The Netflix original 4-episode series “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life” was a much-needed continuation of the endearing story of a teen mom and her daughter navigating through life, laughing every step of the way. 

Though this new story, fans of the previous series, the end of the show ultimately left fans where they were at the end of the original series—unsatisfied.

The Netflix original series premiered on November 25. The series consists of four 1.5 hour episodes, each a snapshot of Rory and Lorelei’s life during a single season of the year.

The episodes are titled Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, and combined take the viewer through a year in the family’s life.

The show is set in current time, thus Rory is 10 years older than she was in the finale of the original show. Like “Gilmore Girls” did, the show did not fail to be littered with current pop culture references like Uber, Hamilton, and Brexit.

The first few episodes were exactly what “Gilmore Girls” fans needed. The show opens with Rory returning to Stars Hollow for a few days, and the viewers quickly learn of her remarkably successful writing career and international recognition.

For the fans who have watched Rory grow up from her days at Chilton through her years at Yale, affirmation that Rory managed to make something of herself was exactly what fans wanted to see.

But as the show went on, the satisfaction of many fans, including myself, began to fade. Through the second and third episodes it seems as if Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show’s creator, is trying too hard to squeeze the franchise for every last dollar.

Though I realize Rory and Lorelei are fictional characters whose lives have always been overdramatic to incite viewership and ratings, many moments in A Year in the Life seemed simply too contrived.

In the course of one episode that spanned only a few weeks, Lorelei stopped speaking to her mother, began keeping useless secrets from Luke, got in an explosive fight with Rory, and left Stars Hollow to “do Wild” and hike the Pacific Crest trail as seen in Cheryl Strayed’s memoir.

Lorelei’s crisis was meant to shock viewers into continuing to watch to see if their loveable, strong mom recovered from pretty much ripping at the seams.

But an argument with every other major character was just too much drama, and not characteristic of the Lorelei fans learned to love in “Gilmore Girls”.

Instead of being so shocked that I couldn’t stop watching, I became too shocked to the point where all I wanted to do was turn off my computer. Lorelei and Rory always seemed real to me. Like many other fans, I identified with their coffee addictions and friend troubles. The seemingly never-ending drama with Lorelei came across to me as simply too fake.

Sadly, this drama only continued to the end of the series.

  The series ends with gut-wrenching words. The final scene shows Lorelei and Rory sitting on their porch, conversing. Rory tells Lorelei she has something to tell her, and the series ends with the four words that Sherman Palladino had wanted to end the original series with.

In writing the series, those words probably seemed delightfully full-circle. add drama to what should be a merely satisfying ending, it exhausts the viewer instead of appeasing her.

Though some fans may wonder in joy about what comes next and long for a sequel, those words exhausted me. All I could think about was, “Oh god, this again.”

All in all, I was happy to delve again into the lives of Rory and Lorelei. But the series went too far in their quest to satisfy fans. Looking back, I would have been happier if I hadn’t watched the sequel.