Gilmore Girls' Four New Episodes Won't Be Enough for Fans, but They're Exactly What We Need

Since the show's original seven-season run popped up on Netflix in October 2014, it has attracted more soon-to-be-overly-caffeinated young women to its cause through a simple central premise involving a mother and daughter who are also best friends.

Gilmore Girls debuted at the height of The WB alongside other iconic and influential pop culture programs that Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) likely would have referenced (and probably have), including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson's Creek and Felicity.

[...] by the time the show's then-series finale aired in May 2007, the so-called Golden Age of TV was already moving on to a darker, more complex era that would be dominated by the morally bankrupt stories of male antiheroes.

[...] Netflix's four new episodes are coming at just the right time to act as a happy reprieve from the tumultuous political landscape of the real world that is currently filling the airwaves and the Internet with horrifying examples of hate and vitriol.

The series has always been the singular vision of one wild and amazing woman, and when the Palladinos departed the series amid contract disputes following Season 6, that vision slowly faltered without the woman who created it and nurtured it into the pop culture obsession it eventually became.

Stepping back onto the familiar streets of Stars Hollow, with its never-ending festivals, colorful townspeople and old-fashioned diners (with or without wi-fi), is a comforting reminder of a simpler and happier life.

In the opening moments of "Winter," the first chapter of this new era, Sherman-Palladino's voice and signature rapid-fire dialogue is back with renewed energy.

In the interest of keeping this a spoiler-free review -- not just because our Netflix overlords demand it but because I don't dare take away an ounce of future joy from my fellow fans -- it's safe to say that Lorelai is still the same woman we all wished had been o