The symbiotic relationship between young, hip mom Lorelai and her preternaturally mature teenage daughter Rory is one of the big reasons I love watching Gilmore Girls. In the mornings they breakfast together at Luke’s Diner, where they gorge on huge meals like blueberry pancakes with bacon and eggs, sip oversized cups of coffee, and yak in fast-clipped language riddled with pop culture references. In the evenings there’s take-out food in front of the TV and more yakking. In between, there’s as little housework as humanly possible. Week after week, it’s just the two of them enjoying the quirky charms of small-town life.

Perhaps I’m flattering myself, but I like to think my daughter and I share a similar bond. Okay, maybe I was well past high school when I gave birth to her, but I can still be marginally hip, right? I have a blog. I work out listening to an iPod. I allowed her to go on the pill at seventeen even though I would’ve preferred to lock her up in a chastity belt.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the show has been the chance to see Rory grow from an innocent fourteen-year-old virgin to a sophisticated, sexually active twenty-one-year-old woman. And it’s always intriguing to see how Lorelai, the coolest of moms, handles the inevitable complications. Lorelai’s relationship with her own mother is fraught with conflict. Pregnant at sixteen, she left home and raised Rory on her own. Lorelai needed distance from her parents’ uptight, ostentatious lifestyle  …