Lauren Graham Has A ‘Gilmore Girls’ Spinoff Idea That’s Actually Pretty Good

“Gilmore Girls” fans may finally learn the source of Kirk’s night terrors.

Just kidding! But we’d watch that as well.

Lauren Graham told E! News in an article published Sunday that she has an idea for a spinoff for her former ― but still incredibly popular ― WB series that could potentially work.

“You could do the high school Lorelai,” Graham said, suggesting a prequel centered around her character, Lorelai Gilmore.

Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham as Rory and Lorelai Gilmore in a promo shot for “Gilmore Girls” in 2000.

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“We’re talking about this as if it’s like ‘The Hobbit’ or something, which I’m not sure it is,” Graham continued. “But I think the way other universes have dealt with that question is just going back or forward.”

Lorelai’s backstory is certainly appealing. Lorelai, a rebellious and free-spirited teenager, had a baby at age 16 with her boyfriend, Christopher (David Sutcliffe). Instead of succumbing to a stuffy upper-class life in Hartford, Connecticut, with her two rigid parents — and feeling forced to marry Christopher — Lorelai opts to flee with her child in tow.

She ends up in the quirky small town of Stars Hollow, and gets a job as maid at a local inn in which she lives in a small shed on the premises. By the time “Gilmore Girls” begins, she’s a 32-year-old single mother raising her daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel), who is 16. Lorelai is now the manager of the inn she began working for, but has a fractured relationship with both of her parents and the father of her child.

Although the idea of a Lorelai prequel is intriguing, it could also be a logistical nightmare. “Gilmore Girls” wrapped in 2007, but the show is still extremely popular thanks to streamers. In 2023, Netflix found that “Gilmore Girls” was more popular than other hits on its platform like “Seinfeld” and “Stranger Things,” — and the research firm Nielsen data showed that it was among the top 10 most-watched shows across the major streaming platforms in 2023.

The cast of "Gilmore Girls" poses for a photo in Stars Hollow’s gazebo in 2000.

via Getty Images

Thanks to its enduring popularity, fans would likely have very high expectations for whomever portrays the young — and incredibly fast-talking — Lorelai.

Graham also told E! News that casting the quirky townspeople of Stars Hollow may also be tricky.

“Then you have the problem of you got to cast young Babette and younger Miss Patty, so I don’t know,” she said.

Recasting these memorable characters would certainly be difficult, but essential. There’s no “Gilmore Girls” without townspeople like Babette (Sally Struthers), Miss Patty (Liz Torres), Kirk (Sean Gunn) or Taylor Doose (Michael Winters). Scott Patterson (who played Lorelai’s love interest, Luke) made this point while speaking to E! News alongside Graham.

“I brought this up to Peter Roth [Warner Bros] once advocating for my own spinoff, and he told me something steeped in TV history wisdom,” Patterson explained. “He said, ‘Scott, people would miss the other characters so much, because the show is so chock full of rich, wonderful characters.’”