'Girls' trouble

PASADENA, Calif. — When "Gilmore Girls" returns Sept. 26, new show-running producer David Rosenthal will have to clean up a mess he inherited.

When last we saw Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), she had just had a huge fight with her fiance, Luke (Scott Patterson), and slept with Christopher (David Sutcliffe), the father of her daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel).

Fans have been in an uproar, if one reads the online chatter. And they're leery of "Gilmore Girls" continuing without the show's creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, who left her role as show-runner at the end of last season.

But Rosenthal insists he's not worried.

"She made it very easy for me," he said. "She brought me on as an executive producer last year, and she created this wonderful, amazing show with these great characters, and talented actors and actresses, and wished me all the luck in the world. So I'm just thrilled and honored to be taking over."

Rosenthal also insists he's not perturbed about dealing with Lorelai's dilemma.

"I've got to say, I think that's really surprising and interesting. And it certainly presents a lot of dramatic and personal issues," he said. "But that's the stuff of good drama. . . . I think it's going to make for a great season."

Graham has made no secret of her occasional unhappiness with her story lines, but she has no complaints about this turn of events. She was tired of what happened much of the rest of last season — how Lorelai's relationship with Luke was complicated by his sudden discovery that he has a teenage daughter. And how Luke was calling all the shots.

"It wasn't my favorite stuff to play, to kind of be dictated to by Luke, but I think it was a believable conflict and a believable obstacle between them," Graham said. "And that's why the end, to me, made perfect sense — because she tried to kind of be in a place that wasn't natural to her, that wasn't who she is. And so ultimately she couldn't take it anymore.

"But I think you had to have that build-up to get to where we got. I mean, if everything had gone the way the fans wanted it to go in terms of that relationship, the show would be over. Or I would just be calling Rory, like, 'What are you doing tonight?' To me, this is a relationship with a lot of built-in problems between two people who are very different, who are trying to find a common language."