"Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life" comes to Netflix on November 25. The meantime, I thought I should post the original show's unaired pilot, filmed in early 2000. This pilot never aired. A few actors were changed, the pilot was shot again and that's the one we all know. Enjoy!
cand ma plictisesc de stat degeaba, scriu pe blog.
I love the Gilmore Girls?!
I know, right?!
Why isn’t any of this in English??? Yes I love love love the show!!!
i think that this first Suki is better then the one they went with.
Myke are you kidding???!!!! She was awful!!!
Ashleigh, this blog is mostly in Romanian cos I'm Romanian and my audience is here. I sometimes write in English, but it's not like I have an international audience.
Myke, I totally agree with Janet. Nobody is better than Melissa McCarthy to play Sookie St. James!
How did you get a hold of this?
@Max, I found it online about 10 years ago or more. By then, the series had ended and the fans were putting out different things they had in storage.
So funny that searching for this unaired pilot, I find it on a page of a fellow Aerosmith super fan. LOL. My two major obsessions in my life are Aerosmith and Gilmore Girls.
Yep, you got me
I'm a big Aerosmith fan and also a Gilmore Girls fan. Weird for a guy - so I was told 
Nice to meet you, Carol!
Alex
Sookie wzs played by the same person tbat played Drella, and lager tbe real estate agent in Day in the Life.
Yep, you're right, Penny!
In this original pilot, Sookie is played by Alex Borstein, who actually has another role in Gilmore Girls later on down the road (as Drella, the harp player). At the time this was filmed, Borstein was also part of MadTV, and couldn’t get out of her contract. So, she was replaced by Melissa McCarthy.
Loose the "the". Just... Gilmore Girls ❤️😍💕
This was amazing!! I shared your site with a couple friends who are also diehard GG fans and they loved it!! <3 And I agree with Janet, Melissa McCarthy was a much better Sookie than Borsein. She was so much more animated. When she acted out how she got the rip in the back of her coat when Lorelei took her Gran to the Inn was hilarious!!
Thanks, Michele, for spreading the word about the blog
Melissa McCarthy was hilarious so many times!
Have you got any more Gilmore girls things , sorry I can’t read Romanian
Donna, you look like a big fan of the Gilmore Girls series. I've written about the show in Romanian, but there's not many hidden gems like this unaired pilot. There are some other posts about shooting locations and stuff like that.
But if you live in the US, you should deffinitely visit the Warner Bros studios where the show was filmed:
https://www.wbstudiotour.com/news/gilmore-girls-holiday/
I wanna go there one day...
Different Dean?
Yeah! Different many things!
Uau, am gasit asta intr-un thread pe reddit si nu pot sa cred ca e pe un blog romanesc! Esti super:D
Mersi frumos, Cristina. Ma bucur cand sa intalnesc (virtual) si alti fani ai serialului
Thank you for posting this.....mulțumesc!!!! This is so awesome that you have this. I am a Gilmore Girls super fan who happens to be married to a Moldovan. Small world!
Cu placere, Tara! (you're welcome). It's a small world, indeed!
Oh, dear, I'm so glad they redid it :D. I mean, everyone seemed to have better chemistry in the other pilot and some of the punchlines and scene were really well redone, for example Sookie's chaos in the kitchen before Lorelai comes with the news of Chilton, and the scene when they tell Rory, sooo much better in the second one. But there is still charm in this one
Alex Borstein also played "Miss Celine" the fashion maven in GG's.
Rory also sounds less like herself in this pilot, her voice is usually a bit higher and more peppy- here she seems more monotonous. I'm glad Alexis changed this for the rest of the show.
They probably analyzed every second of this pilot and fixed all holes. That's why I love Amy Sherman-Palladino
Thanks!!! This is gold! Im gonna spread your blog like a chantry sister . <3
Much obliged, sir!
Hey you guys, does anybody know what's the book Rory's reading when she argues with Lorelay in bed?
Looks like a dummy book, to be honest.
I don’t get why everyone gets so hung up on original Sookie I think original Dean was the worst part of this
Different house also and different into. Town looked slightly different. Felt like a 80s/90s show. Most characters were same only a few different
Lizabeth, take into consideration that this version is "shown as it was shot" - no post-production, color grading or any other editing that is usually done.
They took the right decision not to air this one! Gilmore girls was all about that vibe we feel when we watch the show and this episode, it barely has that vibe. And Suki and Dean, it’s great that they changed the actors. And the background music, theme, products designing etc. hats off for the producers for coming up with a whole new series even after finishing this episode.
My sentiments exactly, Dulaj Dee!
woah! i don’t like sookie or dean in this. it’s weird!
So happy to find this pilot show! And I am also an Aerosmith superfan, Steven Tyler stepped on my finger one time, it was so amazing.
Jacqueline, huge Aerosmith fan myself, but I guess you know that by now. Where are you from?
And yeah, be sure never to lose that finger
Totally floored… fan for 20+ years as most of us were/still are to find gems - struck gold…
Much appreciated! Fascinating. Glad we got a replacement Sookie.
I didn't care for the first Sookie and Dean. Love the new ones. Plus Jared is a cutie
I just got back from a vacation in California where I did the Warner Bros Studio Tour. I was lucky enough to get a personal tour of Stars Hollow because our original guide forgot to take us by the gazebo. I told another guide this and he took us out on a golf cart to tour it and we got to go inside all of the houses used for the show. I am a Gilmore Girls super fan and it was amazing. I never thought to look up the original pilot until now. Thank you!! It’s so cool to see the differences.
D. Harris, I envy you so much
I live on the other side of the world and I'm happy to hear the GG tour is still going strong. Maybe someday I'll get to take a trip there myself!
Ashleigh is an awful name awfully written.. why don't you have a decent name?
you know, not everybody talks in english or is a content that needs to be in english. if you don't like it just search for a web translator, got it?
I don't prefer either Suki.. really dimwit characters. They force a lot of acting in this pilot, way more than in the aired one. Also, too much "I'm doing a lot of clumsy things and I didn't even noticed!!" kind of thing that is really ridiculous on suki's part.
and what about Lorelei sending her daughter to a private really expensive school?? Wasn't she against it for herself and yet she said that Rory gets to live what she couldn't? and what was up with the "I'm surprised that the tuition is really high!?? Wasn't there a reasonable angle to engage her parents to pay for Chilton instead of this unbelievable script?
Emily and Richard's actors are really well as always.. but I always thought that Emily plays too much of an harpy,...
Dean character not fitting really.. sorry about the actor that missed the opportunity of his life...
Music: I don't care for this music.. or the one from the original. I mean.. I'm binge watching in a marathon this tv show and I'm going crazy with the slow "la la la la la la laaaa la la laaaaa" and the speedy "la la la lalalalalal lalala"
Elisa, don't be mean to Ashleigh
But I get your point and you're right.
Gilmore Girls doesn't make sense at all times, just like you pointed out. But that's why it's fun, because it's a fantasy world where rules don't apply that much. It's a place where most of us would like to live. Unfortunately, we're stuck in our world, with Covid, wars, famine, inequality... And we watch Gilmore Girls and we feel better for an hour or two.
Personally, I like the music. I binge-watched the DVDs about 15 years ago and the music wasn't annoying for me. It's 'happy carefree' music, just like the show
Love this! Thanks for sharing!
the 'drop the "the", just gilmore girls' said in the year in the life has so much more meaning now!
omg I'm so glad to have the better people in the better pilot
Thank you for sharing this unaired episode! I just watch this unaired episode and the aired pilot on Netflix side by side on my laptop. There many scences from this unaired pilot that were reused.
Alex Borstein had to drop out of Gilmore Girls because she was was on MADtv and Fox television refused to let Alex be on the Gilmore Girls. Interesting Alex's real life husband is Jackson Douglas, played Jackson Belleville, Sookie St. James husband on the Gilmore Girls. Alex admits that is would have been a bit strange to play husband and wife on the show. Thank you again for letting us go down memory lane!
Nancy, thanks for the info, it was cool to learn that!
gilmore girls for life i love it funniest drama show ever XD ! <3 love it!
Wow! Just seeing the unaired pilot has me going back down a GG hole lol. Now I’ll be re watching again the entire show! So glad the actors for Suki and Dean were changed. They had much better chemistry than the original characters did. And the music and quality was much better in the shown GG. But amazing to watch a “new” episode of GG after all this time haha. Thank you for sharing this! Truly a special gift to us GG fans ! Much love to all my fellow fans !
Some of this other town setting were still in the aired episode. I do think they chose a lot better music for the final version.
A lot of the shots of Sookie look like they were just copied over too.
I think the biggest difference is Dean, I think the aired pilot does a better job of selling the cool new guy thing - especially with him saying that he watches her - that didn’t really happen in this old one. Plus, this Dean doesn’t seem too into Rory, making it make a lot less sense when she doesn’t want to go to chilton anymore. Thanks for posting
Maggie, I'm glad you enjoyed it and that this awesome series still has its fans after all these years. It's a feel-good show without violence, sex, guns or any woke stuff. A true gem.
I just found out that this exists!!! How have I never come across a reference to this is in ALL the years of Gilmore Girling??? I knew Alex was the original Sookie, but I didn't realize they did a whole pilot with her. Not a fan. And I had NO idea there was a different Dean. Jared is so much better! I love the tweaks to the writing that were made: Dean's first interactions with Rory, the added Scene with Sookie while Rory tried on her skirt and Lorelai pinning it. Both of those really play into Rory's dilemma about going to Chilton. The opening song is so strange to hear while watching that familiar first introduction to Lorelai and the town. I do love how some of the scenes seem to be completely unchanged. Now, I want to watch what did air to see all the little things. The facial expressions, the changes in voices, the mannerisms. Thank you for preserving this for all these years!!