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My first episode of Gilmore Girls was the one where Lorelai picks Rory up from the police station for stealing a yacht.  I’d recorded it on the PVR but why I chose it eludes me…  Perhaps, after finishing Joss Whedon’s and Aaron Sorkin’s back catalogues I wanted to watch something good and it was on someone’s list alongside The West Wing and Buffy…  I do that to find good books, so maybe.

As soon as the episode finished, I played it again.  Then again.  I was already addicted.  There was some black magic in the air, something about the quickfire banter, the optimism and the wackiness that became more like alchemy.  They were so generous with the funniness, jokes would spill over jokes and I’d have to stop myself laughing so I could hear them out.  It was like trying to hold in hiccups and the end I’d be in a weird meditative state, sated and content like after one of their massive takeout dinners.

Of course it didn’t hurt that that the mum and the daughter were stunningly attractive.  For a good few episodes I couldn’t decide who I fancied more, the mum or the daughter.  That felt kinda awkward when the show ended and they re-ran it again from the beginning.  I was that guy in the diner, chatting up a suddenly underage Rory.  But then I got to enjoy it all over again, watch them both grow up, watch Rory graduate and Lorelai become a success, see their relationships with boys (and Lorelai’s parents) blossom and fade.  I laughed like they were in the room with me. My eyes started prickling whenever I heard the la-la-la’s starting up, it got Pavlovian.  

This was about five years ago, when they’d already wrapped the final season.  There wouldn’t be any more.  When I got back round to the yacht episode, I watched the whole run twice more.  Then I started grasping for whatever information I could get my hands on.  I just needed more because nothing else seemed to fill that void.  

So I learned why the last season seemed to just replay the highlights from the other seasons.  I followed the exploits of the cast members as they went their separate ways, saw their movies and TV appearances.  I watched some of the DVD extras but I haven’t seen all of them – it’s like I’m keeping some for an emergency when I really, really need it and nothing else will do.  

Then I needed to vent and share this mania, so I ended up right here, on GilmoreNews.com.  I posted a couple of comments, then Bunheads turned up and I started contributing and now we’re where we are.  You see, for me, Gilmore Girls is a unique chicken soup for the soul, beamed direct from brain of the Mad Hatter herself, Amy Sherman-Palladino.  Thank you, Amy.  And for creating this site and letting me write, thanks Arieanna!

All this is a very long-winded way of welcoming the recent spate of new commenters who’ve posted in the last few weeks and also to set up this question:

How was your first time?  What was your first episode?  Who introduced you?  Did you gorge on it?  Or were you an original viewer, having to wait each week for the next episode, then months in between seasons?

Pic c/o TheWB