'Gilmore Girls' has no clothes - and neither does 'Pants-Off Dance-Off'.(Suburban Living)(TV/Radio)

Byline: Ted Cox

When "Gilmore Girls" returns for its seventh season at 7 p.m. today on WGN Channel 9, it doesn't just jump the shark; it plummets straight into the shark's gaping jaws and is swallowed whole.

That's right, it hurts to be the bearer of such bad news, but "Gilmore Girls," which for years was the best series on broadcast TV, is suddenly, irredeemably, atrociously awful.

Remember how abruptly "Northern Exposure" and "Hill Street Blues" got bad at the end of their runs? Well, that's "Gilmore Girls" all over, and for very similar reasons.

Tonight's season premiere, as the series makes the leap to the merged CW network, is the first show without the guiding hands of writer-creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband, Daniel, summarily removed after …