‘Ginny & Georgia’ review: Gilmore Girls, Dialed Up to 11

At first glance, Netflix Ginny and Georgia it looks like it was created by a streaming service algorithm. The story of a single mother (Brianne Howey’s Georgia) and the precocious teenage daughter (Antonia Gentry’s Ginny) that she had when she was a teenager, not only mimics the central premise of Gilmore Girls, but the picturesque location of that show in New England, its alliterative double G title, and even the idea that our heroines spend a lot of time in a local restaurant whose bearded, rude owner prefers plaid shirts. It’s as if the show’s real flesh-and-blood creator Sarah Lampert is tasked with making sure Netflix users Gilmore episodes had something satisfying to recur when the recommendation engine pointed them in a new direction.

Lampert (in his first credited work for TV or screenwriter) does not exactly escape comparisons. The first argument of the title characters is, like so many between Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, about ephemeral pop culture – in this case, whether Vanessa Hudgens or Stockard Channing is Rizzo’s superior Grease – and soon after, Georgia literally says: “We are like the Gilmore Girls, but with bigger breasts”.

As cynical as the program’s origins may or may not have been – in the press releases, Lampert talks about growing up watching programs like Gilmore Girls and Buffy, but also says he was inspired by his own adolescence and family relationships – Ginny and Georgia it’s more interesting when viewed through the lens of how much television has changed in the 21 years since Gilmore Girls debuted. The new program, ultimately, has its own charm, while suggesting what shape its predecessor would have to take if it were done today, and for a particular streamer

. Technically, we already have an example of a Gilmore Girls– original product made for streamer: Netflix 2016 miniseries

Gilmore Girls: a year in life . But it is better not to insist on this reunion, and how we would all have improved never to see what Rory Gilmore was like as an adult.

Gilmore Girls it was a cozy comforter in a series where the appeal was less about the stories than the pleasant rhythms of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s playful dialogue (and the way actors like Lauren Graham and Kelly Bishop told it) and the chance to pass time in the company of so many adorable and quirky characters. Few things have happened in many episodes – the biggest source of conflict was usually about a rude word spoken at a family dinner or an obscure ordinance raised at a town hall meeting – and relationships (both platonic and romantic) gradually built up over each season or sometimes over multiple seasons. As a show that produces 22 episodes per season in a much less crowded viewing environment, Gilmore Girls he could afford to wander. Ginny and Georgiahas only 10 episodes to play in its first season (standard length of Netflix in recent years) and has to fight for the attention of viewers who have an almost unlimited choice of programs, present and past. Therefore, it moves faster and is more loaded with characters, incidents and flashes. If Lampert and his collaborators (including showrunner Debra J. Fisher) wanted to lean more toward comparisons, they could have sold the show as: “What if

Gilmore Girls

, but is Lorelai a ruthless swindler? “This is essentially who Lorelai was, but as she explores Georgia’s dark past (in flashbacks of her adolescence, she is played by Nikki Roumel), the new series is more open and dramatic about it, weaving in a variety of mysteries and threats that look more like a Shonda Rhimes show than Sherman-Palladino.While Georgia, Ginny and Ginny’s sweet half-brother, Austin (Diesel La Torraca) arrive in their new city – “It looks like Paul Revere has boned a pumpkin latte,” jokes Ginny – the series spends little time flooding the area with characters, love triangles, blackmail and other forms of intrigue. Ginny is almost instantly attracted to the group of friends of neighbor Max (Sara Waisglass) and a potential romance with passionate classmate Hunter (Mason Temple), while fighting the attraction to Max’s twin brother Marcus (Felix Mallard) . Georgia quickly manages to win over the city’s bold mayor, Paul (Scott Porter *), while also flirting with restaurant owner Joe (Raymond Ablack). There are legal battles, a dubious private investigator and a surprisingly heated local election, in addition to everything Ginny is dealing with at school. Almost as fourth wall breaking as the “ Gilmore Girls

, but with bigger breasts ”, is when Georgia paraphrases the phrase“ Clear eyes, full hearts ”of

Friday Night Lights while she is dating ex-Dillon Panthers quarterback Jason Street.With all this, the show is biting off more than it can chew, and a lot of it – especially anything romantic – ends up looking rushed. This is arguably an improvement over the period when each Netflix show treated its first season as a really long pilot, where almost nothing happens, but there may be a middle ground between the two. The series also leans heavily towards problem-oriented narrative in a way that would have seemed totally foreign to the picturesque, low-risk world Gilmore Girls . There are stories about self-harm, alcohol and drug use, and very, very teenage sex. None of this is in the Euphoria

level – although someone finds an alternative use for an electric toothbrush that would certainly give Rory Gilmore the vapors to even think about it – but it may seem

Ginny and Georgia is trying too hard. However, it is in the most current material that the series is strongest. While Georgia calls itself just a caricature of a southern beauty – “She loves Vivien Leigh”, Ginny suggests, “because her whole life has been making a dress with curtains” – Ginny’s often absent father, Zion (Nathan Mitchell) it’s black. The series does a good job of portraying the big and small indignities that Ginny suffers from never fitting in anywhere, and there is a fantastic scene at the end of the season where she and half-Taiwanese Hunter argue over who is the biracial status it causes more suffering. (By the way, although the series as a whole is overpopulated, she finds empathy where she can put almost all characters, even an apparent cartoon villain like Cynthia from Sabrina Grdevich, a local queen bee who doesn’t approve of Georgia’s suddenly become the center of attention.)

No matter how ridiculous or busy the narrative may be, Howey and Gentry are both attractive and versatile performers, even when some of the story’s choices begin to suggest that Ginny is not kidding when she calls her mother a psychopath. Some of the supporting players, such as Waisglass and Ablack, are able to stand out and draw the attention of the crowded squad. The show calms down a little at the end of the season and can be watched – if, like a good Gilmore, overcaffeinated – all the time. There is also an area where Ginny and Georgia has a clear advantage over his predecessor: he understands from the beginning that it is not particularly healthy to have a mother who wants to be your best friend and is reluctant to grow up entirely alone. Netflix has made programs before that seemed at least partially designed to attract fans of a purchased library title – trying to funnelBreaking Bad viewers, for example, to check similar themes Ozark . The attempt has never been more transparent than here. Differences in narrative style and tone between Gilmore Girls

and Ginny and Georgia they are impressive enough that the attempt to feed the algorithmic beast could backfire. But for those who don’t care about their scoops of small-town drama mixed in a much juicier stew, this new series can satisfy just as much as the previous one.