‘Gilmore Girls’ Fall Is Sacred and Scientifically Proven

I first watched Gilmore Girls in the fall of 2014 after I dropped out of college. I was 18, and I only lasted a few days at the school I chose to go to because my then-best friend was going there, and because they let me in despite my bad test scores, before I called my mommy and begged her to come pick me up and take me home, like a 10-year-old at a sleepover. I spent my unplanned gap year nannying, feeling sorry for myself, and watching Gilmore Girls. It became for me what it is for so many other people: the comfort show that I turn to each year for nostalgia and warm fuzzies. And always in the autumn.

We watch Gilmore Girls in the fall because it’s quaint and slightly sepia-toned. Lorelei is always wearing turtleneck sweaters and chicly cut leather jackets; Luke is always wearing a flannel. The sleepy streets of Stars Hollow are always lined with fallen leaves or the faintest dusting of the first snow. So much of the show takes place indoors: in dimly lit diners, on comfy living room couches, in mahogany-wooded dining rooms full of candlelight, and in the hallowed halls of private schools. Gilmore Girls is a dramedy, but it’s also a romance, and one full of longing. Two generations of mothers and daughters are struggling every day to reconcile their sense of self with their love for each other. There’s a constant sense of time passing too quickly; of good things coming to an end. It’s every character’s bildungsroman, and they’re coming of age under the weight of school books and familial expectations—if that isn’t autumnal, I don’t know what is.

Turns out, fall being the time of Gilmore Girls is scientifically backed. The show has seen a “significant boost in viewing every autumn since 2021, when Nielsen began issuing weekly top 10 lists of original and acquired streaming shows in the United States” and “In 2022 and ‘23, the series made the top 10 streaming charts for a total of 65 and 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.” (Hollywood Reporter)

“It’s interesting about the fall, but I’m not totally surprised, because if people latched onto it because it was comfort food and it was comfortable, it makes sense…it really fulfills that promise and what people are turning to it for,” says show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. “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.”

It’s fall again now, and I’m living in a little town a lot like Stars Hollow. There’s a village green with a gazebo, plenty of coffee shops and diners I can walk to, and even a private university with historic buildings and students crossing the quad. I have friends around the corner who I can share a bottle of wine with, the library is steps away from my front door, and sometimes my boyfriend comes over to cook for me. I just moved here, after another dropout moment last year shook my life up and forced a change. Last fall, when I was still picking up the pieces, I didn’t watch Gilmore Girls. This year, I think I will.