The verdict is in: Gilmore Girls officially an autumn show, data confirms

That sound you're hearing outside isn't just the leaves rustling in the wind or acorns crunching under your boots. It's the sound of the la la la la's intensifying as millions of Gilmore Girls fans open Netflix and fire up their millionth annual rewatch. Once the calendar turn to September, you can count on all of us fans to make our yearly pitstop in Stars Hollow.

For years, it's been something of a joke or a trend or really a cultural phenomenon that Gilmore Girls is a "fall show." There's something inherently autumnal about The WB/CW series, and that likely has everything to do with Lorelai and Rory's quaint and quirky small hometown of Stars Hollow, Connecticut looking like ever the picture-perfect pumpkin spice locale.

However, The Hollywood Reporter crunched the numbers and ran the data to get to the bottom of the annual push of Gilmore-centric content. The outlet reports that figures confirm Gilmore Girls receives its highest percentage of viewership in the fall months each year. So, it's not just a joke or a trend. It's a science (and a religion and a lifestyle, to quote the Gilmore girls themselves).

Gilmore Girls rewatches spike during fall months

As The Hollywood Reporter explains, Nielsen began measuring and releasing weekly top 10 lists for streaming series in the United States back in 2021. Since then, data supports Gilmore Girls seeing noticeable spikes in viewership between September and December. Out of 65 weeks in the top 10 across 2022 and 2023, for almost half of those weeks, the show charted in the fall months.

This year, THR says the series made Nielsen's top 10 list only six times so far, but five of those six chart placements occurred between September and October. Likewise with the show's increased chart appearances in the fall, the show's watch time goes up by about 16% in the fourth quarter of the year wherein it frequently records its strongest week of viewership.

Isn't that something?! It's pretty rare for a show to see that kind of seasonal trending the way movies do every year. Halloween movies and Christmas movies obviously become more popular during their respective times of the year, and maybe Star Wars content gets a bump on May 4th, too. But for a single show to have a similar sustained impact as those kinds of seasonal fare is impressive.

For The Hollywood Reporter's story, the publication caught up with Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino to comment on the show being "fall-coded" and its continued success almost 25 years after its 2000 premiere. She told the outlet that after The WB bought the show, she and husband Daniel Palladino visited Connecticut in the fall to experience a real Stars Hollow aesthetic.

Autumnal qualities are just baked into the show's DNA like deliciousness in one of Sookie's meals. The leaves, the walkable town, the traditions, the cozy color pallette... It's all part of the Gilmore essence that makes us want to flick on our favorite show fall after fall. Sherman-Palladino remains surprised but proud that the show has managed to still connect with new audiences:

"It's wonderful. I swear the show is bigger now than it was at any peak of when it was on the air, and it's just so strange to me. When we started this show, kids were not walking around with cell phones. There was no social media. I think they had pagers, like they were all drug dealers in The Wire. So kids [now] that are so into social media and being on their phones, it's always interesting to me that they can relate to a show that's such a foreign time to them, and yet there's something in it that they can connect to. I think that's amazing."

Amy Sherman-Palladino, creator

Speaking as a Gilmore Girls fan since its run on The WB, we all crave a time and place that's simpler and comfortable. That feeling and the world Sherman-Palladino created is universal and timeless. When it comes to television comfort food, it doesn't get much more comforting than taking a walk through Stars Hollow with Lorelai and Rory on a crisp fall day.

Watch Gilmore Girls and A Year in the Life on Netflix.