'Girls' trouble

I'm frightened. I'm really frightened.

Frightened for the future of "Gilmore Girls," that is. Afraid that one of the best shows on television for the past six years won't be the same show next season.

(Assuming, of course, it's on the CW's schedule after the WB more or less merges with UPN. Which everyone is assuming it will.)

Amy Sherman-Palladino — the creator/executive producer of "Gilmore Girls" — will not be returning to the show next season after failing to come to an agreement with Warner Bros. on a new contract.

Yikes! This is a show that has always very much reflected Sherman-Palladino's voice. Hey, I can hear her talking every time Lorelai (Lauren Graham) opens her mouth. And, oddly enough, Rory (Alexis Bledel) sounds like her, too.

Also leaving is Sherman-Palladino's husband/fellow executive producer, Daniel Palladino, but, um . . . how to put this nicely . . . OK, there's no way to do that . . . the episodes he wrote were consistently the series' worst.

"We know that the story lines from this season will continue into the next," Sherman-Palladino said in a prepared statement, "and that the integrity of the show will remain long after we leave Stars Hollow."

I'm not so sure.

"We are very confident that Dave Rosenthal, an experienced writer/producer with the show, will make the transition seamless moving into the seventh year of 'Gilmore Girls,' " said Warner Bros. official statement.

Rosenthal has been with the show for the past couple of years — he wrote the episode that airs this week (Tuesday, 7 p.m., Ch. 30). But he also used to work on the sitcoms "Hope & Faith," "Good Morning, Miami" and "Arsenio," which doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Well, at least we can agree with the part of the Warner Bros. statement that thanked "Amy for creating and nurturing this wonderful series . . . and giving us one of the most memorable mother/daughter relationships in television history."

"BIG LOVE" IS NOT a big hit, but it's big enough for HBO. The pay-cable network has ordered a second season of the show about a family of polygamists living in Utah.

(But not a family of Mormons, a fact the show repeatedly makes clear.)

"Big Love" has averaged 3.9 million viewers on Sunday nights, which is less than half what its lead-in, "The Sopranos," averages. (That number does not, however, count the number of HBO subscribers who tune in when the show is repeated at various times throughout the week.)

The first season of "Big Love" continues through May; the second season is expected to air sometime in early 2007.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com