Gilmore Girls’ Kelly Bishop Revealed Her Least Favorite Season

In her new memoir, Gilmore Girls actor Kelly Bishop reflects on the beloved drama, including a “sleepy” season she’d rather forget.

In the book, titled The Third Gilmore Girl, Bishop recalls how show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino didn’t work on the seventh and final season after her negotiations with the network collapsed. She departed Gilmore Girls with her husband, Dan Palladino, who co-wrote and executive-produced the show.

“A new writing team was brought in for the seventh season,” Bishop writes, adding that, while they “tried their best,” their efforts failed to match the talents of Sherman-Palladino. “We actors were contractually obligated for that seventh season, and we did the best we could.”

Bishop describes Season 7 as being “sleepy and tired from one week to the next,” adding that it felt as if “the air was being slowly let out of a big, sparkly balloon.” She continues, “We could sense that the party might be ending, even though no one wanted to say it out loud.”

Despite those criticisms, Bishop heaps praise on the show as a whole and its “utterly unique” writing. “The more I studied it, the more amazed I was at how closely I identified with the relationship dynamics of the Gilmore girls themselves,” she writes.

Gilmore Girls’ Final Chapter

After stepping away from the show in 2006, Sherman-Palladino told Entertainment Weekly that she, her husband, and The CW couldn’t agree on the hiring of additional writers and the hiatus between seasons. She also said she wanted Gilmore Girls to run longer than seven seasons.

“Why shouldn't it go on?” she told EW at the time. “We have a very specific idea of how we wanted the series to ultimately end, and there's a myriad of ways to get there, which could have accommodated another few seasons.”

Fortunately for fans, Sherman-Palladino made her return to Stars Hollow in 2016, overseeing the four-episode Netflix revival, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.