If You're Out On The Road...

Gilmore Girls ends its run on the CW/WB on May 15. It's a good thing that Lauren Graham and Alexis Bleidel turned down the offer of a 13-episode run in 2007-08. GG has staggered this season due to the loss of creator/exec producer Amy Sherman-Palladino. It reminds me of the demise of Designing Women, a show that for about four seasons in the late '80s and early 90s was about as funny as you could get until Delta Burke and Jean Smart left the cast in quick succession. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason had created the show with four strong, distinctive voices and losing two of them crippled her. Oddly enough, while Smart is the more esteemed actress, the loss of Burke was probably the one that Thomason couldn't overcome. Burke's Suzanne had become not only a reliable provider of screwball plot twists and character bits, but Burke's syncopated line readings proved impossible for gifted comediennes like Julia Duffy and Judith Ivey to duplicate. Try and replicate Burke's inflection of the lines "Well, I guess she didn't know!" and "I guess she knew!" from 1990's "The Mistress." It can't be done. In addition, Suzanne seemed to be the character most identified with by Boodworth-Thomason. She has said that her planned finale for the show was for Suzanne and Anthony (Meshach Taylor) to elope. What a perfect ending.

But something else connects Designing Women to Gilmore Girls, and that is the love of language. Anyone who ever experienced the dizzy delight of one of Dixie Carter's screwball monologues never forgot it. Here's a sample:

after Charlene turns juror Julia in for discussing her case outside of court
Charlene: [on the phone] Now Julia, you sound overwrought.
Julia: Yeah, well you're gonna think overwrought. If I miss my dinner with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter because of this, you're going to pay and pay big. I'm going to find you and hunt you down like a dog! I'm talking about you running through the woods in the snow with blood hounds ripping your clothes off! And remember Charlene, I have your address. You'd be wise to ask yourself "Do I know where my baby is?"

And another:

Yes, and I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don't know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn't know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality, and that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway. Or that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot. Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question, "What would you do to prevent war?" she spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond tiaras, grown men wept. And you probably didn't know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia, she was the Miss Georgia. She didn't twirl just a baton, that baton was on fire. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks! And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and 12,000 people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face! And that, Marjorie - just so you will know - and your children will someday know - is the night the lights went out in Georgia!

And that's from early in the show's run, before Bloodworth-Thomason really found her stroke. I can't find an exact quotation of Carter's brilliant diatribe at the end of "La Place Sans Souci", and I'm not going to try and recreate it. All I'll say is that I always wait for it when I see that episode on Lifetime or Nickelodeon.

But this is about the end of Gilmore Girls. What it truly shared with DesigningWomen was a love of character and language. And what language!!! Sherman-Palladino whipped up the fastest dialogue since His Girl Friday, but she had the cast to deliver the goods. Lauren Graham never even got nominated for an Emmy, which is one more reason awards suck, but look at the rest of the cast: Bledel, the brilliant Kelly Bishop (Emily Gilmore, you truly rock!), Edward Herrmann... Edward Herrmann!!! FDR, Sunrise at Campobello, voice of the History Channel. Yanic Truesdale, Liza Weil, hell, Keiko Agena. I think that GG may be the last show to really feature dialogue, extended conversations between two or more characters. I'm pretty sure it will be the last one to assume that both characters and viewers will be smart. Television will feel a little dumber for that.

One other area of Gilmore Girls deserves special notice. I can't think of another show that so venerated and featured music, and not just music as product placement ("Tonight's episode of Smallville feature music by--"), but as lifeblood. Not only did Rory and Lane have great conversations about bands, but Lorelai still thought music was important, and not the music of her high school days either, but new music. The show featured wonderful pop songs and had Sam Phillips provide what Television Without Pity calls "the strummy-strummy la-las." Grant Lee Phillips had a recurring role as the town troubadour. It even made Sebastian Bach seem cool. Tell me Sherman-Palladino can't raise the dead.

The only real gaffe in the show's run was the too-long attempt to shove Milo Ventimiglia down our throats as Jess, but even that paid off when succeeding seasons established that, for all her smarts, Rory is an idiot when it comes to choosing men. The show was that good. It could make one of the things I hated about it into a character trait.

So, away with you, Gilmore Girls. Rest easy. I will remember you, and I'll choke up a little every time I hear Carole King sing, "If you're out on the road..."