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Love and Marriage (1996)
7.7/10on IMDb
First aired
Where it all started, and only for the truly devoted. Her first series as creator is a Fox family sitcom about a Manhattan couple, played by Anthony Denison (pictured in 2009) and Patricia Healy, raising three kids on opposite shifts: he runs a parking garage by day and she waits tables overnight, so they barely see each other.
Do not expect Stars Hollow. Fox canceled it in the fall of 1996 after only three of its nine episodes had aired, so this is a glimpse of the writer before she found her rhythm rather than a show to settle into.
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Gilmore Girls (2000)
8.2/10on IMDb
First aired
The blueprint for everything else here. Lorelai and Rory Gilmore trade jokes about movies, music and celebrities so quickly that scripts averaged 80 pages an episode, well past the usual length for an hour of TV, and the show's own tagline was "Life's short. Talk fast."
Seven seasons and 153 episodes give you a whole small town to live in, Stars Hollow, Connecticut, plus Friday dinners with Emily and Richard that are as sharp as anything in the coffee-shop banter. Know going in that the Palladinos left before season 7, which another showrunner ran, and many fans can feel the difference in the voice.
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The Return of Jezebel James (2008)
5.4/10on IMDb
First aired
The completist's curiosity. Parker Posey plays a successful children's book editor who cannot have children and asks her estranged younger sister, Lauren Ambrose, to carry her baby, and the two leads are a fine match for Sherman-Palladino's motor-mouth rhythms.
It is a short watch for a reason: Fox canceled it after three of its seven episodes had aired, and the remaining four were released on iTunes in May 2008. Watch it to hear her voice squeezed into a traditional sitcom format, not for a finished story.
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Bunheads (2012)
7.6/10on IMDb
First aired
The closest thing to more Gilmore Girls, and the one most fans missed. Sutton Foster plays Michelle, a Las Vegas showgirl who marries on impulse and ends up teaching at her mother-in-law's ballet school in a sleepy coastal town, and Kelly Bishop, Emily Gilmore herself, plays that mother-in-law.
Liza Weil and Rose Abdoo also turn up from Stars Hollow, and the dialogue chatters with the same pop-culture density. ABC Family canceled it after one season of 18 episodes, so it ends with threads left hanging, but Foster and Bishop sparring is worth every minute.
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Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life (2016)
7.4/10on IMDb
First aired
The ending the Palladinos never got to write in 2007. Set nine years after the original finale, this Netflix revival tells one year in four feature-length episodes named Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, each running 88 to 102 minutes, with the couple back as writers and directors.
It is gloriously indulgent: Stars Hollow: The Musical gets an extended showcase, and the town's oddballs get room to riff. Rory's aimless year is the weak spot, so come for Lorelai, Emily and the closing scene, and accept that the musical is a detour you either love or fast-forward.
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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017)
8.6/10on IMDb
First aired
The big-budget version of the voice, and the one that won Outstanding Comedy Series at the 2018 Emmys. Rachel Brosnahan's Midge is a 1958 Upper West Side housewife who turns to stand-up after her marriage ends, which makes talking fast her actual job.
Alex Borstein's Susie, from the Gaslight club, becomes her manager and the perfect deadpan foil, and the period sets and nightclubs look expensive in a way the earlier shows never could. It runs five seasons and 43 episodes, ending in 2023; the middle seasons wander, but the finale lands.
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Étoile (2025)
7.5/10on IMDb
First aired
The Palladinos' return to ballet, this time on two continents. Ballet companies in New York and Paris swap their star dancers to save themselves, with Luke Kirby, Maisel's Lenny Bruce, running the New York side opposite Charlotte Gainsbourg in Paris, and Lou de Laâge as the star dancer at the center of the swap.
It was shot in both cities and the dance sequences are lavish, while the backstage arguments come at full Palladino speed. Prime Video canceled it after one season of eight episodes despite an original two-season order, so treat it as a single gorgeous, slightly unfinished season.
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