‘WHERE you lead, I will follow …” So goes the theme song to the TV show “Gilmore Girls” – but this season, those words are ringing a little hollow.
With the departure of the series’ creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, and her co-writer and producer husband, Daniel, over a contract dispute, some are saying the most gorgeous, hyper-verbal mother-daughter team in television has lost its spark.
“Gilmore” was built around the close relationship between young mom Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and her daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel), a pair of whip-smart, witty women.
“It was a show for intelligent people to enjoy,” says writer Tracy Kaufman, whose blog, The Three-Toed Sloth, recently bemoaned the downturn in quality.
“The whole reason I got into the show was because it was brilliant writing and hysterically funny,” she says. “And the dialogue is pathetic now. I feel like it’s running on fumes.”
Fuming is what you’ll find on the Gilmore message boards at Television Without Pity, a snarky site devoted to recapping shows in minute detail.
Under a thread titled “Has This Show Lost It?,” viewers aired their gripes:
“Amy’s dialogue was always clever and sharp, and one of the things that made repeat viewings so enjoyable was that you could often pick up on things you missed the first time,” wrote one poster. “That’s missing now.”
“We seem to be retreating into ‘family values’ territory,” ranted another, put off by the show’s increasingly conventional plotlines.
Lorelai and Rory, who once paid more attention to each other, work, school and even coffee than they did boyfriends, are both now brooding over failing romantic relationships, while Rory’s once-independent rocker best friend is married, pregnant and miserable.
“I think the show has been going downhill since last season,” says Joel Keller, assistant editor of AOL’s TV site, tvsquad.com. “It’s had a lot of very depressing, sad story lines. And there is a lot of emotional angst. This show wasn’t built for emotional angst.”
Cultural references have taken a nose dive along with the mood. Once known for its media-savvy banter and obsession with cult films – not to mention cameo appearances from Norman Mailer and Madeleine Albright – the best the show’s managed this season is a double shout-out to Gwyneth Paltrow.
But the most egregious downturn is simply in the veracity of the Gilmores themselves. “These two characters are not acting like real women anymore,” says Kaufman. “They’re acting like what men think women are like.”
The irony, she adds, is they’re turning off their male audience, too.
“My dad used it to love it, and my boyfriend,” Kaufman says. “Even my grandpa used to love it. Last week he was watching with my grandmother, and he just walked out, saying, ‘This is complete trash!'”
Or, as Lorelei once said: “You lost me at carrots – which was the first draft of ‘You had me at hello.'”
