"Gilmore" guy

(Lauren Graham, left, new producer David Rosenthal, and Alexis Bledel parse their various levels of commitment to the future of "Gilmore Girls" during Monday's TCA press conference in Pasadena. AP photo by Lucas Jackson.)

A strange thing happened during the “Gilmore Girls� press conference Monday evening: A reporter lobbed a Scud “gotcha� missile at the program's new showrunner, David Rosenthal.

Rosenthal joined the writing team last year, and was bumped to top dog (and “dog� is probably the appropriate word) when Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Dan couldn't work out a deal with the studio. (Truth be told, stars Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel didn't seemed all that broken up by the fact. Perhaps they're just being good soldiers for the new regime, or perhaps…)

Midway through the session, one reporter (who's not a member of the Television Critics Association, and after this, may find it hard to join) asked Rosenthal about his murky past involving an obsession with Heidi Klum, and whether that really entitled him to take charge of a show celebrated for its well-drawn female characters. I'm offering a fairly diplomatic version of the way he posed the question; the way he posed his question, it was clear he wasn't expecting an answer - he just wanted to call Rosenthal out, to humiliate him.

Well, it worked. Rosenthal tensed visibly and, obviously, refused to respond; the guy tried again and Lauren Graham called for another question. Anyone with a laptop with wi-fi in the room furiously began Googling the story.

Which is this: Rosenthal, after a meteoric rise in the industry, found himself crazy rich while working on the sitcom “Spin City." Klum guest-starred on an episode.

Afterwards, Rosenthal quit Hollywood and his marriage and wrote a play, “Love,� which played in New York shortly after Sept. 11, 2001 and was roundly condemned by critics. In “Love,� an actor portrayed a character named “David Rosenthal,� who delivered an expletive-laced monologue revealing that his one goal in life is to have sex with Heidi Klum. When Rosenthal sent “Love's� script to his agents, they dropped him; when he sent it to his father, he had him briefly committed to a mental institution. Reviews expressed repulsion; the New York Times declared it a smidgen short of actual stalking.

(All this information is available online; the reason I feel it's OK to discuss it is that Rosenthal went on Howard Stern's radio show and discussed much of this stuff, and more, at length. So it's not as if the guy tried to conceal any of this.)

Two things: One, the question was posed in an utterly inappropriate fashion (that was the general consensus after the press conference concluded). Two, it's not, however, an inappropriate question.

Turning over the reins of a beloved program to a different writer invariably invites speculation. (Look at how “West Wing� faltered for a long while after creator Aaron Sorkin was ousted.) If the reporter was truly interested in eliciting a serious answer, he should have asked Rosenthal, in private, something along the lines of: “How can you assuage the concerns of fans that 'Gilmore Girls' will remain true to its longstanding spirit when it's been placed in the hands of a man who wrote a play that was notoriously and widely considered misogynistic?�

Also: I haven't seen or read the play, but let's briefly entertain the notion that, in the days immediately after 9/11, no one was prepared for a piece of drama that was so obviously intentionally confrontational and self-reflective and that didn't have bigger themes than one's own navel-gazing. Rosenthal may have stumbled onto a truth so uncomfortable no one wanted to acknowledge it at the time, lest they besmirch their own humanity (Neil LaBute gets away with all sorts of savage psychology in his characters). Of course, it's quite likely that the critics were right: That it was just an utter piece of self-indulgent filth that no right-minded person should have to bear to experience that made Mike Binder's "The Mind of a Married Man" seem noble and effusively big-hearted by comparison. (After the play, Rosenthal would come out to conduct a Q&A, which definitely feels like more self-aggrandizing behavior; once, the first question was, simply, “Why?�)

It's odd that The WB or The CW didn't vet Rosenthal so that they could avoid clouding a heretofore benign show with this sort of controversy. (A colleague suggested that The CW, which has a new show entitled “Runaway,� should team with Bravo, where Klum hosts the reality series “Project Runway,� for another program: “Project Runaway.�)

Or maybe the reporter should have simply asked: “So, did you and Heidi ever hook up?�

What do you think? Is this kind of questioning appropriate regarding a light-hearted show? Do well-paid Hollywood figures subject themselves to this kind of scrutiny? Is Rosenthal, in fact, an appropriate heir to the effervescent “Gilmore Girls?�