Category Archives: The CW

May 8, 2007 · 8:10 pm

The Penultimate ‘Gilmore Girls’ – “Unto the Breach”

Well, last week came the tragic word that Gilmore Girls will be ending after this current season, which means that these final two episodes were filmed without knowing that it was the series finale. What does this mean? Well, it means that they won’t give us all the resolution we’re looking for.

However, I figure that these episodes are nonetheless important ones, so here at Cultural Learnings we’re going to recap both, and provide some coverage leading up to the finale next week. So, stay tuned for all of that.

In the meantime, “Unto the Breach” is the second last episode of Gilmore Girls ever. To find out how things went down after last week’s Karaoke Serenade, continue on. And read why, in the end, things appear to be heading towards a satisfying end, regardless of the premature nature of the proceedings. Also, learn who Milan Kundera is. Because I sure as heck didn’t know.

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The End of Gilmore Girls: Series Finale May 15th

EDIT: Well, the show has come to a close: tonight, May 15th, Gilmore Girls ended. For a full review of the kind of great finale, click on the link – “Reviewing the Series Finale…”

I’ve been holding out some hope in recent weeks that things were looking bright of the future of The CW’s Gilmore Girls. It was finally heading back towards its main story threads, Luke and Lorelai appeared to be back on track, and by all accounts the show was in much better shape. While there were rumours of this being the show’s last season, there was also talk of a shortened 13-episode season to close out the show’s storylines in a meaningful fashion. I, personally, took to calling this the show’s epilogue. And yet, with today’s news that Gilmore Girls has been cancelled, the show will be having its series finale on May 15^th. And to be honest, I’m kind of pissed about it.

There are some good notes to this story: this is one more slot The CW needs to fill, and therefore one more slot which a revamped Veronica Mars could find itself in. However, that’s a bit of a stretch of a bright side, I’d say, considering that I’m oddly more concerned about Gilmore Girls. While I enjoy Veronica Mars, I feel more emotionally attached to the world Amy Sherman-Palladino created and abandoned at the end of last season.

I had resigned myself to the possibility of cancellation at the beginning of the season, which was admittedly a rough one. New producer David S. Rosenthal had a pretty huge mess to clean up with Christopher re-entering the picture, and it was…well, an exercise in futility of sorts. The show really didn’t get back on track until Chris was out of the picture, and this was only recently. In recent weeks it has been building up to Luke and Lorelai reuniting (Often with an incredibly obvious swing of the metaphor hammer, or the use of Dolly Parton songs), and Logan is asking to propose to Rory. Rosenthal built a season that, as it concludes, could have ended the show when we came to this point.

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Filed under Gilmore Girls, Television, The CW, Veronica Mars

May 1, 2007 · 8:56 am

The Return of ‘Veronica Mars’

As Veronica Mars returns to The CW tonight for what is likely to be its final five episodes (Spread over three weeks with a 2-hour finale on the 22^nd), I can’t help but be a little bit nostalgic. After all, Veronica Mars was one of the shows that I was a bit late to, catching up after the 5^th episode. Even watching the opening episodes out of order, I couldn’t help but become entangled within a fascinating character study and an overarching mystery story. Perhaps it is fitting that I watched it out of order, then, considering that this final set of episodes will be the first without an overall narrative leading them.

With the mystery of Dean O’Dell’s murder solved, we find ourselves at a loss: what drives Veronica forward in the absence of this mystery? She went from Lily’s death in the first season to the bus crash in the next, and then had little to no time to react before entering the rape storyline, which moved quickly into Dean O’Dell’s apparent suicide. The show has always been operating in this serialized fashion, although featuring various sideplots at the same time, and the loss of that could be seen as a loss of part of the show’s identity.

However, we need to consider just what that identity is. If this was a show purely about mystery, about a serial plot to go along with each season, we never would have gotten three seasons. It is the characters that drive Veronica Mars forward, in the end, which is why I believe that this five-episode experiment of sorts should prove enjoyable for fans of the series. Now, the show will have a chance to have its characters act and interact without worrying about connecting them to a core mystery. The mysteries of the week can be organized without worrying about the bus crash, or Lily’s death, but about who these characters are and where they should be headed dramatically.

So, in the spirit of these new character-based episodes, let’s take a little time to run down where the characters stood before this very long hiatus:

Veronica: Well, things were somewhat complicated for Veronica. She finished solving the Dean’s murder case, and felt pretty good about it, but personally she’s somewhat conflicted. She and Logan seem to be broken up for good at this point, which is clearly on her mind, and yet she’s really moving forward with a relatively clean slate. How long it stays that uncomplicated, of course, we’ll have to see.

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Filed under Television, The CW, Veronica Mars