The big TV news this week is the return of “Gilmore Girls’’ after nine years and endless pining by diehard fans. On Friday, four new 90-minute episodes will arrive on Netflix, ready to be consumed by stuffing-stuffed viewers still in recovery from tryptophan poisoning. Original show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, who’d left the production before the series’ last season, will be onboard.
Will “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life,’’ be any good? Will it be pure nostalgia, or pure marketing genius, with Netflix having mined its data bank to determine that the return would be popular with subscribers?
Returns are tricky. The return of “Arrested Development’’ for a fourth season on Netflix was thoroughly mediocre, and it weakened the show’s reputation. (Naturally, a fifth is coming.) Now, you have to qualify praise of the comedy by saying that it is “mostly great,’’ or “great until season four.’’ The new episodes of “24’’ and “Heroes’’ were tired, just as both shows had been when they were first canceled. Neither series justified its return with fresh material. And this year’s new episodes of “The X-Files’’ were uneven and, alas, unnecessary.
But then, wait: “The Comeback.’’ The revival of Lisa Kudrow’s HBO cringe classic gives me hope for the new “Gilmore Girls,’’ and even for “Twin Peaks,’’ which is due on Showtime at some point next year.
When news broke that “The Comeback’’ would return in 2014, nine years after its original run, I was anxious. It would no longer be, along with “Freaks and Geeks,’’ one of the best one-season wonders ever on TV. A second season could never reach the heights of the first.
Yahoo! I was wrong! The new season was truly fine, as washed-up sitcom actress Valerie Cherish got back into the orbit of her nemesis Paulie G. in a meta-plot that was clever and even moving. Tonally, the show didn’t miss a beat, and Kudrow was as painful and lovable as ever.
More “Gilmore Girls’’ episodes? Bring ’em on and we’ll see.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.
