Gilmore Girls more popular in fall, says research

We’re deep into fall — have you started watching Gilmore Girls yet? The mother-daughter dramedy starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel is a seasonal touchstone for many, according to viewing data.

Gilmore Girls started streaming worldwide on Netflix in 2016. And since 2021, when Nielsen started releasing weekly ratings for original and acquired shows on streaming platforms, it’s been getting an autumnal boost. The show originally aired seven seasons, from 2000 to 2007, on The WB and later The CW.

Gilmore Girls landed in the top 10 acquired shows on Nielsen’s year-end streaming roundups from 2021 to 2023, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “In 2022 and ‘23, the series made the top 10 streaming charts for a total of 65 of 104 weeks — and across both years, nearly half of the show’s chart appearances (31 in all) came between the start of September and the end of the calendar year,” says the publication.

It notes that Gilmore Girls isn’t a fall-themed show, per se, but it’s the only streaming title among non-holiday fare that regularly rises in popularity each year.

Series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino says she isn’t surprised about the seasonal bump, partly because Gilmore Girls became comfort viewing for many during its original run — and fall is the season of cosy. But there may be another unintentional link to the season. Sherman-Palladino and her husband, Dan Palladino, visited Connecticut in autumn shortly after she sold Gilmore Girls to The WB.

“We encountered that small-town feel, that feel of hayrides and pumpkin patches and hot apple cider,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “It almost felt ridiculous — the jaded woman that I am, I was like ‘This is like central casting laid this out for us. People don’t live like this.’ But they do in some places, and that creatively fed me the rest of the show. Most of the show is about Lorelai (played by Graham) creating this world that she and her daughter (played by Bledel) can both grow up in together.”

She added: “It’s the most drastic change, from summer to fall. It’s temperature, but it’s also visual, and it felt like this was the kind of place, if I was going to go through that journey, that’s where I would set it. And when we shot the pilot, it was fall and it was cold and had that feeling, so it just sort of became our thing.”