[Nadine]

Woah talk about a jump:

THR has released the top shows, etc for the 2004-05 season.

In the top 110, Only Extreme Makeover: Home Edition had a higher increase in Total Viewers and 18-49. Alias had a higher increase in total viewers but GG had a higher increase in 18-49.

110. Gilmore Girls WB 4.8 2.1/5 (96) +17/+24

Outside the top 110 - OTH had a larger growth it grew +23/+36 to finish in equal #117 position.

ETA: It was the #1 show on the WB in the 18-49 and 7th Heaven was the #1 show on the WB again in total viewers coming it at #103.

[Java_Angel86]

Do we know how much the cast get paid per episode?

[M.I.S.S.Y]

I think it varies, I mean not all cast get the same air time right, depending on the episode and what it's based on.

But I couldn't tell you exactly!

[~Kitty]

Originally Posted by Java_Angel86 Do we know how much the cast get paid per episode?

Lead cast usually starts out with $30,000 an episode when the show starts.. so you can imagine what Lauren and Alexis now get with starting into their 6th season. When GG ends, since Lauren has built such a name for herself, if she started on another show I'm thinking they would have to give her more than the general $30,000 start.

[M.I.S.S.Y]

That's decent...I know I could manage on that..lol

[Nadine]

Okay posting this article from the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/28/ar...on/28gate.html

This Is the Way the Season Ends: Bang!
By ANITA GATES
Published: May 28, 2005
It's over.

Bree's husband, Rex, is dead, and Susan is being held hostage by a teenage boy. Little Walt has been kidnapped, and the castaways' raft trip has failed to bring about a rescue. Dr. Derek Shepherd is married (the cad!). Jack Bauer has saved the world from nuclear disaster but now has to disappear. Lorelai has proposed to Luke, and Rory is dropping out of Yale.

On Wednesday night, sweeps month and the network television season ended pretty much simultaneously. The big season finales over the last month did their job, garnering high ratings and leaving viewers slightly on edge until fall. If the ratings of Fox's monster hit "American Idol" are any indication, though, the announcement of a big real-life winner trumps the death of a lead character or any cliffhangers that the writers of fictional shows can devise.

On Wednesday night, an average of 30.3 million viewers watched Carrie Underwood defeat Bo Bice on "American Idol," compared with the 20.7 million who tuned in to see what would happen to the brave plane crash survivors on ABC's hit drama "Lost." Not that 20.7 million is anything to sneeze at.

A look at Internet message boards shows few fans complaining about final episodes. Instead, viewers are debating about who killed Rex (Steven Culp) on ABC's "Desperate Housewives," whether Rory (Alexis Bledel) on WB's "Gilmore Girls" is a rich brat or just coming into her own, just how married the dreamy Derek (Patrick Dempsey) is on ABC's new medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" and whether the deranged Frenchwoman (Mira Furlan) who took Claire's baby on "Lost" is really French.

Television writers appear to have succeeded at a challenging task: concocting finales that satisfy without giving away too much.

"People go into them with such high expectations," said Carlton Cuse, an executive producer of "Lost." "There's always going to be a segment of the audience that will be frustrated" by not being told everything. Like, for instance, where that broken ladder inside the mysterious hatch goes and who broke it.

"The thing about narrative television - you make incremental progress," Mr. Cuse said. "Maybe you go from A to B in a typical episode. In a finale, maybe you go from B to G. You're never going to go to Z, but you get a big chunk of narrative."

"Desperate Housewives" fans were rewarded with an enormous chunk. In the last episode, viewers learned the answer to the first season's overwhelming question: why Mary Alice (Brenda Strong) committed suicide. It seems she murdered Deidre (Jolie Jenkins), the drug-addicted biological mother of her son, Zack (Cody Kasch), and past lover of Mike (James Denton), the handsome plumber who is now the lover of Susan (Teri Hatcher), who is being held at gunpoint by Zack just as Mike is about to walk in the front door and possibly have his head blown off.

The finale left the other major characters' lives turned upside down. Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) is unwillingly pregnant, Lynette (Felicity Huffman) is faced with the prospect of going back to her high-powered job, and Bree (Marcia Cross) is suddenly a widow. And to top it off, a strong-willed new neighbor (Alfre Woodard) - forceful enough to tell Edie (Nicollette Sheridan) where to go - has just moved into the neighborhood.

In number of cliffhangers, "Desperate Housewives" may have been topped only by "One Tree Hill," a WB drama series popular with (and mostly about) teenagers. Mark Schwahn, the show's creator, says he counts at least seven. Among them, there is a rift between Chad Michael Murray and James Lafferty, the half-brother lead characters ("We're not brothers," Nathan, played by Mr. Lafferty, said. "We're not even friends."); a supposed journalist's announcement to young Peyton (Hilarie Burton) that she is her long-lost mother; and a raging fire set by some shadowy figure, threatening to consume the detestable Dan (Paul Johansson), the boys' father, who has also just been poisoned. Almost everybody in the show has a motive.

"It's very 'Who Shot J. R.?,' " Mr. Schwahn said, referring, of course, to the mother of all cliffhanger episodes, the attempted murder of the back-stabbing oil tycoon J. R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) on "Dallas" in 1980.

"We have so many story lines in play that I feel like rather than putting all of our eggs into one basket, it's only reasonable to honor all of those story lines," Mr. Schwahn said.

Some series, on the other hand, deliberately kept things low-key. CBS's "Everybody Loves Raymond," the season's most anticipated series finale, did a one-hour cast-and-crew retrospective but ended its nine-year run with a regular half-hour episode that had only a moment of big drama: a doctor announced that the title character (Ray Romano) was having trouble coming out of anesthesia after minor surgery. But everything worked out fine, and the other characters loved Raymond anew.

Fox's "24" kept things quiet too.

"We have a tradition of ending with explosive events," said Evan Katz, a consulting producer for "24," which stars Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer, sensitive terrorist hunter. "But we couldn't keep topping ourselves. How do you top a nuclear bomb and a virus?"

So the show went for a "softer end," Mr. Katz said. A foreign government demanded Jack's execution, but his death was faked and he walked off into the sunset, his future unclear. Mr. Katz said he believed this semi-cliffhanger sat well with viewers who are just as interested in Jack's emotional development as his adventures.

"You really want to know how this is going to work out for him, where's he's going to go in his life," Mr. Katz said.

Fans of WB's "Gilmore Girls" share that feeling about its characters, who staged the ultimate nonviolent cliffhanger.

In the last moment of the last scene of the last episode, Lorelai (Lauren Graham), listening to her boyfriend, Luke (Scott Patterson), enthusiastically express his devotion to her daughter, blurted out, "Luke, will you marry me?" The end.

*****

Also from TFC which is via a WB Press Release:

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/pr...d=20050526wb01

THE WB'S CORNERSTONE SERIES SECURE GROWTH FOR THE 2004–2005 SEASON

Burbank, CA May 26, 2005

BUILDING BLOCKS FOR THE FALL – “7TH HEAVEN, ” ” “GILMORE GIRLS, ” “ONE TREE HILL, ” “SMALLVILLE, ” “EVERWOOD, ” “WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU, ” “REBA” “LIVING WITH FRAN” AND “BLUE COLLAR TV” – ALL ENJOY STRONG SEASONS

THE WB MAINTAINS ITS ENTIRE AUDIENCE OVER LAST SEASON IN WOMEN 18-34 ON A MONDAY-FRIDAY BASIS

The WB Network's signature series all had excellent seasons in 2004-2005, scoring year-to-year gains and extremely competitive time period ranks.

The series, which will be used as the network's building blocks for the upcoming season, were led by the Tuesday tandem of GILMORE GIRLS and ONE TREE HILL, which were two of the fastest-growing series on television for the season and more than held their own against the American Idol-led lineup on Fox. Both shows will be used to anchor nights and help launch freshman series next year as GILMORE GIRLS will be joined on Tuesday by SUPERNATURAL and ONE TREE HILL will be paired on Wednesday with RELATED.

The following is a look at show-by-show highlights for The WB:

· GILMORE GIRLS has been a standout for The WB this season, showing tremendous year-to-year growth, including growth of +20% in adults 18-34 (2.4/7), +24% in women 18-34 (3.6/10), +16% in women 12-34 (3.7/10) and +29% in women 18-49 (3.1/8).

· GILMORE GIRLS ranked #2, behind only Idol, in its time period season-to-date in adults 18-34, women 18-34, persons 12-34 and women 12-34. GILMORE GIRLS is one of the few shows on television that has shown resilience against Idol, scoring double-digit growth in total viewers (4.8 million, up +15%).

· GILMORE GIRLS is The WB's second highest-rated show in adults 18-34, persons 12-34, women 18-34 women 12-34 and total viewers (4.8 million), and is the network's top-rated program among women 18-49 and adults 18-49.

*****

It was only 0.1 behind OTH in the Adults 18-34 and behind OTH by 0.4 in the Women's 12-34.

What is weird is GG actually had a higher Women 18-34 than OTH (3.6/10 compared to OTH's 3.6/9) but WB is claiming that OTH is the #1 show in that demographic.

[Meekomist]

Alexis Article - http://www.fashion18.com/verve18/Sho...42&ParentId=62
At a bustling diner near her L.A. home, Alexis Bledel checks the incoming number on her ringing cellphone, flips it open with a grin and chirps, "Hey, where you at, girl?"

Suddenly she's frowning, her brow knit in concern. "Oh my God, you poor thing! You have to tell them they can't do that to you!"

Alexis, dressed down in jeans and a black Puma jacket over a peach-coloured midriff, sinks into her seat. "Poor Amber," she says with a sigh. "She worked until 4:30 in the morning."

She may not have gotten much sleep, but when Amber Tamblyn bops in 10 minutes later, cute and casual in brown cords and a burgundy top, you'd never know it. Alexis perks up instantly, hellos and hugs are exchanged, and in no time flat they're eating off one another's plate and gabbing away in their own language, an inscrutable amalgam of hip-hop slang, private catchphrases and lingering silences punctured by ripples of laughter.

"We speak in tongues to each other," admits Amber. "I think we have officially topped the limit of inside jokes that two people can have in a conversation. We could literally sit all day and talk exclusively in our inside-joke language, and no one would have a frickin' clue what we were talking about. But we would know, and we would laugh."

The intimate bond between these two young stars is a classic case of life imitating art. Watching them together, you'd think they've known each other since they were in diapers, but the truth is they only met last year when they were cast as best friends in the flick The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which opens in June. Based on Ann Brashares' popular book, Sisterhood tells the story of four best girlfriends and the miraculous pair of thrift-store jeans that keeps them connected during their first summer apart. Alexis plays quiet, introspective Lena, who travels to Greece to visit grandparents she's never met; Amber is headstrong Tibby, who stays home in Washington, D.C., to work at a local drugstore.

If opposites attract, then it's no wonder Alexis and Amber became close. Twenty-two-year-old Alexis is a sheltered Catholic girl from Houston whose Mexican mother and Argentinean father had no ties to show business. And although she had done some modelling, Alexis had zero professional acting experience when she was cast as Rory Gilmore on Gilmore Girls. By contrast, Amber, 22, is the L.A.-bred daughter of an actor. She began performing in plays as a kid, made her film debut at 12 and spent seven years on General Hospital before being cast as the lead in Joan of Arcadia.

When they got together on the Vancouver set of Sisterhood, Alexis, Amber and the other two actresses—America Ferrera and Blake Lively—were encouraged to hang out and do things together, so they would be believable as best friends.

"But the truth is, people either click or they don't," says Alexis. "We were lucky because we had a common thread—we all have a sick sense of humour—and we were always cracking each other up."

Case in point: When asked about her first encounter with Alexis, Amber deadpans, "Well, she had a restraining order against me the year before, but I'd rather not talk about that."

"Yeah, she was in my fan club for a long time," continues Alexis. "Then she started stalking me."

"There was the time I left that ripped-up picture of her on her doorstep," says Amber. "But I thought we got over that." And they're cracking up again.

Although Blake took some lumps from Amber, a hardcore Ani DiFranco fan, for her insistence that Britney Spears is on par with Madonna ("I left Blake feeling kind of bad; every day I was shoving my iPod in her face, saying, ‘Here, listen to this!'"), Amber and Alexis bonded immediately over the gruelling demands of a one-hour series.

"I knew she had a huge workload," says Alexis, "so instantly we were able to commiserate about that."

"Sixteen hours a day, five days a week," says Amber. "Sometimes 18 to 20 hours a day. Then your weekends and any free time you might have are totally taken up with press."

"The glamorous life of a celebrity, basically," cracks Alexis.

"Right," says Amber. "I think there should be a reverse celebrity magazine, where, instead of showing how glamorous everything is, they talk about how truly painstaking and brutal the industry can be. But you can't complain, because it's still great."

Alexis and Amber cemented their friendship during their off-hours in Vancouver, when Amber coaxed the notoriously shy Alexis out of her shell. "There was one club we loved because they played certain kinds of house music, like Mark Farina, and one night I got Alexis to enter this little breakdancing competition," recalls Amber.

"I wanted to win a T-shirt for my boyfriend," says Alexis, who is dating her former Gilmore Girls co-star Milo Ventimiglia.

"I was like, ‘Girl, go do it!'—and she did," says Amber. "She did a little foot action, and she got down on the ground on her back."

"I tried to do a turtle spin, and I really hurt myself," says Alexis.

"That was the greatest moment of my life," Amber says with a laugh. "I was screaming, 'Yes! That's my girl!' I loved it. Then she got up, and she was like, 'Ouch!

I think I pulled something.' The next day at work, nobody believed she did it, because Alexis is so quiet and shy. I got it out of her, though. She didn't win, which was disappointing, but she did dance, and that's what's important."

[M.I.S.S.Y]

Thanks for the articles!

[banjojd]

I found this article about Alexis at the website for Canada's National Post newspaper.

Fame is a fickle thing, especially when a reminder of it passes by your home on the side of a transit vehicle. Just ask Alexis Bledel, the young star of TV's Gilmore Girls. "I totally understand marketing and the photo shoot, and the blow up and the airbrushing," says the 23-year-old L.A. actor and former model. "But one day a bus with the Gilmore Girls picture went right by my house, and that was so annoying so early in the morning." Some nerve, promoting a hit series that passed the 100-show milestone a few months ago as it successfully refocuses on Bledel's young-adult character, Rory, who's making a dramatic transition this season from bookworm to party girl. Whether Bledel likes it not, she's about to get another profile boost portraying one of the teen characters in the film version of the acclaimed Ann Brashares' novel series, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Opening Wednesday, the movie features Bledel as Lena, a shy and timid girl who travels to Greece, then slowly grows up. So what's the sisterhood all about? They are four girlfriends, including Lena, who vow to stay in touch over separate summer vacations by taking turns wearing a treasured pair of jeans. Amber Tamblyn plays Tibby, "a suckumentary" filmmaker who befriends a young girl (Jenna Boyd). America Ferrera is Carmen, a Mexican-American who has issues with her divorced father's new priorities. And there is Bridget (Blake Lively), a pretty and accomplished athlete trying to over-compensate for a lack of parental love. Like Brashares' three (soon to be four) best-selling novels, the young ladies' stories are intertwined and often heartfelt. In fact, in the film, Lena's light but lively circumstances offer a welcome relief from the unrelenting sadness of the other mini-yarns. "I guess my character is extremely shy and an artist type with a very active inner life," says Bledel. "But outwardly, to other people, she is just sort of a humorous mess." And complicated, like Rory, who indeed is becoming controversial on Gilmore Girls as she tries to adjust to college life at Yale University. "She's sort of branched out this year," admits a blushing Bledel, referring to Rory's new rebel status. "It's like it wasn't the same character when she slept with her ex-boyfriend who was married. So yeah, she essentially had an affair with a married man." It's not the sort of thing Bledel condones, but then she acknowledges that she's an actress hired to play a role, just as she was when director Robert Rodriguez cast her as Becky, the prostitute, in Sin City. All things considered, she's relieved her assignments tend to be a little different and a little more complex than the usual teen and young-adult parts. "I've been really happy about the fact that the characters I play are far removed from a lot of teenage characters in movies and especially TV," she says. Initially, luck and timing had a great deal to do with the Houston native winning the Gilmore Girls part in 2000. At 18, she had decided to make the transition from New York-based modelling to L.A.-based acting when auditions were posted for the TV series. She got it and eventually, so did viewers. "So I am signed until the show runs its course," Bledel confirms. "And as you've seen, I'm pretty much at the mercy of the writers' and producers' decisions on my character and where she might go." And for a while, she's also at the mercy of the sunny West Coast beach culture, which she embraces in a breezy but cautious kind of way. "In the summertime, I do want to go to the beach, and I don't want to be paper white," says Bledel. But what's a young lady to do? "Self-tanners make me look orange," she says smiling. "So, while I live in L.A., I remind myself to embrace my paleness."

[*~CaliJunkie~*]

Thanks for the article!!!

[Nadine]

Thanks Dorothy for bringing the article over.

Okay this is a great quote

But what's a young lady to do? "Self-tanners make me look orange," she says smiling. "So, while I live in L.A., I remind myself to embrace my paleness."

[M.I.S.S.Y]

Thanks for the article!

I've never tried self tanning....just really don't care..lol I'm white you know..I deal with it!..lol

[Nadine]

Not sure if people have listened to the TVG Podcast - but they mention GG on it (I don't think there's any spoilers on there for the show).

Ausiello participates in the Podcasts

From Mercury News

• Best season finale: Whoa, a lot of contenders of this coveted prize -- ``24,'' love the final shot of Jack Bauer walking off toward the sunrise; ``Desperate Housewives,'' which deftly resolved its underlying mystery while kicking off new story lines; and ``Gilmore Girls,'' a poignant, bittersweet episode with a sensational performance by Lauren Graham as Lorelai. But my choice for sheer audacity and the scope of what it attempted: ``Lost,'' a rousing end to a terrific first season.

[M.I.S.S.Y]

Thanks for posting that, and I would like to know some spoilers for the next season does anyone know if there are any websites that post spoilers?

[-Genevieve-]

Originally Posted by Charupakornalicious Thanks for posting that, and I would like to know some spoilers for the next season does anyone know if there are any websites that post spoilers?

Our Spoiler thread here on Fanforum usually has the best compilation of available spoilers. There's nothing to know right now though. Can't wait for July. Heh.