I just watched an all-new ...

Question: I just watched an all-new episode of Gilmore Girls last night, and even though I'm very grateful that they're back with new episodes to round out the rest of the sixth season, I still can't get over the fact that they hired Sherilyn Fenn again to play a different role in the show as Luke's ex-girlfriend and April's mother. She's already been on the show before playing the girlfriend of Jess' dad a few seasons ago! Why did they have to make a lazy casting decision like that and not hire any other aspiring actresses to play that particular role? This kind of thing has happened before on other TV shows and this type of terrible casting decision is getting pretty old by now!
Answer: Having made a conscious choice not to watch the episode Sherilyn Fenn appeared in earlier — since I had no interest whatsoever in a Jess spin-off, which is what that episode was trying to set up — I wasn't that thrown by this repeat casting. And I thought she was terrific, both physically and emotionally, in this role, and I believed her as the mother of Luke's offbeat (and, last week, off-camera) daughter. So I'll accentuate the positive and look at this as a case of the producers obviously liking this actress enough to give her a second chance in a role that may actually have a future. While it is a bit jarring, this does serve as a useful reminder that this is, after all, a TV show. And who knows? Maybe Jess' dad's girlfriend and Luke's ex-squeeze are distantly related. Weirder things happen in Stars Hollow every day.