Hanging with the ‘Gilmore Girls’
Is there a show out there with more devoted fans than “Gilmore Girls”? Is there a show with fans more upset about developments in their show’s season finale, when Lorelai and Rory’s father, Christopher, slept together?  Both “Girls,” Lauren Graham (Lorelai) and Alexis Bledel (Rory), as well as new show-runner (read: boss) David Rosenthal, showed up to be quizzed on the “Gilmore” past and present.

Of course, the departure of show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and husband Daniel was a hot topic. Rosenthal said Sherman-Palladino “made it very easy” for him to take over, and left him with a lot of juicy dramatic issues to take on. Graham said she was a “huge fan of Amy and Dan,” but also seemed to indicate the new staff was more receptive to input. Still, she made one thing clear “if you write anything that makes me sound like I said something negative about Amy and Dan, I will be upset. … They gave me the best job I’ve ever had.”

And of course, the Lorelai-Christopher pairing was discussed. Fans are not happy, and the panel confirmed that Christopher will be a semi-regular character this season. (Michael Ausiello has more on the fan anger here.) Rosenthal pretty much said that it would make for “pretty boring television” if the couple the fans want to see together, Luke and Lorelai, ended up happily together with no obstacles. Lauren Graham also addressed the issue, saying that “if everything had gone the way the fans wanted it to go … I would just be calling Rory, like ‘What are you doing tonight?’ ” Graham also said she wasn’t too thrilled with Lorelai’s character last season (Ausiello called the character a “wuss,” and Graham didn’t disagree.)

Is this the last season of “Gilmore”? Rumors are flying that both Graham and Bledel want out. Rosenthal said he’s not approaching this as the final season, and Graham and Bledel were evasive. Graham said she wouldn’t go into a season that way, and wants to wait and see, but that “our legal contracts are up.”

It’s been reported that Sherman-Palladino had planned out the eventual ending of “Gilmore Girls,” whenever that may be. Rosenthal and the cast say they don’t know what it will be, but Rosenthal says he would ask, should the show seem about to end, whether next year or five years from now. Lauren Graham said she’d heard the show ends with two words, and called for guesses. The only one ventured? “You’re pregnant.” (How about “I do,” and ending with either Rory or Lorelai’s wedding? That’s also two words.)

• Things got really weird in this panel for a minute when a reporter asked about Rosenthal’s past, saying “it was widely reported about six years ago that you left because you were obsessed with Heidi Klum. You left town and you left your family.” Rosenthal and Graham were quick to shut that reporter down and say they wouldn’t even address such personal questions, but the jolting topic sent reporters frantically Googling “David Rosenthal” and “Heidi Klum.” This Defamer link was the most commonly found article on the piece, and I know nothing more than that. Except to say maybe it’s a good thing the CW doesn’t air the Klum-hosted “Project Runway.”
• Lauren Graham didn’t attend the CW party after the day’s panels. And maybe that was smart: Every time I saw Alexis Bledel there, she was mobbed, and I couldn’t get near her. I’d gotten closer, actually, to her lovely blue and beige dress, which I saw a handler carefully carrying through the hotel on a hanger earlier.
• Graham loves dogs, but not Paul Anka, the dog on the show. “I’m like, ‘Oh, he rolled over and spoke,’ or something. I’m just like ‘Uck’.”