HOLLYWOOD — There's no official count of such things, but "Gilmore Girls" must have the thickest scripts in television.
Creator/executive producer/writer Amy Sherman-Palladino and her team write an awful lot of dialogue. Her characters talk a lot. They talk fast. They talk over each other. They talk and talk and talk. And it's all there on the pages.
Which isn't always easy for the actors as they try to learn and perform all that dialogue. Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel, who star as mother and daughter Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, admit they don't always get it right on the first take. Or the second. Or the third.
Exactly how many takes does it take to get it right?
"A lot," Bledel said. "Um, anywhere from one to 30."
"You've gotten higher than 30," Sherman-Palladino said.
"Forty?" asked Bledel.
"I don't think we've ever broken the 40 range," Sherman-Palladino said.
"Probably 38. That's maybe a record," Bledel said. "I don't know. Yeah, we mess up."
Graham is quick to point out that, what with the pressures of television production, "We have no rehearsal, really. And the show is really about the language and the rapidity of it. It takes the first five takes sometimes to get it up to speed, even if all the words were exactly correct. And then being a human means that you just screw up."
Of course, it's not just the actors who have to stay put until they get it right. The entire crew is waiting.
"There's like a holding-your-breath kind of feeling," Graham said, "because you can just hear people, like, 'Oh, shoot! We're going to have to go again.' It's part of the unique task at hand."
And, frankly, it's difficult to imagine anyone doing a better job with all that dialogue than the "Gilmore Girls" actors. Oddly enough, Graham and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Bledel both talk in real life the same way that Sherman-Palladino does. And the executive producer isn't complaining about the scenes that require more than a couple of takes.
"I think it would be most writers' dream to be able to write this sort of dialogue and actually find the people who can say it," she said. "I'm so incredibly blessed because of this cast and Lauren and Alexis. It's like anything you throw at them they can do."
Assuming you give them 38 takes from time to time.
20-20 HINDSIGHT: Fox's top programmers find themselves in the odd position of having an incredibly popular show that they can't renew. After tonight's "Joe Millionaire: The Aftermath" hour, that's it.
You can't tape a second go-round because, at this point, everybody knows the "twist," in which the "millionaire" turns out to be a working Joe. Which leaves Fox execs wishing they'd taped at least a couple different "Joe" series before the first one aired.
"We actually did talk about it, but we had no idea that the show would be the phenomenon that it's turned out to be," said Fox Entertainment president Gail Berman.
"That would make us much smarter than we are," added Fox Entertainment chairman Sandy Grushow.
Oh, well. They can always hope their next tacky "reality" show, "Married by America," will be a hit of similar proportions. Which is, of course, unlikely.
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com