The Good

The Bad

According to many of my fellow background actors and actresses, of all the shows you don’t want to work on, Gilmore Girls is the big one. I have never worked on that show, I know nothing about the show’s “on set environment”, I just thought that I would offer up this fun fact before I began to my review of Gilmore Girls - The Complete Third Season.

As per my usual habits, I had not watched a single frame of this TV show prior to Movieweb handing me the 6 disc box set and demanding, “Review it now!!”. So I diligently went home, put the discs in my player and got to work. First off, I realized that there are worse things then having to look at Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) for 955 minutes. After I got passed this, I continued to watch the show and while I don’t think that it was anything too special, I can certainly see why this show has caught fire with so many people. A tale of a single mother raising her daughter is without a doubt something that many people in this country can understand. While Lorelai’s problems take a backseat to Rory’s situation as she attempts to negotiate the perils of young love, it was weird for me to see someone like Alexis Bledel be put in a situation like this. I feel this way because Alexis Bledel is the epitome of a “Snow White” character. I know nothing about her personal life, but I am not surprised that she played a “lady of the night” in Sin City. Sure, maybe she’s playing Hollywood’s version of what “down and dirty” is, but at least she is making an attempt to change her image up a bit, right?

I found Gilmore Girls - The Complete Third Season to be a steady if not spectacular box set. It was interesting seeing all the events of the show unfold around Rory’s graduation, but seeing her get upset about waiting for her college acceptance letters was a bit pedantic. Truthfully, I would like to have seen this season focus more on Lorelai, mainly because I think Lauren Graham has the benefit of having a character that is much more richly drawn. All in all, there were true moments of surprise and I found myself very easily getting into the stories of each episode as they unfolded. As I had never watched nor cared about this show at all until I watched this box set, I really think that this show deserves a lot of credit for being able to bring me in, keep me interested and getting me up to speed on the content of Gilmore Girls - The Complete Third Season.

Features

Cast Documentary: All Grown Up

This is a neat little piece in which the cast of the show tells us about their childhood experiences. What I most enjoyed about this piece, was putting together for myself how the stories the cast told informed their characters. I think it is always interesting hearing what other people bring to their roles, and for this documentary this was no exception. In fact, I like that the actors were able to let their hair down a bit and talk about these experiences as I think it helps the uninitiated like myself get more into the show, and it helps those who are already interested feel that much more connected to the material.

Our Favorite ‘80s: Favorite Era Dance Moves

Yes, you get to see characters from the show do some dancing from the 1980s. This is cool if for no other reason then I like that these people are doing something for the fans. I personally could have done without this little piece of “nostalgia”, but people who have been watching and following this show from the beginning will more then appreciate members of the cast taking the time to participate in this extra feature.

Additional Scenes on 3 Episodes and Who Wants to Fall in Love?: Season’s Most Romantic Moments

Scrolled through these a bit mainly because how much can you really take of watching “romantic moments”? You may say I am letting my sexual orientation effect how I reviewed this DVD, but I would have to say that on the whole I feel that I was quite fair. Additional scenes for a TV show are not something that I think are that necessary, simple because TV is created for the widest possible audience. As a result, superfluous material like these scenes don’t seem necessary because the point has already been made with the locked cut of the show. Lastly, the romantic moments are romantic, but I have to say this, I was at a wedding this past weekend and there were some romantic moments between the bride and groom in which they said “loving things” to each other over a microphone. It reminded me a great deal of this shows dialogue, so, my question then is ... did the show’s writers just get it right? Or, are we sadly just programmed to say what we think we should say because we think it’s romantic? Let me know your thoughts.

Video

1.33:1. Standard Version Presented In A Format Preserving The Aspect Ratio Of It’s Original Television Exhibition. Yet another show that I thought would be in the widescreen format and it turns out not to be. This show has a different look to it. I don’t really know how to describe it but I tend to think that lighting is the key. Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham both have an amazing, earthy glow to them. It’s as if this show is saying, ”These ladies are special”. Or, this could just be me saying this. Either way, based on the few seconds of Gilmore Girls commercials that I have seen, the quality of the DVD’s transfers are in line with what we have come to expect. Even on my TV, which has a very small screen, this show played quite well.

Audio

Dolby Digital English: Stereo. There wasn’t some crazy or amazing sound design, but this didn’t mean that these shows weren’t sharp or crystal clear. One thing I really liked about this show was the energy. The characters don’t seem stilted or trying to make all the dialogue they say seem self important. They just talk and there is a freshness to that that I really appreciated. With the witty banter between the characters, I found that this show moved at a solidly quick pace. The fact that I was able to hear everything and keep up made Gilmore Girls - The Complete Third Season, that much easier to get into and watch.

Package

Purple is the order of the day here, folks. The front cover features pictures of Rory and Lorelai, with a lot of what I like to call Spitfire Grill imagery. Coffee, a boat, basically shots from the Independence Inn. The back features a small description of what the viewer can expect from the 22 episodes, as well as a list of the extras that come on this 6 disc set and tech specs. There are even a few pictures from the various episodes that make up these discs. Inside is an easy to negotiate layout, and on the whole, I have to give the creators of this box set credit for putting together such a solid piece of TV on DVD. This box set has the same feeling of a warm, hard cover book.

Final Word

I probably won’t be watching too many more episodes of Gilmore Girls. This isn’t because the show is bad, it’s just that it really doesn’t fit into my schedule of TV. If it goes into syndication and they run it on TV LAND or NICK AT NIGHT, then I probably will start watching it, but for now, I am content with what I have seen on season three. It isn’t that I didn’t like this show, I did, but it’s just hard for me to really relate to it. In some ways, I think this may be because I am a guy reviewing a girls show. Sure, there are enough things for members of the opposite sex to latch on to but I have to admit, if I was a girl, I think I would be more drawn to what this show has to offer.

Still, I have to give the WB credit for making one of the first shows, that I have watched, to address the single mother and daughter dynamic. I know that other shows have done this in the past, but I don’t know that the parent and child have ever been this close in age? As a result of this we get a keen a insight into a situation that really isn’t that unusual. Where do the men go? Why do they leave? How does a family cope when something like this happens? Only some of these questions are really addressed, but on the whole, I think that Gilmore Girls - The Complete Third Season gets a lot more right then it does wrong. If for nothing else, that is something this show has to be commended for.

Gilmore Girls was released .