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The scoop on ''Gilmore Girls'' | 154050__gilmoregirls_l
GRAHAM AND BLEDEL
GILMORE GIRLS Photograph by Justin Stephens

All About

Gilmore Girls

On a soundstage deep in Burbank, Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, clad in a Tinkerbell T-shirt — pretty tame for a woman known to sport a mountainous satin top hat to Hollywood parties — is paging through a newspaper when she stumbles upon an ad for the movie Bewitched. ''It would have been a train wreck, if anyone had sprung for the train,'' she deadpans, living up to her reputation as the fastest pop-culture mouth in the West. She turns and grins: ''I'm like your worst drunk aunt Mary directing a TV show, huh?''

Well, no. Our drunk aunt Mary wasn't lucid enough to write anything like Gilmore, a glorious hour about mothers and daughters and their lunatic asylum of a town. But credit the unique spaztastic energy of Sherman-Palladino (backed by her more organized, Rory-esque husband, Dan Palladino) for pulling the WB show out of a ratings slump, attracting 4.7 million viewers in its fifth year — its highest ratings since 2003. Want proof of her single-minded vision for the show? Ask the cast about the new season. ''Who knows?'' laughs Scott Patterson, a.k.a. Lorelai's soul mate Luke. ''They leave a script in the mailbox, and you run and tear it open and see where it goes. I'm as much a fan as anybody else.''

When non-cast-member fans last saw the Gilmores, Rory (Alexis Bledel) had dropped out of Yale, been arrested for boat-lifting, and moved in with grandparents Richard and Emily (Edward Herrmann and the delightfully nasty Kelly Bishop), breaking the heart of her mom, Lorelai (Lauren Graham). The only bright spot in the heart-wrenching final episodes: Lorelai's last-second proposal to Luke. So...what does he say?? ''He answers her proposal'' is all Sherman-Palladino will allow. Dan's more reassuring. ''No one's gonna wake up in the shower and say it was a dream,'' he promises. But as for everything else, he'll only say, ''It was a real F-you to Lorelai, Rory going to the Gilmores, and we're going to follow the implications of that.'' Also reassuring: Matt Czuchry returns as charming bad-influence boyfriend Logan. While their yacht escapade causes Rory more trouble than she bargained for, Bledel's enjoying the relationship. ''Rory's exhausting a lot of the time,'' she says. ''Now she's taking it down a notch. It's kind of nice.'' Graham, however, isn't thrilled at the prospect of freezing out her kid. ''It's difficult for me to speak that way to her,'' she says. (In fact, the two start the season not speaking at all.) ''It's dysfunctional, but it's a good story,'' she adds.

Good enough to hope for an Emmy nod — but Gilmore keeps coming up empty in the major categories. ''A year like last year doesn't come around very often,'' says Sherman-Palladino. ''And to not have that acknowledged? It makes you wonder who you have to...'' We'll stop her here because, as she's fond of reminding people, this is a family show.

At least scoring her dream guest star might ease the pain. Gilmore will celebrate Rory's 21st birthday this season with an appearance by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright. ''That's the broad every chick should want to be!'' Sherman-Palladino crows. ''Nobody should want to be a f---in' Hilton!'' How about a Gilmore Girl? Can we want to be one of those?

—Whitney Pastorek


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Posted Aug 31, 2005 | Published in issue #838-839 Sep 09, 2005 | Order Article Reprints