“The L Word” Reboot May Ignore Season Six Altogether, Just Like I Already Do

Last week, during an interview for an upcoming L Word-themed episode of the Nancy podcast, I was explaining to host Kathy Tu why Season Four was the worst season when she interjected — “what about Season Six?”

“Oh, right,” I replied. “I like to pretend that Season Six never happened.”

How I feel about Season Six

See — in addition to being a very short season (only eight episodes), Season Six was dogged and destroyed by its commitment to a quarter-baked murder mystery plot surrounding my dear beloved Jenny Schecter. (Yes, I’m aware that loving Jenny makes me the member of a very small group of passionate and controversial L Word fans.) It didn’t make sense, it didn’t feel like an organic extension of the relationships and stories and tone the previous five seasons had set, and it made Jennifer Beals cry in her trailer every day. Episode 608 is, hands-down, one of the worst hours of television I’ve ever witnessed.

So you can imagine my delight when I read that Ilene Chaiken, speaking about The L Word reboot at the Television Critics Association press tour, said they’re strongly considering proceeding… as if Season Six never happened! Specifically, Chaiken reported that they “may forget” that the controversial final season of the show “ever happened.” This is especially wise considering that the last time Chaiken tried to build an L Word spinoff as a continuation of Season Six’s plot, “The Farm,” it sucked and therefore didn’t get picked up.

Chaiken also told the TCA audience that they were “very close” to finding a new showrunner, and that the new showrunner would be LGBTQ and also “one of the kids, somebody who knows what’s going on in that world.”

Furthermore:

While Chaiken will only be an executive producer on the reboot, she did feel confident that the new series would have a more “enlightened” attitude towards transgender issues than the original series, which faced criticism for mishandling Max’s (Daniela Sea) transition and promoting stereotypes of trans men as aggressive and confused. “We’ve all learned a lot since then,” she said. “I think the new version of the show would reflect that.”

Promising!

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Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3279 articles for us.

46 Comments

    • Yes! I originally stopped watching after Dana died. I’m finally getting around to finishing those last 3 seasons and I have to agree everything was better when Dana was alive. TBH, though, Carmen really got on my nerves. I love Sarah Shahi, but not Carmen.

  12. Oooh I’m also excited to listen to an L Word themed Nancy episode w/ a Riese interview!! ?

  13. I can say that I’m not going to watch it but I know no matter how terrible it is I will.

    Also, honest question tho. Why did you think season 4 the worst?? I actually liked that one.

    • intense cast sprawl — they were trying to do too much and the show got really messy. they added like 30 new characters, tonally it was all over the place, and the first few episodes were intentionally lacking sex b/c apparently the network wanted them to chill out on that. season four definitely has its moments of glory, like the basketball episode, but overall it just didn’t work for me

      • Okay that makes more sense. I thought they cut down the sex scene, because their target viewership lbtq women wanted to see more characters and drama(I was naive and thought I was straight). I guess I was wrong.

  14. So, I might be on this limb all by my lonesome but I hate this idea…I hate NBC’s decision to do it with Will & Grace, ABC’s decision to do it with Roseanne and now this…

    I hate this for three reasons:
    1. I hated Jenny and her being dead probably doesn’t even rate in my list of Top 5 worst things to ever happen on that show.

    2. The creators of season six should be accountable for their awful writing, especially in situations when they propagate harmful tropes. Pretending like it didn’t happen doesn’t erase the harm.

    3. I think it changes the nature of TV writing and not for the benefit of the viewer. What incentive does any writer have to pen a satisfactory conclusion to the series?

    • Personally, I think writers should be bold and erase mistakes. TV is such a “product by committee” thing, and there are so many competing forces at work…one of my favorite things (even though it was ridiculous) was Bobby coming out of the shower on Dallas. Yeet! There goes an entire misbegotten season. It was a dream, y’all! Hahaha. The best.

  15. If this new series turns out to magically be consistently really great, I’m just going to ignore all previous seasons.

  16. They need to erase a whole lot of other crap stories from the series to make it worth my time again.
    A-Dana dying. Yes it is important to educate on Cancer screenings and such but Dana can go into remission and live happily with Lara (yes they were my favorite couple).
    B-Jenny becoming a famous writing and pretty much all the Les Girls stuff except still let Jenny float out to sea in a dingy with a dog.
    C-Moira/Max specifically the facial hair and the pregnancy, that character was a mess from the jump.
    Just re-work anything mid-season 3 and beyond.

  17. So, does that mean I still have a chance with Jenny? She seems like a nice Jewish girl to take home to mom. :=p

  19. I stopped hating Jenny after reading a post on tumblr by a girl with borderline personality disorder who really related to her. Jenny’s choices make a lot more sense if you view them through the frame of a mental illness and not just as bad writing… which The L Word also has plenty of. But whatever. Jenny and I are cool now.

  20. I actually quite liked season 4 (relatively speaking), i quite enjoyed Phyllis’s sillyness and Helenas cute uselessness that season. For me the biggest dud was 5, and the biggest insult was 3 (Danaa!). And of course, i too ignore the existence of 6.

  21. This is the best news. I always loved Jenny. I would personally like to forget the last three seasons ever happened, but I’d be happy with at least eliminating Season 6 from existence.

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