Do we like them?

Do we like Lorelai Gilmore?

A character from Gilmore Girls (2000-2007, 2016)

Our score: 8 out of 10. Yes, we'd back her. She's funny, fiercely loyal and endlessly warm. She can be stubborn and avoids hard conversations, but her heart is always in the right place.

Lorelai left her wealthy, strict Hartford family as a pregnant teenager. Years later she is a single mother in the quirky town of Stars Hollow, working her way up at the Independence Inn. Her daughter Rory is a gifted student, and the two of them are close, with quick banter and a lot of coffee and junk food.

When Rory gets into an elite prep school, Lorelai has to ask her estranged parents for money. The deal is weekly dinners with them, which forces her to face the family and the upbringing she ran from. The show is mostly about that push and pull between independence and family.

Her score comes from her warmth, humour and devotion. Her flaws are real: she is proud, she sometimes treats her parents unfairly, and her love life is messy. Those flaws make her feel human, and critics have praised how the show portrays a single mother without reducing her to hardship or heroism.