Though I resigned myself to the series end of “Gilmore Girls” an entire year ago when creator/producer/writer Amy Sherman-Palladino left the show, I have to say that it was more difficult than I thought to say good-bye to Lorelai, Rory and the rest of the folks in Stars Hollow last night. This is despite the fact that this season has been nothing more than a cheap imitation of all that was once glorious about the show, and the finale really wasn’t much of a grand farewell to some of the greatest characters ever on television.

Of course, Luke and Lorelai reunited, and naturally Rory found her first job as a journalist. But since no one working on the show knew when they were taping that this episode was going to be the last one, it had a very rushed, unfinished feel–with the only truly “Gilmore” moment coming early on in the show when real life news correspondent Christiane Amanpour, often mentioned by Rory as her role model, made a cameo appearance.

But these are not the real reasons for my sadness over the “Gilmore Girls” demise. For seven years, “Gilmore Girls”was perhaps the only show on television that was incredibly smart and funny while being unbashedly sweet and refreshingly uncynical. Unlike it’s more acclaimed counterparts–shows like “Sex and the City,” for example–“Gilmore” was sexy without being raunchy and sassy without being overly caustic. And the examination of complex female relaltionships may have never been served as well as it was through the Emily/Lorelai/Rory generational triangle. Sure, in the end, “Gilmore Girls” was absolutely escapist entertainment, but it was escapist entertanment I never had to feel guilty about watching.

So with the television landscape being overrun by reality TV and game shows, the real reason to mourn the loss of the Gilmore family is that it is highly unlikely any new shows will step up to fill the void left by this mother-daughter duo. Which means we are not saying simply goodbye to a show, but possibly to an entire style of storytelling. That is something to be truly to be sad about, which leaves me with only one hope: Anyone up for helping me start the letter writing campaign to Sherman-Palladino for “Gilmore Girls: The Movie”?