Gilmore Girls

A few weeks ago The Girl and I had a choice to make. A choice that required careful consideration. When you’ve been together for over four years, you want to make sure that in taking the plunge you’re going to come up smiling, not gasping for air. It’s easy to look at your peers for guidance and think, well, they’re the same age as us and they chose this, so that must be the right thing to do. No, in life you have to accept that you are you and they are they. People choose different courses, and just because you choose a different path doesn’t make you any more right, any more wrong.

So when in July we finished 154 episodes of legal drama The Good Wife, we adjourned for a much-needed recess. It was necessary. Our brains had become desks teeming with legal jargon - counter claim, litigation, deposition, affidavit, recusal- we knew the court system inside and out, so much so that if a stonewall murder charge was brought against my beloved, I’m confident I could get her off on a technicality. After having our heads consumed with the justice system, we knew we had to have a declutter: put the papers into storage and leave our work behind. Have a vacation. Take in some air, gather our breath, walk around in concise sitcoms like This Country, which although brilliant doesn’t make you wake up in the middle of the night, shouting ‘Objection, your honour!’

TV show dismissed.

With the school term starting, however, and the nights closing in, we realised it was time to put on our crampons and begin a new mountain climb. What to watch though? This year, we made a thirty-year commitment in signing up for a mortgage. On December 31^st 2016, we spent ten minutes looking round a house, and then on December 31^st 2016 we put an offer in on the house. On October 2^nd 2017 we began discussing what our next box-set would be, and then on October 5^th 2017 we decided what we would watch. It’s a big decision.

Our two choices were The West Wing and Gilmore Girls. Our friends have been raving about The West Wing for years, and in Martin Sheen’s President we thought it might be the perfect antidote to the current Tweeter In Chief, Donald J. Trump. On the other hand, I had read glowing online reviews of Gilmore Girls so was quite fascinated to find out what it was all about. We decided to watch the first episode of each, and make a decision after that. A very grown up way, I think you’ll agree. We really loved both. The Girl was veering towards The Wing; I was inching towards Gilmore. In the end, we reached a verdict: we only have one series of West Wing on DVD, so let’s wait until some benevolent deity (friend) drops them from the sky (gives the other seasons to us), where we can then watch them without charge or interruption.

The President can wait.

Let me start by saying that Gilmore Girls is an exceptional piece of television. Appearing on The WB network in America before concluding on The CW, it never got the numbers it deserved. However, to say it never got the audience it deserved depends upon your interpretation of that phrase. It’s true that in terms of viewing figures it wasn’t a monolith like Friends or Cheers; however, the fans it did get are a complete credit to the show. If you go online and type in Gilmore Girls, you will see fan sites dedicated to quotes, cultural references, trivia, along with a plethora of unofficial blogs and books. It does what all good TV shows do: create a parallel universe that people feel a part of.

What is Gilmore Girls, though? Gilmore Girls is a comedy-drama that follows the mother-daughter pairing of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore through the obstacles of adulthood and teendom respectively. Lorelai, born to an upper middle-class family, had Rory aged sixteen. As you can imagine, exchanging a silver spoon for a baby one sent shockwaves through the WASP set. Teenage pregnancy was something that happened to other people from the other side of town- it didn’t happen behind the gilded gates of Hartford. Consequently, Rory was estranged from her own family and raised instead by mother and strangers in the community of Stars Hollow.

Rory and Lorelai

Without an ocean of age to divide them, Lorelai and her daughter are landlocked in a relationship that is more about friendship than hierarchy. As a young mother, Lorelei still needs to grow up, often using humour as a defence mechanism – think early season Chandler Bing. Whereas Rory is old before her times, preoccupied by money and romantic worries. It would too easy, however, to say they fall into the television cliché of immature parent and wise child; since the writing is more perceptive than this. Despite Rory reading books by Plath and Joyce, she is very much her age: exhibiting bashfulness over her first kiss and concern over fitting it. And even though Lorelai sees life as a punch-line, when it comes to her daughter’s future she is deadly serious. Indeed, her desire for her daughter to achieve her academic potential is why she reconnects with her own parents, praying they’ll grant the loan that will secure Rory’s passage into the Ivy League. This then is a story of what happens when a mother-daughter’s tiny snow globe world is shaken by bigger hands. Is Lorelai agreeing to a pact with the devil or a covenant that'll bring the family closer together?

In writing in praise of Gilmore Girls, it would be entirely remiss of me if I didn’t eulogise over the writing. Amy Sherman-Palladino created Gilmore Girls and her work over six seasons (she wasn't part of the seventh) should be a template for television screenwriting. For me, her writing is redolent of Spaced. In the lauded Channel 4 sitcom, Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson created a whip-smart world of movie allusion; Gilmore Girls is similar, only this time the references are literary and music based. Being an English teacher and a fan of Indie music, I’ve really enjoyed picking up on these. There’s an episode called ‘Cinnamon’s Wake’ – a nod to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, along with another one titled ‘Star-Crossed Lovers’, which features Rory’s first heartache. More than the titles though is the dialogue that references Tennessee Williams, William Shakespeare and Dorothy Parker.

A truly gifted writer.

Like Spaced, you don’t have to get all the cultural commentary to enjoy the episodes. There’s fun to be had in almost all of the dialogue. Take this scene where Lorelai takes her daughter stationery shopping for her new school. Rory is aware that in making the transition from state to private her equipment will have to undergo some changes too.

[Rory and Lorelai are shopping for school supplies.]

Rory: I’m going to a serious school now, I need serious paper.

Lorelai: Paper’s paper.

Rory: Not at Chilton.

Lorelai: Alright, fine. Here is your serious paper.

Rory: Thank you.

Lorelai: Ooh and here are your somber highlighters, your maudlin pencils, your manic-depressive pens.

Rory: Mom.

Lorelai: Now these erasers are on lithium so they may seem cheerful but we actually caught them trying to shove themselves in the pencil sharpener earlier.

Rory: I’m going home now.

Lorelai: No, wait! We’re going to stage an intervention with the neon post-its and make them give up their wacky crazy ways.

This whole routine wouldn’t seem out of place on a Seinfeld episode. From ‘serious paper,’ Palladino seizes the moment, turning in jokes on suicidal rubbers and bipolar post-it notes. The ability to stretch an off-hand comment into a whole routine is what stand-ups do. In Gilmore Girls Palladino has the free-wheeling wit of a comic along with the ambitious scope of an author: she’s a dazzling talent and really should have garnered more praise.

On top of this, it’s apt that The Girl and I chose between Gilmore Girls and The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin, creator of the later, is known for his breakneck dialogue; Palladino is the same.  Normally, one page of a screenplay accounts for one minute of screen time. But for Gilmore Girls scripts, a page was about 20 to 25 seconds. This owes to the fact the characters talk like caffeinated jitterbugs, channeling the repartee of 1930's screwball comedies.

You could look at the picture of Gilmore Girls on Netflix and mistake it for another Dawson’s Creek: this, however, is not the case. Gilmore Girls isn’t an abstract noun that mopes and pontificates; it’s a verb that swings and smiles. It is a lock-in at a library with one's wit being the condition of an extended stay – it really is as good as that.

Don’t get me started on that theme tune though. The Girl knows I find it insufferable and has taken to singing it in the shower, over dinner and during sex- just to annoy me. I can’t escape it. And nor will I. Because for all its faults, it soundtracks a fantastic TV show.

Gilmore Girls is available on Netflix.

Winne-The-Pooh

Once a week, every week, I take my class to the library. For some pupils it’s something to enjoy. For others it’s a trial to endure. For me it’s as necessary as water. Without it, I doubt I'd survive.

Teaching takes its toll on the quiet. The job demands that one stands and leads, despite the opposite being at times preferable. Typically, I live my life as if I'm on Twitter. A 140 character limit on my interactions. I’ll say a few witty comments here and there, but then I’ll keep my counsel and retire to the daydream room.

Yet in the classroom talk is king. I can’t turn to my class and tell them to join me in silent meditation as we seek answers to literature’s great truths. No, I must use words as igniter fuel, hoping beyond hope for something to catch fire. I must hold court. Be an agent of talk. Take to the floor. Ask question after question. Interrogate the answers in response. Root out bias. Demand claims are evidenced. Question. Question. Question. All to try and answer life’s big question: Why on earth did George, a man of pragmatism, leave Lennie, an accident waiting to happen, completely unsupervised? The fool.

Why did you leave him, George?

But in the library I don’t have to talk. Court is in recess. I sit in the middle where my two eyes can keep an ear out for thirty mouths and I get my book out and read. Given that students will from time to time act in opposition to my hopes and dreams, I never choose a book that will demand 100% concentration. I still need to be alert to whispers and distractions. As a result, I’ll often pick a children’s book and get stuck into that. In the last year I’ve read Paddington, Matilda and War Horse. Yes, you the taxpayer have been paying me to read. You’re welcome.

Teenagers be quiet: Boss Man needs to read.

This week, I’ve been hearing a lot about Winnie-The-Pooh. This is because the story of its impact is the subject of a new film Goodbye, Christopher Robin. I haven’t seen the film, but I’ve heard the great Mark Kermode pronounce kindly on it. Whilst hearing him, I got to thinking: I’ve never actually read Winnie-The-Pooh. Sure, I’ve heard extracts from it: a Head of Year in my last school liked to illustrate her assemblies with Milne references. Yet I’ve never read a story all the way through. In fact, up until I sourced the book, I never knew it was so vast and wise. I just assumed it was a short picture book that could be turned and consumed in seconds.

Winnie-The-Pooh was a huge commercial success in the 1920’s. Like its author, the world had just come out of war; consequently, people were in desperate need of escape. Milne, a playwright and satirist, conceived the idea whilst at his East Sussex retreat. Seeing his son blur reality and fantasy while playing with his toys, Milne was inspired to create a world where he too clouded the truth: his beating heart of a boy Christopher would be transposed into a fictional world where his stuffed toys would be brought to life. In turning fact into fiction, Milne profited from his son. The balance sheet though would forever read loss. Unhappy with his childhood being made into a business, Christopher dissolved the partnership, shunning his parents in adulthood.

Milne and his son.

So the postscript of Winnie-The-Pooh is a sad one, but the tales themselves are far from depressing. Set in Ashdown Forest, where Milne and his family lived, the stories revolve around Christopher Robin’s toys, and the tales his father invented about them. There’s Pooh, the loyal, clumsy bear; Piglet, the shy, timid pig; Eeyore, a depressive donkey; Rabbit, a practical leader; and Owl, a learned creature. Over the course of the chapters, the characters get themselves into some classic scrapes, which typically end in Christopher Robin consoling his best friend Pooh.

Reading it, I see its DNA in the Toy Story franchise. Andy’s relationship with his toys change, just as Christopher’s does in the book's sequel, A House in Pooh Corner. Witnessing how a child neglects their toys can either be seen as a symbol of maturity or a shattering of innocence; whichever way you look at it, it's a moment of real power. Also, Pooh’s paw prints are all over Julia Donaldson’s superlative tale The Gruffalo: as Piglet’s head-to-head with the Heffalump is akin to Mouse’s confrontation with the Gruffalo. These are just two children’s stories that I can think of; I’m sure Milne’s inspiration is felt in many others.

Andy is like Christopher.

To dismiss the work as lightweight because it’s for children would be churlish though. The book is one adults find themselves reading to children, as opposed to the other way around. There is an economy to the writing, typifying all good children’s fiction; yet there is also a level of poeticism and profundity that would embarrass most adult writers.

Take this description of the Forest recovering from a flood:

ONE day when the sun had come back over the Forest, bringing with it the scent of may, and all the streams of the Forest were tinkling happily to find themselves their own pretty shape again, and the little pools lay dreaming of the life they had seen and the big things they had done, and in the warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying over his voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and wood-pigeons were complaining gently to themselves in their lazy comfortable way that it was the other fellow's fault, but it didn't matter very much; on such a day as this Christopher Robin whistled in a special way he had, and Owl came flying out of the Hundred Acre Wood to see what was wanted.

Milne has teased and tantalised an idyll from his pen. Just savour that language for a moment. Luxuriate on those verbs ‘tinkling’ and ‘whistling;’ bask in the hazy idleness of ‘complaining gently’ and float downstream with the ‘little pools’ that lie ‘dreaming of the life they had seen.’ This is the paradise Steinbeck painted at the beginning of Of Mice and Men; however, this is one that doesn’t succumb to the meanness of man; instead it represents the best of humanity, for man (Christopher) and nature (Winnie et al) work alongside one another to create a refuge of love and harmony. It’s a story that promoted peace and quiet at a time when people really needed it.

If you missed the book during your childhood, I recommend you pick it up now. To lift Milne's style: It’s a Sustaining Book that will bring you Great Comfort at a Time of Trumpian Upheaval. In a world of Terror and Cruelty, Pooh and his Forest are needed now more than ever.

Winnie-The-Pooh is available from all good bookshops.

The Good Place

What happens when we die?

It’s a question that has plagued men and women since the dawn of time. For observers of religious dogma, life on Earth is simply a rehearsal in the great theatre of existence. If they’ve been humble attendees: waited patiently in line, put money in the tip tray, sat slouched for the people behind; then when the curtain's finally peeled they’ll witness something truly special, an eternal production titled Bliss and Euphoria. If on the other hand, they’ve pushed their way to the front, put gum in the tip tray and brought a cushion to obscure the view of others; then when the curtain's finally peeled they’ll be greeted with something truly awful, an interminable production titled Pain and Suffering.

If, on the other hand, you’re an atheist and consider God a lousy work of fiction, penned by an ancient ancestor of Dan Brown, then you believe life categorically ends in death. That the soul does not continue its journey; rather one's flesh is made worms meat until the corpse is nothing more than glorified dog bone. For the atheist, life isn’t a moral talent show, an audition for an Almighty judge; it’s the real deal.

The Good Place is a sitcom about what happens after we die. It begins with Eleanor meeting a mysterious bow tie figure. He informs her that her time on Earth has come to an end. She has died and continued her journey. Understandably, she has questions to ask: how did she die – she can’t remember? Well, she was buying a cocktail mix for one when a line of shopping carts struck her, causing her to be thrown into the path of an erectile dysfunction marketing truck. Hence, why she’s now a stiff. She has another question to ask: how close were people’s theories on the afterlife? Well, the major religions were about 5% close, but “a stoner from Calgary named Doug Forcett blurted out a theory while high on mushrooms and it turns out to be 92% close.” Eleanor’s next question: am I (points to up) or (points to down)? Happily, she has made it to what is called ‘The Good Place.’ It isn’t what people traditionally would conceive paradise to be, but it’s somewhat close. Relieved, Eleanor looks forward to the next stage of her existence.

Eleanor at the gates.

Welcome to The Good Place, a wondrous sitcom devised and created by Parks and Recreation co-writer, Michael Schur. Typically, I prefer naturalism in sitcoms; therefore, it’s something of a treat to be thrown into something altogether different. On first sight, this might seem a world away from Schur’s previous work set in local government, but a closer look at his career says otherwise. For example, the last series of Parks and Recreation fast-forwarded to a future where corporations had taken over towns, leaving its inhabitants in thrall to products and marketing. The Good Place is also an imagined future. Further, his work on Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror episode ‘Nosedive’ feeds into his current sitcom, dealing as it does with datafication. In Black Mirror people were knowingly being rated on their every deed and action. However, in The Good Place, people aren’t judged in life by one another, but by an organisation in the sky: good deeds are totalled up, with the best players being rewarded with a bonus life.

Eleanor is in The Good Place because she has led a good life of moral virtue. Where so many have succumbed to the self, she has forsaken all ego for others. Her place in paradise is reserved alongside the few that have put their own interests to one side in the name of selflessness. After her preliminary introduction, she is invited to a welcoming talk with other excited inhabitants. Michael, the bow tied creator, explains how their performance in life led them to this place. His talk is backdropped by a screen that features blink-and-you-miss behaviours that caused their reward.

Hosted Refugee Family, Rehabilitate d Abused Pit Bull, Donated 16.35% of Lifetime Income, Anonymously, to Charities, Gave Out Full-Size Candy Bars at Halloween, Ate Vegan, Never Discussed Veganism Unprompted, Held Door for Person Behind You, Installed Solar Panels, Let Someone Merge in Traffic, Brought Own Bags to Grocery Store, Donated Blood, Self-Monitored Potentially Nauseating Mouth-Sounds While Chewing, Carefully Put Spider Outside, Helped Mom With Her Printer, Gracefully Ended A Conversation About the Weather, Attended Cousin’s Friend’s Child’s Jazz Dance Recital, etc…

Look at all the gags in there. The juxtaposition of the charitable: hosting refugee families, alongside the laughable: helping mom with her printer, demonstrate a master craftsman at work. And the crazy thing? These jokes happen so quickly you might miss them. To get all the gags you have to rewind, re-watch and, in the case above, freeze-frame the screen to enjoy the full benefits. Other sight gags include restaurants named ‘The Good Plates’ and a pasta store branded, ‘Hokey Gnocchi’ in tribute to the participation dance routine.

Michael (Ted Danson) welcomes people to The Good Place.

After Eleanor has got her head round her new existence, she is introduced to Chidi, who it’s claimed is her soul-mate. He doesn’t look like Eleanor’s type. He’s diffident and earnest, oblivious to his geek chic. But this is a new life for Eleanor, a fresh start so what does she know. Aware their souls are wedded beyond death do them part, she decides to confide in him. Her confession: she doesn’t belong here. Earlier Michael had said she had earned her place based on her work in defending innocent people on death row. The truth: she sold fake medicine to elderly people. Someone has made a mistake. Chidi begins to hyperventilate. He lives his life by a strict code: to hide Eleanor’s true nature threatens to send his moral robot into malfunction. What’s the alternative though? Confess her sins and throw her to The Bad Place?

Chidi can’t play God with Eleanor’s soul so instead tries to save it through philosophy. There’s not many sitcoms that have a character complain, “Who died and left Aristotle in charge of ethics?” Only for another one to point at the board and reveal Plato's name. Over the course of the series, Utilitarianism and Contractualism feature: all there to drive Eleanor towards goodness. In many ways the sitcom is My Name is Earl set in the after-life, where the protagonist must make amends for their past life in the hope of finding salvation.

Eleanor and Chidi.

Alongside Chidi and Eleanor, there are two other main characters that occupy the space. Tahani, played by ex-T4 host Jameela Jamil, and Jianyu, a Buddhist monk who persists in living a life of silence. These two are paired as soul-mates, but there’s trouble in paradise when they struggle to connect. A bigger problem is Eleanor though. Her failings on Earth may have gone unpunished. But here in The Good Place her sins are made manifest. At a party she rudely describes the skyscraper Tahini, a giraffe: the next morning a tower of giraffes run through the neighbourhood. She is a Beelzebub in heaven. If she isn’t turfed out, she threatens the very fabric of paradise. Kristen Bell’s portrayal, however, is wholly sympathetic, causing the viewer to will her on to redemption.

For a show that encompasses philosophical theory, its value is perhaps best argued using William Paley’s teleological argument. In it, Paley uses the analogy of the watchmaker, arguing the very intricacy of a watch points to intelligent design- a watch couldn’t have just fall into existence like a rock. So it is with God and the universe. The world's complexity proves a godlike creator. In the Analogy of the Sitcom, Schur is the watchmaker and The Good Place the watch; a comedy so brilliant it proves divine writers really do exist.

The Good Place is available on Netflix.