It’s been over ten years since The L Word debuted and changed all of our lives forever and was sometimes good and often bad and also introduced us to an ensemble of actresses who we will love forever, no matter what. I feel, still, vaguely abreast of the careers of every woman involved in that program. I’m not ashamed of it. It’s just who I am now.
Speaking of me and also you… you have a choice in life, right now: you can be sad or you can just let go of everything, just really settle in to a time in your life when you cared deeply about this program. Just forget about every bad event that’s happened since 2009 and focus on only the good events, and then go backwards and think real hard about when Shane and Alice ate pot brownies and everybody danced to Michael Jackson on the table, even Tina! Tina experienced actual joy, which was very rare for Tina.
Are you there? Are you in an “even Tina!” place?
Well, then go right to People Entertainment Live right now to witness Sarah Shahi, Mia Kirshner, Leisha Hailey, Erin Daniels, Daniela Sea, Kate Moennig and Jennifer Beals discuss love, friendship and laughter. There’s nothing new or major in this interview, but there are lots of clips, and Leisha is wearing a cute dress with Chuck Taylors and Mia Kirshner is dressed like Jenny and Ilene Chaiken’s hair is a wonder to behold, and the host kinda pronounces her name like “Shakin’.” Also, new photos!
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chaikes was like “give me the alice in the opening creds”
is Sarah Shahi even straddling Kate Moenning at any time during the shoot?
Cause otherwise I don’t sure I care…
I can’t even word properly, apparently.
You’re losing consciousness just thinking about it
how have none of them aged, what witchcraft is this
I keep waiting for Leisha and Kate to age so I feel better about my own aging but so far no dice
Makeup and PhotoShop, definitely. Maybe cosmetic surgery.
I know.. apparently Jennifer Beals hasn’t aged since 1983.
I almost loudly smashed my table at work when I read Sarah Shahi was there. (The lesson here is that I should now have 2 strong coffees within 2 hours…)
I can’t wait to watch this later!
Oh, the L word days…. we were all so young and innocent
I’m with Kate Moennig, I like to pretend season 6 doesn’t exist either
Sometimes I actually forget that it did happen. It still doesn’t make sense to me that Shane would burn down Wax.
oh my lord! my heart just exploded into a million butterflies
Bless you I love this! I’m glad Kate didn’t need a comb….
There’s going to be a reboot of this show. I can just feel.
Strongly willing it to happen works, right?
Hmm, time to set up that kickstarter to get Ms. Chaiken a ticket to Nepal..
Hah?
Ilene Chaiken’s told that disingenuous story about The L Word‘s creator so many times, I imagine she must believe it to be true (spoiler alert: it’s not).
Just once, I’d like her to give credit to the show’s co-creators, Kathy Greenberg and Michele Abbott.
The only way I’d be into a reboot would be if they did a prequel series with a group of new actresses playing younger versions of some of the characters (sans Jenny, Moira, Tasha). I always wondered how Shane became acquainted with the rest of the group, so I think it’d be interesting to see a series that focuses on the friend group’s early days set in the mid-late ’90s. Plus, they could introduce new characters who are WOC, since the original series was pretty paltry in that department.
I fully support this
YES, PLEASE. I would be all over that show
Actually, to do a series focused on Bette/Tina/Dana/Alice/Shane would probably involve lots of retconning, so they should just do a show about young Alice and Shane and how they met and became pals. I get the impression that Bette came to LA later, and it wouldn’t make sense to include Tina, because when she and Bette met, they became a steady couple, so to lock those two together from the get-go wouldn’t make sense. Dana also seemed to come along later.
Do like, a show about Alice and Shane in LA when the two are in their mid-20s, and have the rest of the cast be new characters.
I want them follow up on Dawn Denbo and lover Cindy, especially lover Cindy, i want to know if she’s done well for herself.
I, too, fully support this. Do you know how many nights I’ve stayed awake and wondered how in the actual fuck Young Human Disaster Shane McCutcheon became acquainted with older, relatively successful other people?
Spoiler alert: It’s a lot.
Like, explaining how she met (and became friends with) Bette + Tina could take up at least half a season.
Well they’re neighbours… I’m assuming that’s how they met?…
I am fully in support of this idea. I also wondered exactly how Shane came into this group since she doesn’t really seem to have much in common with them, especially Bette and Tina.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN SANS TASHA?
I’m ready for a spin off based entirely on Tasha…
I will admit I saw a few films, including the middling Black Dahlia Murder, solely to get a Mia Kirshner fix when the L Word was in between seasons. In fact during the last two seasons I had an image of Mia as my desktop background. Once I discovered internet fan pages and how much they weren’t a fan of Jenny I cooled off her to seem cool. These images are reminding me how much I had and still have a crush on her.
Kind of disappointed to see that Rose Rollins wasn’t in this. Also, is it me or does Danielle Sea kind of look like Hari Nef?
Yeah, she totally does look like Hari Nef!
this is honestly so healing
After finishing up a shift at a job in which I stare at tiny words on a screen with next to no break all day, I did not think I’d be up for staring at anything else. Then the Sharmen picture happened (really, all the pictures with Kate, but especially that one). Am now totally cool with frying the bejeebus out of my eyeballs some more.
I’m still mad about Dana dying.
It was an Unforgivable mistake
That picture of Kate and Sarah is my new background for every single device I have lol
Its my new lock screen haha
at first i felt like the pics of moennig and shahi together were rude and violent due to my apparently still unhealed feelings about that but now i just think they’re so pretty
I still have so many feelings about Alice and Dana
Oh boy, this gave me a lot of feels and questions. First, WTF is going on with Ilene Chaiken’s hair? And who are these tools talking about the characters and the show? And why does Daniela Sea look extremely bored and not even crack a smile like the whole time?? And where is Tina? And I still can’t believe they killed Dana and it wasn’t that Erin Daniels wanted to leave the show.
Oh god now I feel like I’m gonna do a rewatch and I can’t stop myself…
I won’t question why certain people weren’t there because I don’t know their life but I will question why Daniela Sea was there, no one liked Moira/Max. It should’ve just been the core group from the 1st season and Sarah Shahi because duh, always include Sarah Shahi in anything.
Takeaways-the announcer said it was top rated in its first 3 seasons yeah, because after season 3 and Dana was killed it went to shit.
Ilene hates herself for killing Dana, it’s okay Ilene we still hate you too for killing Dana. (I can’t even hear the song “You are my Sunshine” without getting sad about Dana.)
The cast doesn’t even want to recognize that season 6 ever happened. Again neither do we.
Reunion vs. remake I don’t care which just something that Dana isn’t dead.
Can Leisha Hailey be any more adorable?! I’m not sure it’s possible.
I could have sworn I commented and posted. Oh well..Was wondering where in the hell Karina Lombard is. As Marina, she MADE season 1. What in the world did she do to piss so many people off that she can’t even be in photos?
Just as an aside..if you watch L Word repeats anywhere (except DVDs), whether on Netflix or even on Showtime, half the music has been changed to generic, bland nothingness in order to avoid paying royalties. So for instance that amazing scene in which Alice admits her love for Dana accompanied by Joseph Arthur’s “In the Sun”? Different music altogether. Only the most devoted fans would notice, probably, but it changes the whole beauty of the moment.
Really I did not know that. I now kind of wish that I had Season 2 and 3 to accompany Season 1 on on dvd. I wonder who’s decsion this was.
I know. It really sucks. No idea why they would cut such important music and then think we wouldn’t notice.
This show is real fucked up.
I just recently started rewatching The L Word ( with my gf- who’s never seen it! ) and boy howdy is it transphobic and cringe worthy.
The whole thing with Alice and Lisa season one especially fucked me up. Lisa identified as a lesbian even though she looked like an ‘untransitioned male’ and Alice shit on her identity the whole time. Lisa is OBVIOUSLY trans/nb/gq but everyone just makes a big joke of her in every episode.
Her and Alice start to have sex at one point and when Lisa wants to use a dildo, Alice straight up bullies her into using her penis and says that Lisa isn’t a lesbian, is a man, and is ridiculous for feeling the way she does. She also NEVER refers to Lisa as she/her. Lisa felt hugely dysphoric about the sex and tried to talk to Alice about out later but is completely blown off.
And there are no lessons learned- Alice ends up cheating on Lisa and leaving her in the dirt without any progressive resolve. It’s awful.
Did this ( and all the other transphobic shit- with Ivan, Max, etc ) not fuck y’all up?
I thought that Lisa was really a man who simply thought of himself as a lesbian? It was dumb and probably insensitive.
But I did like the Ivan character very much. Max was horrible and terribly acted by Daniela Sea.
I know I’m replying to this super late, but it’s because while your replies immediately made me very critical of your awareness of Shit That’s Fucked Up, I thought I’d go ahead and finish the series.
So I did.
Max is a great character.
And every single episode involving him also involved unforgivable amounts of transphobia. He is made the butt of every kind of “tranny” (a word thrown around way too much- mostly by the fan-favorite Alice) joke in the book. He is either actively ignored, or completely harassed by the other characters and the writer’s obviously take a fuck ton of joy from tearing apart their trans and gender variant characters in every imaginable way.
There is even a redemption episode where Alice agrees to apologize for how she’s treated Max, and Shane is to record her doing so on Alice’s vlog. The entire time Alice is admitting she fucked up, and the whole time Max goes into his actual real and serious life issues (THAT HE DIDN’T BRING ONTO HIMSELF LIKE E V E R Y O T H E R CHARACTER) Shane gets vored and focuses ELSEWHERE in the room, flipping through camera filters, zooming in on nothing, and generally not paying attention. The audience is supposed to LAUGH at how LITTLE anyone cares about Max- during the one scene where they could have honestly apologized for handling trans issues so terribly.
It was, as a transgender person, fucking horrific to watch. The entire series has veen that way. I’m actually astounded at how few people are bringing this up. But if I were you, I would re-watch this series with a critical eye and really think about whether this transphobic garbage is worth defending. Spoiler alert: It’s not.
And if after re-watching, you still think “well Max sucked anyway”, THIS trans person certainly does not consider you an ally to the trans community.
Love,
I’m Honestly Pissed as Hell And Your Replies Have Been On My Mind Since You Posted Them
Am I the only one that hated the show?
I honestly would love a reboot or continuation, which ever. I’d love to see where the character’s are, what they done etc. But I would want it in all its Season 1-3 glory. I remember that feeling I had whenever it came on our screens on Sunday nights and how it required viewing parties because why would you watch the greatest thing to happen to the lesbian community on tv without other lesbians around you to see it?! Those were the best of times. I also feel sad because since the 12 years since it first appeared on my screen, there hasn’t been one show that has even come close to what the L Word was and that’s a shame.