• pigduck
• Jan 7,2007
• In: Rants

The L Word Returns

I’ve been wanting to talk about this for weeks but somehow things just didn’t look up for me. First the internet connection in the house has been awry and coupled with the cable damage after the Taiwan December 26 earthquake, it just wasn’t meant to be.

You could also blame it on laziness of course… but it’s ok because the time has come. After almost 10 months of waiting, the L Word is back!

I’m so excited. I hope it’s as good as Season 3. Season 3 was a superb season. Besides Dana’s sad ending, where I cried my eyes out for days (The L Word will never be the same) and the fact that Shane became the Runaway “Bride/Groom” in the season finale, I’m bubbling with anticipation for Season 4. What happens next?

I was browsing CNN, something I never do and on the front page was an article on the L Word:-

WEST HOLLYWOOD, California (AP) — A clutch of stylish-looking women are gathered around a sleek SUV that has pulled up to the curb on a trendy avenue.

Just another location shoot in La-La Land; nothing too unusual about that. So why does a woman passer-by suddenly scream with joy and tear across the street to get a closer look?

Because she’s just realized the femme bunch is the cast of “The L Word,” which usually doesn’t film in Los Angeles.

Showtime’s series about a diverse group of L.A. lesbians shoots mainly on soundstages and locations in Vancouver, Canada. But how many palm trees can one show fake?

So production for the series’ fourth season, which debuts Sunday at 10 p.m. EST, moved to Southern California for several days of shooting at places where the characters live, love, work and play.

Series co-creator Ilene Chaiken hesitates to dub Los Angeles a “character in the story.” There are, after all, at least 12 main women characters whose stories she’s got to fit into this season’s dozen episodes.

But she acknowledges “the cultural dynamics of L.A. are embedded in our show. The characters do have L.A. values and are affected by L.A. values to some extent, so I think the series has the specificity of a unique culture and environment but it is dominated by universal emotional experiences that everybody can relate to.”

Among the series’ leading women are Jennifer Beals as Bette Porter, Laurel Holloman as Tina Kennard, Leisha Hailey as Alice Pieszecki and Daniela Sea as Max Sweeney.

Newcomers this season include Cybill Shepherd as Bette’s boss, Phyllis, who comes out later in life after a conventional heterosexual marriage; Marlee Matlin as Jodi, a deaf artist who has a relationship with Bette, and Rose Rollins as Tasha, who has served a tour of duty in Iraq.

Serious issues — such as the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the legality of same-sex marriages and the challenges of transgender transition — underscore story lines, but “Sex and the City” style wit and laughter also hold sway.

“In the sense that we deal with the issues of the moment, we deal with them because they affect all of our lives,” says Chaiken, who doesn’t presume that her show will necessarily change people’s attitudes, but does hope that depicting lesbian stories in all their human variety may shift opinion.

- CNN Online, Jan 5, 2007

So yes, I can’t wait!!

The sad thing is that my reviews for the first few episodes of Season 4 might be a bit slow. Most people blame it on the rain, I blame it on the Internet. Bah.