This is Part 2 of a series analyzing the Gilmore Girls pilot for lessons writers can use in their work. We have this script, along with 15000 others, in the Screenwriters Network Script Hub, just one of many perks that comes with being a member, all of which is free. Read Part 1 on Teasers.
Story Engine
Gilmore Girls takes its time getting to the story engine of the show. Part of this is the care it takes in setting up its characters – not just our central duo of Lorelei and Rory, but also the world of Stars Hallow that surrounds them. We meet their friends, neighbors and coworkers, furthering the tone of the show and giving it a lived in feeling.
It’s tempting to see Rory going to Chilton, the private school she’s accepted to, as the main thrust of the show – Act 1 ends with the reveal that Rory has gotten in, and much of the pilot is concerned with logistics involved with ensuring Rory has a place at the school. It’s a classic disruption to the status quo – our main character dropped into a new world that will force change upon her. You can easily see the version of this show that’s just about Rory adapting to her new life amongst the elite and her struggles with fitting in/being true to herself.
But that’s not this show. Chilton is just an expression of the larger story engine. You can tell because Rory going to Chilton is not something that impacts Lorelei directly, who’s just as much if not more so the protagonist than Rory.
Not only that, but Chilton on its own runs the risk of not being a sustainable source of conflict. Eventually, Rory acclimates – by season 3 she’s elected as class VP and graduates as Valedictorian! Which points to the other problem – how could the show continue past season 3, when Rory graduates, if the only thing it had to go on was Chilton?
The final piece of evidence is that\ we don’t actually see Chilton in the pilot. Classically, you want your pilot to train the audience on what kind of show to expect. These are your characters, these are the kinds of obstacles they’ll face, and this is the journey they’ll go on in the process of overcoming these problems. The pilot is a sales document for the rest of the show, not just for readers and execs but for the audience too. If this show was just about Rory at Chilton, then that’s what we would see in the pilot.
By looking at what does actually happen in the pilot we can identify the story engine used by the show.
What is a Story Engine?
If your pilot is a sales document, then the story engine is the thing you’re selling. It’s the element that will reliably generate conflict and stories for the entirety of a show’s run. The franchise, as Craig Mazin describes it.
The easiest examples to identify of story engines are in sitcoms and procedurals, where the world of the show resets at the end of each episode. Parks and Rec revolves around Leslie Knope’s unbridled optimism up against the grind of bureaucracy (and the larger world). CSI is about solving crimes through clever uses of technology. House has interesting medical cases solved because and in spite of House’s genius and irascibility.
So what’s Gilmore Girl’s story engine, if not Chilton?
Friday Night Dinner
The big change to the world of the Gilmores that happens in the pilot is Lorelei’s agreement to participate in regular Friday night dinners with her parents, Emily and Richard, in exchange for the money to pay for Rory’s tuition. As the big showcase of the episode in Act 4, the dinner is where everything comes to a head and the frictions and relationship issues of these characters are laid bare.
This is the promise the show is making the audience. If you keep watching we’ll keep showing these two witty and verbose women encountering the upper class world they had long rejected. And it’s the story engine that we’ll keep coming back to through all seven seasons.
Chilton is a specific manifestation of this friction, as Rory circulates with her new peers during the day. But that friction is also repeated in both character’s love triangles – Luke vs. Max/Christopher/Digger, Dean/Jess/Marty vs. Tristan/Logan. The story engine is like a fractal pattern, cropping up in smaller and smaller repetitions from the macro to the micro of the series. It always comes back to which world do they belong in – the debutante balls or the Stars Hallow dance marathons? And that’s what we keep watching to find out.
The Story Engine’s Second Gear
Except that’s not all we’re watching for. Not only are the collisions of these two worlds a story engine for Gilmore Girls, but we also have Lorelei and Rory’s relationship. Like I discussed yesterday with the Teaser, a central theme for this show is the relationships between mothers and daughters. Stars Hollow vs. Chilton is one manifestation of this – Lorelai’s world coming up against her mother Emily’s.
But many of the highest points of the show, when it kicks it up a gear, is when we engage with the friction in Lorelei and Rory’s relationship. The parts where being best friends makes it tough to be mother and daughter. We see it here in the pilot – Lorelei and Rory struggling to decide on what’s best for Rory after she falls for a boy and doesn’t want to go to Chilton anymore – and it will crop up again at key points when everything is on the line for the show.
In the end, though, this doesn’t feel disconnected from the Friday night dinner because it all feeds back into that theme of mothers and daughters. Whether that means Emily and Lorelei, or Lorelei and Rory, or sometimes even Emily and Rory, it’s the guiding light that sets the course for the rest of the show.
Check back tomorrow for Part 3!