The Gathering Dust On My TV Remote

Alexis Bledel, Lauren Graham, and Scott Patterson in “Gilmore Girls”

I know I’ve complained about this before, but it seems especially true this season than it has in previous seasons: Gilmore Girls, while it’s always been obnoxiously cutesy, has been offering precious little else this time around.

Gone are the reliably barbed wit and the neurotic, sinister rivalries that got me hooked on the show when the series began. With the exception of a (very) mildly amusing episode in which Sookie’s childlike (and somewhat fey) husband gets himself elected to whatever the hell Taylor’s municipal job is, the show has been something of an effort to watch this season, a ritual I perform every Tuesday out of fondness for the show’s past appeal and cargo cult-like hope for its return. Which really sucks, since Gilmore Girls was the only thing left on TV I could still watch with any regularity.

Part of the problem, of course, is that the show’s more interesting ongoing conflicts have more or less been resolved: Lane’s absurdly Orwellian relationship with her mother has for the most part been written out of the story, and, since the Rory-Paris peace, Rory has had no nemisis to make her otherwise dull storyline more interesting. Even the quasi-romantic tension between Luke and Lorelai has been relaxed now that they’re an item. A quick fix for the situation would be to start another war between Rory and Paris (how hard could it be?). Otherwise, there’s very little left in Gilmore Girls but the giddy saccharinity that makes the show so damned repugnant to would-be converts.