Thank you to William Shakespeare for the quotes and stylings of 'Hamlet' and 'Romeo and Juliet'.
The therapist sinks into the shadows of her gloomy office. She reaches into a folder, and takes out an 8x10 glossy and rubs her fingers over the stubbled face of an actor.
"Goodnight, sweet prince," she murmurs, "and may flights of letters to critics remove the pod from you."
She then moves to the window, surveys the gloom outside, then sits down to annotate her now-dismissed patient's file. She begins to write:
'The best I can suggest for the victims of this patient, is to suggest that they go hence, to the message boards, to have more talk of these sad things.
As to the patient and her team, history tells me that some shall be pardoned (John Shiban) and some punished (Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz.) I suspect the patient and her team shall be punished. For never was a story of more TV-land woe, than this of Lorelai and Luke.'
There is knock on the door. It is a woman named Dawn.
"Hi! How did it go?"
"I took care of them," the therapist responds.
"Run the whole story by me once more…" Dawn says as she gets cozy on the couch.
"OK. I will be brief, because if you really think of it, it isn't so much a long story as it is a tedious tale. Luke, now a pod, was lover and betrothed to Lorelai."
The therapist hands her an 8x10 of the couple kissing under the gazebo.
Next, she hands Dawn a photo of a sad-faced woman.
"And she, there lying pod-like, was Luke's faithful betrothed. They were engaged, and the entire world was told to invest in them, to root for them. And as their postponed marriage day came around, it was their love's doomsday."
The therapist hands Dawn a TV Guide article about a wedding gown.
"Whose untimely death banished the newly-bought perfect dress into the depths of the closet."
She sighs.
"But who knew, that all along, it was the plan that it was for a turtle, and not for Lorelai, that Luke pined? And then, management (the WB's management,) to remove that siege of grief from her, podded Luke and would have her be with Christopher, to whom a contract was rendered.
"So the fans, or as they are called, the crazy internet people, were upset, and vast quantities of persons increased the ratings of NCIS and American Idol. So the CW came to me, and, with wild looks, bid me devise some means to rid Amy from this tedious plotline. Or else, in their dens and living rooms, there would the fans kill their love for the show."
"Ah," Dawn acknowledges, "ratings. Down."
"I tried. I gave her counsel. But Amy, it's like she gave Luke a sleeping potion; which so took effect as she intended, for it wrought on him the form of pod Luke."
"What did the fans do?" asks Dawn.
"Meantime, the fans wrote to Ausiello and Bianco and Rousch, that they should make everyone aware, pronto. To help to take the relationship of Luke and Lorelai from its untimely grave, being the time that the show's season should end.
"But Amy would not listen. And yesterday, the sides they did hit the fan. Then all alone, at the pre-fixed hour of the episode, came I to notice that many were not watching. And I saw that Amy had joined her kindred, Joss Whedon, JJ Abrams, and Chris Carter, in the vault of dearth of ideas."
Dawn sighs in unison with the therapist.
"But when I came to my computer, and saw the sides, some minutes ere the time of their release, instead of their love awaking, there, untimely, lay the love of the noble Lorelai and true Luke, dead."
"You've got to be kidding…"
"Oh, it gets better, or rather, worse…" the therapist says, handing Dawn the sides for the finale of season six.
"For now Lorelai wakes; and Christopher entreats her come forth, and the audience is yet asked to bear this work of hell with patience?"
Dawn reads the sides, then adds, "But then a noise from GiGi did scare her in the bed."
The therapist gasps; she still cannot get over this plot contrivance. "And she, too desperate, would go with Christopher for Amy hath over-podded Luke, and, as it seems, did alcoholic violence on herself, not once, but twice."
"And this is out on the web?"
"All this the internet fans know; and to the travesty in the bed, the fans are privy: and, if aught in this is misinterpreted by our fault, let our TV remotes be sacrificed…"
"Good Lord," Dawn adds, "you're right! For never was a story of more TV-land woe, than this of what Amy did to the love of Lorelai and Luke."
fin
A/N: Chris Carter, show runner of the XFiles. John Shiban, once vilified writer and XFiles producer, now a redeemed show runner of Supernatural. Frank Spotnitz, co-show runner of the XFiles, and show runner of the failed Night Stalker.