Final season for 'Gilmore'?

PASADENA, Calif. — The seventh season of "Gilmore Girls" doesn't begin until September, and the big question circling the series already is whether there will be an eighth.

For one thing, series creator/executive producer/writer Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband, executive producer Daniel Palladino, have left the show. So there's a question of whether the new showrunner, executive producer David Rosenthal, can keep up the quality.

For another, stars Lauren Graham (Lorelai) and Alexis Bledel (Rory) are contracted for only one more season. And Graham has made noise in the past about not wanting to do an eighth season.

Rosenthal said he's not looking at this as the final season. "No, I'm just approaching this as this season. My goal is to do 22 great episodes of the 'Gilmore Girls' and let the rest take its course."

And Graham said that it would "be wrong" to assume that she's still planning to leave after this season.

"I mean, I have felt that way, but I haven't been in this particular collaboration before," she said, referring to Rosenthal. "And I think we're all really excited to see where the show can go. I read the first script. I love it. So a lot of things could happen."

Graham echoed Rosenthal's sentiments about not going into this season thinking it's her last. But, at the same time, she doesn't want the show to go on if the quality dips.

Bledel was similarly noncommittal.

"I really don't know what this year is going to be like," she said.

Rosenthal, Graham and Bledel tried to assure the show's fans that "Gilmore Girls" will still be "Gilmore Girls."

"One of the reasons I wanted to come to 'Gilmore Girls' . . . was because I so loved the tone and style of the show," Rosenthal said. "My intention is to keep that going."

"The tone has already been established as well. It's been six years," Bledel said. "David worked on the show (last season). He knows what the tone is. Lauren and I sort of got the hang of it."

"We know if something doesn't sound right, too," Graham said. "We know by now what feels authentic. . . . It should be some kind of collaborative back-and-forth at this point because we have ownership creatively, too, of who these people are."

Not that her opinion has always been heard in the past.