Live, Laugh, Love
Last week I went to the movie store looking for a TV show on DVD that I could get into watching. I wanted something I hadn't seen before - not Gilmore Girls or SATC even though I've totally watched those all out of order and there may be a few episodes here and there that I haven't seen.
Big Daddy & My Kid started watching "24" this season and now, during summer reruns, they're renting the first three seasons on DVD.
So I got "The L Word" because I've heard that it's character-driven and it sucks you in and that the subject matter is more universal than you might think. Big Daddy thinks I'm just watching one big porno movie but he doesn't get it. The show is really, really good. It's about women. In LA. Living their lives on their own terms. How can I not watch THAT?
Bette (Jennifer Beals) is the director of an art museum. She's been in a relationship with Tina for seven years. They're trying to have a baby together. Tina did conceive but then she lost the baby at 13 weeks so that was really sad.
Dana is a professional tennis player who's afraid to come out because she doesn't want to lose her lucrative Subaru endorsement deal. She seems insecure and very unsure of herself. Famous quote (when discussing past lesbian encounters): "I can't tell you who it was because she's famous now."
Alice is quirky and funny and bisexual. She's been dating a "male-identified lesbian" - a guy named Lisa. She has a crazy actress mother (Anne Archer). Alice is a journalist and keeps a huge chart of LA lesbian affairs on her wall. She claims she can connect any two names by six degrees of separation.
Jenny is young, and tiny and waifish and dark. She started out the series engaged to Tim (who lives next-door to Bette & Tina) but then she had an affair with the beautiful and exotic Marina, who owns The Planet where they all hang out. Now she's trying to figure out who she is and what she wants.
Kit (Pam Grier) is Bette's half-sister; they share a dad (Ossie Davis). She's straight, but battling demons of her own, including alcoholism and a son in medical school who appears to have been raised by his grandfather. She's a musician.
Shane is...well, Shane. Androgynous, promiscuous, confident, rebellious, fearless and tough, she's like no other character on TV. At first she made me a little uncomfortable but I am really starting to dig her. We don't know much about Shane's past except that she lived on the streets for a while turning tricks with a young male prostitute, only "she would only give hand jobs." Shane is the center of Alice's chart. She doesn't believe in relationships, although a gay male Hollywood exec with a thing for her ("He thinks I'm a guy.") has sent Shane - who's a hairdresser - a famous and powerful client (Rosanna Arquette) that she just may be falling for.
Now at the top of my wishlist: the soundtrack. Totally gotta have it.
