New fans and old will tune in for 'Gilmore Girls' Netflix revival

When new episodes of 'Gilmore Girls' debut on Netflix next month, fans from its original 2000s run will join new viewers who have discovered it on Netflix or DVD.

As the release of new episodes of the acclaimed early 2000s show “Gilmore Girls” approaches, producers have unveiled a new trailer, to the delight of new and old fans.

“Gilmore Girls” aired from 2000 to 2007 on first the WB and then the CW. The show stars Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel as a mother and daughter living in a small town in Connecticut, and featured the then-little-known Melissa McCarthy as a family friend. 

Netflix, which had previously acquired the show for streaming, announced earlier this year that they would produce new episodes of the show. Many original cast members, including Ms. Graham, Ms. Bledel, and Ms. McCarthy, are returning, as is the show’s creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino. 

The revival will, at least for now, consist of four extra-long episodes. All will debut on Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving.

It’s natural that fans of the series who watched it when it originally aired would be excited for the upcoming episodes. But it also seems that the series has picked up even more fans in the years after it ended, between syndication, DVD sales, and streaming. 

Netflix acquired the original seven seasons of the show in 2014. (While the company doesn’t usually release viewership numbers, one can infer that enough people watched the show to give Netflix confidence in greenlighting new installments.) Briana Stafford told the Hartford Courant earlier this month that she had just recently become invested in the show, having caught up on every season this past summer. She loved the show enough to attend a Gilmore Girls Fan Fest in Washington Depot, Conn., the town that inspired the fictional Stars Hollow.

Daniel Palladino, an executive producer on the show, said during a panel at the 2015 ATX Television Festival that “the series has found a new, younger audience, especially since last fall, when the show start[ed] streaming on Netflix,” writes Washington Post reporter Emily Yahr. 

“It was definitely an explosion” of people watching following the Netflix debut, Mr. Palladino said.