A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

WATCHING MY DOG, WHAT A LOVELY WAY TO SAY HOW MUCH YOU LOVE ME: In general, Gilmore Girls is a show that can do very little wrong in my book. It has perhaps the richest tapestry of supporting characters on television or elsewhere, the dialogue is both snappy and poignant, and of course there's the briliant core troika of Emily, Lorelai, and Rory.

But the estrangement of Lorelai and Rory -- the core conflict of the new season -- has elicited more than a few grumbles. Grumble grumble, these grumblers grumble, the backbone of the show is the relationship between mother and daughter, and keeping them apart is destroying the fundamental essence of Gilmore Girls.

I myself am a low-level grumbler. Point one: there has been no shark jumpage. Keeping Lorelai and Rory apart for a few episodes isn't going to kill anyone. (If the show could survive the entirely unappealing Jess, it can survive anything.) However, there is also Point Two: the Rory/Lorelai feud, as written, missed a real opportunity to complete an arc that the writers started last season when Rory chose a path at Yale that represented everything Lorelai hated and Richard and Emily adored -- Logan and the sense of rabid entitlement that he and his band of merry socialites enjoy without a shred of self-awareness.

Watching Lorelai watch Rory live a more traditionally Gilmore sort of life was a heck of a lot more interesting than watching Lorelai pine for Rory from afar. DAR wunderkind Rory would gain additional nuance Lorelai were around to react with a mixture of pride and pain (as we saw last season when Lorelai watched Rory climb out of Logan's limousine). And much as I enjoyed seeing Emily rip out and snack upon Shira Huntzberger's lungs, it doesn't compare to Emily and Lorelai baring claws at one another.

Ultimately, I think that the powers that be missed an opportunity to tell a really resonant story: what do you do when the life your daughter chooses to lead, while not obviously wrong, isn't exactly the one you want for her? They didn't need to move Rory into the Gilmore pool house to tell us that story.

As long as I'm proposing changes, here are some other suggestions for things to kill:

• Lane and the band. Or at least Zach. Why in the world would Lane waste her time with this nitwit? If she's got to have a rock star to boink (or not boink, as the case may be), at least make it Sebastian Bach. Sheesh.
• Logan the whipped boyfriend. Why exactly did they make him a regular if all he's going to do is drag Finn to the pool house and get Rory a sound system for the DAR party at the price she wanted?
• Sookie and Jackson's kids. Yawn.
• Paul Anka the Dog. Not funny.

And a few things to keep at all costs:

• Paris the Marxist Revolutionary! The best writing they've offered Liza Weil in months.
• Logan the thisclose-to-being-an-asshole-but-still-remarkably-appealing guy he was last season when he brought Rory to the secret society thing.
• Kirk. In whatever ridiculous incarnation you like, he's comedic gold.