Season 7 of "Gilmore Girls" aired on its new network, The CW, in the normal Tuesday 8pm time slot, running from September 26, 2006 to May 15, 2007. Once again, there was a 20% decline in viewers from S6, and the show was tied as the network's fourth best performer with "Smallville" at #122 in the Nielsen ratings. Each episode received 4.4M viewers on average, the lowest since S1. The series finale numbers were only 11% above the season's average, which feels like a paltry increase for a beloved, long-running program in the same time slot. Compare "Gilmore" to "Dawson's Creek," a show that ran for six seasons and ended in 2003 with a series finale that netted a 77% boost over average episode views for the season. Based on metrics alone, fans were over the show by S7. The diehards who were always going to watch it did, but I have to imagine many people fell off after Lorelai slept with Christopher in the S6 finale and the Palladinos made their exit.
David S. Rosenthal, who was hired by the Palladinos as an executive producer in S6 (he wrote "The UnGraduate") took over showrunner duties. Was he the right person for the job? Probably not. Amy and Dan were the right people, and asking anyone else to match their level of creative, rapid fire insanity is a tall order. I tried to piece together what Rosenthal was like pre-"Gilmore" from interviews and résumé, but the evidence is inconclusive. In 2000, hot on the heels of a divorce, he started a foundation called The Creators, which gave "$50,000 grants to young female artists, whom he felt were largely ignored in Hollywood." Some of the women he approached found it creepy, but 20 of them took him up on the offer and he followed through with no strings attached.
Taken alone, this is a nice, charitable act. Combine it with the obsessive, misogynistic 2001 disaster play about Heidi Klum that led to his dad committing him to a psych ward, and it feels like someone either atoning for future sins or going through a manic episode. In an August 2001 Howard Stern interview, he said this:
I should be President [...] I should be. I don’t need to be. I don’t even want to be. But you know, I am willing to be. If enough people decide that they agree with me and they think I’m smart and right and they believe in me, I am willing to be President. I’m willing to be the Democratic nominee for President in 2004.
You be the judge of this man's character! Here's a snippet of what the Palladinos said about him in their post-exit interview with Michael Ausiello:
Dan: We hired David as an executive producer, perhaps even in anticipation of either leaving or getting more people so that we could delegate a little more, and it's really, really worked. They'll have to hire a bunch of new people.
Amy: They need to hire some major writers because they don't have a staff right now.
And in Rosenthal's own interview with Ausiello during the press tour for S7, this is what he said when asked if Amy offered him any advice before she left:
She did. She wished me luck. I spent a terrific year last year working with Amy and Dan, and she was incredibly supportive, and she told me from the beginning that this was a distinct possibility that she would be moving on and I would be running the show. When she brought me in at the beginning of last year, that's one of the things she told me. She brought me in as an executive producer for that reason.
For whatever reason, the Palladinos chose Rosenthal as their successor for a thankless job that no one was going to crush considering the circumstances and time constraints. The season he created certainly isn't one of the all-time greats, but to be fair, I don't think it would have been with the Palladinos' at the helm, either. Most fans hate April (Vanessa Marano) and only a psychopath would root for Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Christopher (David Sutcliffe) to get back together, so what satisfying direction could S7 possibly take considering the impediments S6 introduced? No matter how it all shook out — with Luke (Scott Patterson) and Lorelai back together or not — there were going to be more tedious episodes with Christopher and April to suffer through.
Rory's (Alexis Bledel) final year of college also adds an air of change and uncertainty that takes away from the signature coziness. When I was watching this season, I was a senior in high school going through a similar, "What am I doing with my life?" crisis, so I wasn't exactly keen to watch my own anxieties play out onscreen. Although I mostly suffered through these episodes during the first airing and rarely revisit them now, there are still a few bright spots, mostly involving Paris (Liza Weil), Emily (Kelly Bishop), and select bits of dialogue. As far as I'm concerned, the townie shit, even the hay bale maze and Kirk's (Sean Gunn) outdoor diner, exists in the "Twin Peaks" Black Lodge.
🎢 Top 5 Episodes From "Gilmore Girls" Season 7
- "'S Wonderful, 'S Marvelous" - Christopher takes Lorelai on a legitimately fantastic date to watch "Funny Face" play on the side of a barn from a convertible replete with snacks. The night ends with them picking Emily up from the clink, where she's being held for refusing a breathalyzer test. "Young man, I don't know where that's been, but I can say with absolute certainty it won't be going anywhere near my mouth."
- "Hay Bale Maze" - Tech bro failure Logan (Matt Czuchry) comes to Stars Hollow for the first time to keep Rory company while she agonizes over whether to chase the Reston Fellowship or take a steady, less glamorous job at the Providence Journal Bulletin. After almost an entire season apart, Lorelai and Luke finally have a real conversation in the middle of Taylor's (Michael Winters) childhood fantasy hay bale maze.
- "It's Just Like Riding a Bike" - I'm including this episode solely because of the scene where Paris is accepted to every law school and med school she's applied to. "Bite me, Harvard, bite me! [...] I'm tempted to reject them the same way they rejected me that dark day four years ago. Who's laughing now?!" Rory and Doyle (Danny Strong) are both delightfully supportive, making it a truly joyful scene.
- "Unto the Breach" - As a whole, S7 is painful, but I actually like how it ends. Rory graduates from college and, instead of taking the easy path to stability, embraces the uncertainty of a future without set plans. In a rare show of maturity, Lorelai is there for moral support without trying to influence her daughter's decisions.
- "Bon Voyage" - The show's resolution is a bit too neat considering the many complications of the past three seasons; however, I don't give a fuck because I want the world of Stars Hollow to be a comforting place where nothing truly terrible ever happens and the Gilmores are unconditionally supported by their wacky neighbors for inexplicable reasons.
Pair S7 with something to make it more interesting, like meatloaf sushi, a martini shaken by a 10-year-old, and a pocket full of Apple Jacks. If the father of a child who once drew on your hardwood floor with permanent markers asks you to marry him, just say no!
