7 — which dissipated as quickly and meaninglessly as it arose — was the centre of a controversy that had everyone predicting an early end to the show. (On tv.com, the episode “French Twist”, where Lorelai and Chris get married, received the lowest viewer ratings of the series.) Of course, curious plot missteps and inconsistencies were not unique to the final season, despite what some fans may have you think. For example, whatever happened to the “real writing job” Rory landed in Season 6, after the long and heartbreaking rift between mom and daughter? It was a symbol of Rory’s ambition and independence, a turning point in her character development, which was then overshadowed by the drama at the Yale Daily News and the appearance of Luke’s “new” 13-year-old daughter. Rory’s “job” was scarcely mentioned again.

Regardless, every season of Gilmore Girls was worth watching whether that be for its main characters, or even the support characters who remained one of the strengths of the show as they deepened throughout the seasons to illuminate important themes, like the nature of family. The close familial relationship between Lorelei and Rory was contrasted with that of Lorelei and her parents, Emily and Richard, which beautifully showed family conflicts and generational divides. An even more complex example was Lane’s relationship with her conservative Korean mother. Watching friendship and conflict develop between the rock and roll teen and her straight-laced religious mother was a delight, and a necessary departure from the easy compatibility that Rory and Lorelai emanated. Similarly, the exploration of class issues was accomplished by Rory’s pursuits in Emily’s Daughters of the Revolution group, as well as by the contrast between her relationship with Dean — who never went to college, married young, and worked at a supermarket — and her relationship with trust-fund beneficiary Logan Huntzberger. But of course, these characters were not there to wave a finger in our face and teach us an important lesson. They were colourful, funny, and at times creepy (Kirk’s sash, anyone?) but all of them, in some way, reminded of us of people we know in the real world. And the series finale saw them at their best. Could Taylor have possibly made a finer farewell speech than the one littered with birthing metaphors? Could Luke have summed up his feelings for Lorelai in a way truer to his character than by saying: “I just like to see you happy”?

Although Seasons 5 and 6 had us picturing at least one wedding (Luke and Lorelei), not to mention the possibility of an addition to the Gilmore family — and we will always wonder how Sherman-Palladino would have ended it from there — the end of the series ended as it should. Even if we can’t be sure exactly what will happen for everybody, the show left us with the feeling that it has always given us, and what made it so great. It left us feeling that things were exactly as they should be and that it’s all going to be OK. Kind of like real life.

Erin Gardhouse writes for Mondo Magazine

Article republished with permission.

Jets57 asks: In the past you and Alexis both mentioned working on DVD extras but they never seem to appear – what happened?

Lauren Graham responds: We make no money on DVD so don’t tend to do the commentary as we think that is unfair.

Now there’s a rarity in Hollywood, an honest answer! Kudos to Lauren Graham for being so upfront with her fans. That said, does anyone else find it a touch depressing that it all comes down to dollars and cents with stars Graham and Bledel? Who knew sitting down for forty-four minutes and commenting on a show you supposedly love was such an ardous task. How much money would make these girls happy? If it wasn’t clear before, it’s more than clear now that the real reason fans didn’t get a proper final season of the GILMORE GIRLS was simply due to the fact that the CW failed to back up a big enough Brinks truck.

Update: As the debate rages on in the comments, Jenna said it best when she wrote, “It might not earn them anything but if nothing else it’s a nice way to say “thank you”.”

Thanks to TVTattle for the Tip!

After seven seasons, 154 hours and enough coffee to support a small Columbian Village, the WB’s most beloved series GILMORE GIRLS is coming to end this evening with a one hour season finale airing on the new CW.

With that in mind, I wanted to start a thread where fans could join theTVaddict.com in celebrating the show. After-all, contract squabbles and the ‘Palladino affair’ aside, Lauren Graham and co. gave us seven fantastic years of memories, laughter and snappy one-liners.

So here it is, theTVaddict.com’s FAREWELL TO GILMORE GIRLS QUIZ. Post away in the comments with your answers.

1. Luke or Christopher
(Let’s get that out of the way early)

2. Your favourite boyfriend for Rory. Pick ONE!
Logan, Tristan, Dean, Jess, Marty

3. Your favourite Stars Hollow Festival
• The Festival of Living Art
• Annual Spring Fling
• The Bid-A-Basket Festival
• The Stars Hollow Dance-A-Thon

4. Kirk’s best money making scheme
• Opening up “Kirk’s”
• Movie theatre operator
• Doose’s Market assistant Manager
• Termite inspector
• Flower delivery man
• Mailman
• Actor
• Kirk’s Doggie Day Care

5. Luke or Westin’s for coffee?

6. Your favourite Stars Hollow Denizen
• Taylor
• Ms. Patty
• Babette
• Lulu
• Kirk
• Gypsy
• Ms. Kim

7. Choose one B.F.F. for Rory — Paris or Lane.

8. Your favourite episode of GILMORE GIRLS was _________

“Well, you know, there was a lot that went back and forth by the time the [13 episode thing] came out. I had sort of said to them a couple of months ago that I didn’t see it coming back, and they had asked to just give them some time to figure something out that would make it work. Both Alexis and I felt tired, and also creatively like the show was in a place where we were either at the end or very close to it. We really couldn’t imagine another season. I think they were trying to tempt us with 13, which was tempting, but ultimately it just wasn’t going to work for them. We needed the situation to be so ideal, and I think it just wasn’t meant to be. I do want to say that the studio and the network were very generous and very respectful in this whole process. We just didn’t want to work the schedule we’d been working. But if we’re working a lesser schedule, what is the show? The way we’d like to have done it would not have necessarily been good for the show. Right now you have me working six to seven days an episode, and Alexis doing about the same. To do anything less than that just wasn’t going to be the same show. They tried to make it appealing for us, and we tried to be imaginative, but then at the end of the day it just felt like we were trying to do something impossible.”

Needless to say, the interview in its entirety is quite an interesting read. But let’s face it, anyone can get Lauren Graham to talk, the girls loves to talk! If Ausiello really wants to impress us, he’ll get Michel Alexis Bledel on the line. Can’t wait to hear what her next project is.