A petition to bring The L Word to Netflix for a new season has been floating around the Internet, and if you’re involved in the homolicious side of social media, you’ve probably already reacted to it with either heart emoticons or repeated NOs.
Will Netflix actually bring the show back and host a new season? Lesbihonest, probably not. I’m not holding my breath for this show to ever return to the screen, but I sure can dream, right? Here are 25 reasons I’d be totally down with The L Word coming back with a vengeance.
25. It’s 2014 and there still aren’t enough queer ladies on my television.
There especially aren’t enough shows where the majority of the characters are queer. Don’t get me wrong – I love all my homos who are repping our team in an otherwise heterosexual line-up of characters, but sometimes I want something more besides the token and their love interest, you know? When was the last time you saw a scene that involved more than two queer women talking about their sex lives at once? Television needs a return to homos at brunch discussing cunnilingus for ten whole minutes.
24. Ilene, if you’re reading this, you and I both know you’re already down for a reboot.
I saw The Real L Word. I know you are capable of milking even the driest teat on the most diseased cow. Let’s put some money in your hands and see just how fast you start bribing Leisha Hailey to cancel the Uh Huh Her tour.
23. I need a season of The L Word that takes place in the era of smartphones.
Alice spending 24/7 making Snapchat reactions, no one being surprised about anyone making out with anyone else at such and such a place because there was a picture of it on Instagram, like, an hour ago. Shane upsets legions of girls by always looking like she’s typing something in iMessage, but no message ever appears.
22. Special guest star the shit outta this season.
No more personal friends of Ilene Chaiken, just Kate McKinnon trying to pick up Alice at a titty bar/comedy club, Portia deRossi showing up as Lindsay Bluth wanting a sexual experiment that would outdo Michael’s mid-life crises, everyone from Orange is the New Black. All of them. Every single one. But be careful!
Warning: Lesbians will take your corduroy hats and pastel leather jackets.
21. I will never tire of Helena’s “normal people things” culture shock.
An entire episode dedicated to Helena’s horror at having to use the bathroom at a rest stop McDonalds? I’m down.
20. A super butchy butch.
That’s all I ask, Ilene. Please.
19. A meta episode where the cast of The Real L Word shows up at a party and only the original L Word cast members are in character.
Shane hits on Sara, Alice punches Romi, Whitney punches Shane, everyone ends up wrestling in a kiddy pool of creamed corn.
18. If I need to murder someone and dump them in a pool to make this reboot happen, I…just might.
17. Kate Moennig playing anything but a super homo always feels uncomfortable and somehow apocalyptic.
Let’s make Shane immortal.
16. I need a season of The L Word where not one single person wears a corduroy newsboy hat or a floral peasant blouse.
Is that too much to ask? Maybe. But I believe in this show, and I believe in its ability to not dress everyone in a manner they will only be able to laugh at in later years.
Who do I have to sacrifice my firstborn to so I never have to see these outfits again?
15. Jenny Schecter is resurrected.
Via lesbian witchcraft and returns anew so we can love to hate her all over again.
14. On that note, how about we resurrect everyone else who died or disappeared without fanfare?
I’d support an alternate universe in which death is temporary and temporality is skewed for the sake of everyone you miss getting to bang each other. I’m looking at you, Dana. Come back, Dana.
13. This generation of queers deserves Shane without early 2000s hair.
Every generation of queers deserves Shane without early 2000s hair.
Is she still hot? Sure. Does she look like someone cut her hair in the dark with a lawn mower? Absolutely.
12. A whole new generation of homos can determine how to weed out their social group by asking each other who their favorite L Word character is.
Because we all “used to know” a Jenny fangirl, didn’t we?
11. Kit Porter attempting to use an iPhone.
The scene you never knew you wanted, the scene you deserve. My life won’t be complete until someone makes a “Kit Porter not understanding modern technology” supercut of the series.
10. Carmen comes back.
I will be unflinching on this condition. We all wiped Jenny/Carmen from our collective memory, which means we can totes do the same thing for Carmen disappearing into the fog of SVU reruns and “Characters Welcome” that is the USA Network. You better believe her character is welcome, right back into our hearts.
I cannot even begin to describe how important this scene was to my budding sexuality. I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN.
9. Let’s give this show a chance to repair the past mistakes.
Confront its former transphobia head-on, and bring some valid trans* representation with their own important narrative. Diversify the white bread cast so queer women of color aren’t love interests with expendable contracts or side characters with the “funny” lines. Let’s get some characters who aren’t rich and thin and living it up in WeHo, but aren’t tokenized Ryan Murphy-style, either. Get some fresh faces in the writer’s room and the casting department and all up in the production team and I’m pretty sure we could pull this off.
8. We need to check in with TiBette.
Has Bette taken over New York City yet? Is Tina vocalizing her concerns in the relationship or does she kind of just float around in peasant tops? Do they now run a small empire in lower Manhattan? Is Angelica normally adjusted to childhood after being kidnapped, fought over, and witness to a murder in her own home all before the age of three, or does she collect dead animals and fingerpaint with blood from unknown sources?
7. Remember that time Ali Liebert had a teensy extra part as that girl singing karaoke?
I need Ali Liebert to continue her spree of sleeping with all of Canada’s most famous fictional lesbians and high-tailing it to LA for a major role. Rebecca Thatcher comes back with a new haircut and a new lease on life, sheds her former image as That One Girl Who Sang I Like Big Butts That One Time, forever alters the scope of The Chart by charming the pants off most of the main characters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IRVkDyRRzk
6. And hey, while Carmen’s returning, let’s put Sharmen on the table.
Any complaints? No? That’s what I thought.
5. We need an update on the most ridiculous basketball game of all time.
This round, it’s a zumba-off, and Mama B don’t mess around with her step and clap.
And this scene HAS to have more winning lines like this.
4. I miss Papi.
You miss Papi. It’s hard to admit it, but we do. Really, Papi? Really, Papi.
3. Did I mention everyone from Orange is the New Black showing up?
We all know how Helena feels about prison romance.
2. There isn’t anything out there for today’s current generation that compares to The L Word in terms of cultural phenomenon.
This show became a huge part of the collective queer identity, a language that brought strangers together, even if it was over plot confusion and the really shitty way they dealt with certain issues. There just isn’t another show with an ensemble cast whose majority is queer women, whose stories are stories about queer women and the things they face, whose sex lives aren’t punchlines or reduced to chaste hugs. Say what you will, but the impact of this show on our world as queer folks is undeniable.
Problematic, ridiculous, and sometimes mind-numbing as The L Word was, this show was a massive part of my coming into myself and my identity. I remember the summer after I’d first come out, hiding in my bedroom and watching episode after episode in my small rural town, drooling over this world where all these lesbians could hang out with each other and talk shop in the open, where there were enough homosexual people in a single location for them to be friends and socialize with each other and have active sex lives. I cried when they cried. I laughed when they laughed. I’m not even ashamed to admit that watching an episode was like visiting with friends. Damn it all, but I really do miss this show. I’d be totally down with another wacky, wonderful season of guilty pleasures and way-too-relevant storylines that make me miss my ex or cry about my future or make me feel less lonely when I’m not in my queer bubble.
1. Riese’s L Word recaps would be resurrected!
Riese recapping The L Word is the reason we’re all here right now – me being employed, you reading this article, all of us basking in the warm glow that is Autostraddle. I think it’s time for a return to our roots, except this time with a shiny and beautiful website, and a hopefully more coherent show to snark about.
What about you? What would get you back on the L Word bandwagon? Or were you ever on it? Are you the Jenny fangirl?
Number 10! Number 10!
No seriously though, this post is excellent and I whole-heartedly support an L Word resurrection!
Can’t say I support the L Word return, but #8 got me in trouble because I LOL’d at my desk. Peasant tops and finger paintings with blood…bravo!
Oh please please let this be a thing… if only for #1 and 4…I miss Alice saying papi like the good white bread girl she is haha
If no one objects, I’ll take Jenny off your hands, I’m still a fan of her(both Jenny and the actress Mia).
I’d have to say that Lip Service was passed the queer TV torch. And was then promptly run over by a car.
Oh god is it terrible that I just LOL’d at that. RIP Cat.
Oh how I miss their cute Scottish accents! They had the similar white bread phenomenon too though.
https://twitter.com/katemoennig/status/413426721124130816
Important Twitter exchange between Shane and Alice re this matter.
Dude you are killing my productivity. It is taking a lot of willpower to not go rewatch episodes right now.
1. Don’t make it a class-fest – the utility of a queer ‘the Bold and the Beautiful’ in Skynet Substation Serena (aka my home) would be infinitely approaching zero.
2. uhu what Kate said about inclusiveness – meaningful women of colour characters, body types and yea maybe no creepo exceptions for transsexual chars, make them lesbians too.
3. Don’t even start without Leisha.
When I first read the title I was like, “NOOOOOOO OH PLEASE NO MORE,”
but then I read the article and was like, “…perfect.”
20. Dear god, please. Actually, dear god please to all of these. Except Jenny coming back. We’ll do fine without her.
Agreed, on all counts.
As long as there are no manatee/circus/jenny’s brain cutaways I’m all for a reboot. The Calzona drama of Grey’s anatomy is nothing in comparison.
BUT ALSO #13.
Bring Jenny Schecter back god dammit! I’m all for pretending that season 6 never happened.
plotline about possessive fangirls, Jenny’s head and Alcor :P
Evil. To post this just as I’m going back to work – I’ve got an article due, and easy access to L Word episodes in my Mac is NOT HELPING.
TiBette, Alice and Jenny please come back.
I’m assuming #9 includes an implied stipulation of ‘No more BETTY’? Because my ears have only recently stopped bleeding and I can’t afford an endless supply of gauze.
i mean i didn’t want to *outrightly* call them out but there is a big old implied I NEVER WANT TO SEE OR HEAR BETTY AGAIN in this article
ugh the cruise scenes UGH
i kind of liked them, but because i saw them live on pride and enjoyed – maybe live is better. unliked them only a week ago, it’s a gangsta thing – got kind of principled about their fb update re playing on wrong turf.
THE EFFING RECAPS!!!! It’s what I live for. LOL. Ok so I saw a link to this on my FB news feed and I saw Jenny and I yelped! My mom standing outside the bathroom door goes ‘are you ok?’ I was like ‘Yeah, I almost slipped’ WTH. LOL.
I would be so down for L word in 2014. Yes, LET’S put Sharmen on the table. I’d love to see Carmen back anyway even if it’s without Shane. But come people we all know the real reason we want L word back, it’s SHANE. why? BECAUSE SHANE.
Shane? is that sarcasm? What is the appeal of shane?
no sarcasm, shane is legit one of the top three things that made me realize i was a huge homo. i’ve had arguments with friends/lovers who don’t get it, but for a lotttttt of ladies (and otherwise identified humans) shane is just like, That Girl. she can’t help it. she’s just looking very shane today, ya know.
I’ve had straight co-workers watch L word and when I ask them if they’d date any character on the show 95% will say SHANE.
SHANE MAKING GIRLS QUESTION THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATION SINCE 2004.
shane 5ever and ever amen.
That Whitney gif though. Dying.
I think that the most difficult part of my coming out process wasn’t realizing that I liked girls too, but admitting to myself that I was a Jenny fangirl. #jennylives
Also, I wasn’t sure if I wanted the show back, but then #10 and #6. YES PLEASE
Goddamn it i had managed to wipe from my memory how hot Helena was and how she singlehandedly shaped my attraction to brunettes.
If that weren’t reason enough for this show to come back, #11 & #10 are. Oh Carmen, oh Kit…
Can the new season go on as if Season 6 never happened?
Like the sequel to Hatchet that pretended the kid never got rescued?
Or seasons 6 was just the plot to Jenny’s movie.
genius.
can we instead petition them to go back to the sharmen wedding episode and re-start the whole series from there? or better yet, back to the dana dying episode?
Number 10 happening would make me so happy, but kill me at same time!
i was so against this idea but now that i’ve read this list, you may have convinced me. i want an entire spinoff show about the dog though.
the dog? what dog?
why, sounder 2 of course.
“Shane upsets legions of girls by always looking like she’s typing something in iMessage, but no message ever appears.”
so good
This would be amazing. I hope Netflix takes notice!! Kate I agree with you, a super butchy butch is needed. I loved the show but I was never really attracted to any of the characters because they were too femme for me.
26. Let’s get the whole cast of lip service on there too. It’ll be an encore of lesbian tv, with real l word and oitnb and lip service and l word all on there. Obviously culminating in a massive orgy where Tina and Bette have a three way with Morello, Sophia gets down with Lexy, and Carmen hooks up with Frankie. The resulting 50 simultaneous orgasms produce a tidal wave of energy that bring back cat and Dana and Jenny and Trish from the dead.
Kate, you are literally the only one whose articles I read any more. And this is why. They are unendingly fantastic.
you know we can all see this, right?
world’s best grandma just earned some snaps *snaps*
As soon as i saw ‘because this is the way that we live… again’ all i could imagine was the l word with a cast of zombies.
Yes to the actual super butch butch, to Helena and her perfect bunny teeth, to more pregnant lesbian sex (sorry, wait…is that just me?), and the return of Tasha’s truly wondrous laughter!
Not just you on either count. Both things I’d welcome back happily. Also, we could bring Jenny back and kill her again, but not until she has a reason to say “vagina wig,” which might have been my favorite part of the whole damn show. Still laughing.
Proud Jenny fanperson/girl! Bring her back! LOL’d at 23
Just finished watching the L Word the first time around. This article captures so many of my feelings.
I have thought about it returning from time to time.
Bless this post.
Yes to most of these reasons.
So many plotlines were left hanging and could be created anew..
Bring back Dana, Carmen, Dylan and Marina.
No one has mentioned Marina!!
I have signed the Netflix petition and forwarded it to my facebook account. Lets hope the petition is taken seriously by Ilene. I emailed her through facebook once asking her to get busy with the return of The L Word, but her not knowing me from a can of paint probably read my wishes and laughed. Heres hoping she can take a petition and tons of fans seriously this time…
“I’m not even ashamed to admit that watching an episode was like visiting with friends.”
Ditto. I miss this show so damn much only because the friendships were so real and good.
I’ll only agree to this because Ali Liebert needs to be on everything.
Yes!!! I need Carmen back in my life
I miss shane =/! I also loved the fashion and music
I’m still kinda upset at the transphobia and complete lack of trans women on the original run. :/
As I was reading the first few reasons, I got really excited when I realized that there would be NO MORE JENNY! And then I read #15. I’m pretty sure that if I had to watch another episode with her in it, my head would explode.
I admit I used to like Jenny in the beginning. Then I was like WTF is this girl! She is getting so weird!! Then I was like I hate this bitch. O.o
Exactly…
I hadn’t thought about TLW for a long time and now I’m seeing all these hypothetical scenes in my head! I feel like I’ll never see a magnetic person with perfect hair talking about Kathleen Hanna on TV again, and the old wound was reopened.
That would be pretty great. I mean, The L Word certainly wasn’t without its problems — transphobia, biphobia, lack of diversity in many aspects, etc. — but it’d still be nice to have a show like it on the air again. It’s been too long! There certainly are plenty of great queer characters out there right now, but sometimes they do feel like a footnote or like they don’t get to be as fleshed-out. It’d be nice to have another show like The L Word (or even a reboot or new season of The L Word itself).
Still, I would hope that it would make some improvements if it were to ever come back (or if there’s a new show on the horizon to take its place). The biphobia and transphobia did bother me…and it would be nice to just have a bit more diversity in general. The L Word mostly just gave us the upper-middle class, femme, largely white experience on the west coast. A bit more variety would’ve been nice!
I wasn’t sold until this:
16. I need a season of The L Word where not one single person wears a corduroy newsboy hat or a floral peasant blouse.
THIS. This is something we all deserve.
Also remember when Cobie Smulders played an artist on The L Word? We could bring her character back. I would be very much alright with that.
I am not ashamed to say that I am a Jenny Schecter fan! Maybe not a fangirl, because I could never dedicate myself that fully to a fictional character, but I am definitely a fan. However, I, like Mia Kirshner herself, do not approve of the lame and weird stuff she did like killing that dog (even though I’m not really a dog person). But she did have some really good lines and an always interesting plot line. Jenny always made things interesting for me, especially when the L Word got really tedious in seasons 4-6.
But most of all, I will always love her character for these lines from a powerful scene in season 2:
“Oh, fuck off, Mark. It’s not my job to make you a better man and I don’t give a shit if I’ve made you a better man. It’s not a fucking woman’s job to be consumed and invaded and spat out so that some fucking man can evolve.”
and
“No. [Hurls a pen at him] What I want is for you to write “fuck me” on your chest. Write it. Do it! And then I want you to walk out that door and I want you to walk down the street, and anybody that wants to fuck you, say, “Sure! Sure! No problem!” And when they do, you have to say, “Thank you very, very much.” And make sure that you have a smile on your face. And then, you stupid fucking coward, you’re gonna know what it feels like to be a woman.”
I love that scene! Its my favorite from the whole series!
season 2 jenny is definitely the best jenny and as another vanessa i will proudly say that i always reblog gifs of that scene on tumblr cause it is, indeed, the best
YES
Perfect. 10, 8 and 6 please. I can’t get enough of Tibette.
Or preferably, we could get a new show in 2014, with new people and better representations of queer women. Yes, there are good things about the L Word (mostly Carmen), but it isn’t and shouldn’t be the end-all be-all of queer lady tv. Revisiting that show, rather than developing new shows by and for queer women (including trans women obviously) just sounds super depressing to me.
Also wanted to add that Marco from Bomb Girls plays a small role as an artist who Bette and Tina try to trick into giving them a peice of his canoli. They do this by getting with him in some three-way action and when he’s donning the condom, they’re like ah no you don’t have to use that… really it’s fine… and then he’s like what a minute… why do dykes only want to have threeways with me to make babies?? harrumph. And then he drives away on his motorbike.
Sure, The L Word shouldn’t be a “be all and end all” gold standard for lesbian stories on tv/film, but things that it did attempt to express and represent:
Lesbians as people with issues
Lesbians as glamazons (I have no prob with this!)
Lesbians who are being human (ie Bette when she cheats on Tina, Shane when she stands up Carmen at their wedding, Jenny being Jenny, Max feeling the side effects of male hormones, Helena duping Dylan etc etc etc)
Humans having a lesbian experience, with intelligence, raucousness, humour and pathos (Dana and Alice)
However, it also lacked:
Dykes of colour(beside Bette, Carmen and Papi)
Dykes who are butch
Dykes who are barely surviving financially the GEC
Which could segue into storylines showing dykes having these experiences and surviving, by their own wits and ethics. It could be grittier but still clever and funny.
Without turning this into too much of a rant, The L Word could be revived with more diverse rounded less whitebread characters. Ive gotten fired up, again..
I can think of some other things it lacked (namely, trans and bisexual women [Alice decided she was gay, if you recall]).
Yes, it could be revived with those changes, but should it be? Is it helpful for the lesbian/queer woman community to have ONE defining show, rather than many shows from different perspectives? The story of group of queer women in Hollywood is going to be really different from a group of queer women in a small town, or in Atlanta, etc. It’s so hard for show creators to get a show picked up, and if producers and networks think that the L Word is the only show queer women want to see (thanks to petitions like this, the existence of the Real L Word, etc.), that’s exactly what we’re going to get. We can re-watch the episodes that are already made if we want to; personally, I’m ready for something new.
I agree with you in that I would also like to see a new show about lesbians with new characters.
What concerns me is that the new show will be as brief as Lip Service, which was a problem for that show, as when Kat was killed off, (because the actress playing Kat was given a more desirable work offer, the show didn’t last long after that.
The perhaps potential advantage if you can call it that of asking for an old show to be returned, is that it has an established audience wanting new stories with the old characters and wanting representations of new characters, too.
I am hoping that some lesbian show is made by lesbians for lesbians, ’til then, I will support the “bring The L Word back” cause.
that basketball game made me feel indescribably good about myself. on top of being the funniest scene ever.
Loved this show, loved this article (and of course, want to read the wonderful recaps) . . . but seriously, how about a reboot all around? New characters – and yes to include lesbian Trans* that are not creepy or disposable – new setting, new plots. I am sure there are a ton of beautiful actresses out there to represent us all in a REAL but splashy (hey, its television after all) way.
I love you, Autostraddle, for making me giggle for five minutes straight.
Firstly, I think we should all play a massive online L Word roleplay. Secondly, bagsy I get to be Veronica Bloom.
This time with trans woman representation maybe?
I think AS should produce their own lesbian TV show! :-) come on it would be AWESOME!! Think about it.!
Maybe not TLW, maybe something else, something similar, but definitely agree there is a lack of les on the TV today. Yes yes yes to 20, 18, 17, 14, and OMG NO to 15 haha
All I can say this list needs to point out is please for the love of JEBUS don’t bring betty back seeing the lead singer naked in the jacuzzi gave me as many nightmares as the theme song does I fast forward through the theme everytime i watch the show
Just finished watching all 6 seasons!! Looove this show!! There def needs to be a les show in this day and age. I am feening for more with a lack of options!! Waiting for season 3 of Orange is the new black takes too long! Bring back the l word and breathe new life into it!!!! Pleeeeeaaaase!!! Lol
I honestly think the whole world could live without Jenny… Lol. Buuuut… they could bring back Erin Daniels but not as Dana… Someone Bette and Tina runs into in New York and brings back for a random visit. Like a long lost relative or something. Throw everyone for a loop…But the Dana look alike has to b a little more hardcore. Not a lot, just a little.
If your really wanted Jennys annoying butt back on the show then the girl found in the pool was Adelle and no one realized it til the autopsy… Lol. jenny disappears for a long while then comes back… Give us at least a small break from her obnoxious stuck up ass.
And Kit and technology??? Lmao!!! There would at least have to be one scene per episode to where she is fighting with an iphone or something. Or an entire episode where she thinks Siri is a stalker or something. Lol
Idk just my ideas…
Now Im off to start seasons 1-6 again with the wifey :)
Please let The L Word continue why cant they continue this is bs
please I want the L WORD to come back with more episodes bette tina shane alice Helena kit jenny max Carmen also dana also Jodi the teacher with the layer over charging tina and bette jaja I saw all the episodes till the end the 6 and I was google in and saw this page im in favor that this girls join in and do after episode 6. work it form 7 forward I think it will be a bomb. now I don’t want to know till I see it on the screen HO KILL JENNY? this could be a good start and then the trip tina and bette were having to ny. jaja I love this l word. and yes im a lesbian with all by proud up.
Ohhh please,please! My L Word Complete Season DVD set is almost worn out. I need new Tibette, New Carmen,Some Dana. Hey you could have Carmen come back with a new girlfriend, I suggest getting Jessica Clark to play her new Supa Lova! Hell I will start a go fund me page if necessary… All the suggestions sound good on your list, however if Jenny does come back, make it AFTER she has gone to a GREAT therapist for the last 6 years… She could come back, it happens in the soaps all the time. Maybe it WAS actually Adele, after all she single white femaled Jenny… Please give us atleast ONE more full season of our L Word Women. Much Love
The L Word is a real life series and should be continued. The actors who portray characters in this series are easy to relate
to. Would really like to see this continued soon as the are human and will age as we all do. Really enjoyed this series.
Well, considering all your comments about Jenny, i guess i can see why i like her character and have so few friends…