Amy Sherman-Palladino's Gilmore Girls might have ended its run on TV back in 2007, the show has remained a wildly popular part of the pop culture landscape. It's constantly being discovered by new audiences with a Netflix subscription, and re-watched by fans like myself. While we like to debate about Rory's boyfriends, Jess is largely the fan favorite. And a Gilmore Girls writer recently recalled failed plans to developed Milo Ventimiglia’s spinoff series.
Fans returned to Star's Hollow a few years ago with Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, which solved some mysterious but also started a huge one. Rory revealed she's pregnant, with fans left wondering who the father is. While we're left wondering if it's Jess, writer Stan Zimmerman spoke to People about trying to get his spinoff off the ground back in the day. He spoke to the backdoor pilot in Season 3 titled "Here Comes the Sun", and why Venice Beach became the setting. He offered:
We hung out there a lot. We'd go have crazy lunches. [Sherman-Palladino] loved Venice ... It's a very colorful part of L.A.
During this unique episode of Gilmore Girls, Jess travels to California to see his father. It's a big change in setting from Star's Hollow, and offered a storyline that never really panned out thanks to the spinoff not being green lit. And it sounds like, just like most of the show, that location came from the personal taste and POV of Amy Sherman-Palladino.
There are plenty of fans who would have tuned in for a Jess series, as we were left wondering what happened to him after he broke up with Rory and left Star's Hollow. Of course, he'd return for later seasons, as well as A Year In the Life. During the same conversation with People, Stan Zimmerman spoke more about how Venice juxtaposed the show's typical cozy Connecticut vibes. As he put it:
I think she really wanted that to be such a different vibe from the leaves falling in Stars Hollow to being out in Venice in California. It just never gelled into anything, but it was interesting to see Jess's life and what that would've been like.
Well, suddenly I've got some serious FOMO. While Milo Ventimiglia would go on to star in This is Us, there are some folks out there who will always see him as Jess Mariano. And while there's no indication that another season of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is happening at Netflix, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed. I need to know which of Rory's boyfriends is the father of her child! And yes, I'm #TeamJess.
Gilmore Girls and its spinoff are both streaming now on Netflix. Check the TV premiere list to plan your next binge watch.