Disappointing Lack of Buzz for Showtime’s The L Word

With so many strong broadcast dramas dominating industry buzz, it seems that several fine series on pay and basic cable have slipped below the radar, generating less interest than other strong cable efforts have come to enjoy in recent years. This is an especially frustrating circumstance for Showtime’s lesbian-themed drama The L Word, which has been mining the depths of raw human emotion with a sublime effectiveness similar to FX’ Nip/Tuck at its humbling humanitarian best or HBO’s The Sopranos in ferocious high gear.

The L Word will likely never be as strong a series as those, but it deserves more attention than it gets. Several storylines this season have explored relationships gone wrong and the wrenching consequences of past personal issues left unresolved with an intensity and intimacy that simply is not evident in most television fare. When such bare emotion is displayed on the screen within the confines and context of semi-serialized scripted drama it becomes distressingly clear how subdued so much of television is, not to mention the increasingly sterile output of Hollywood’s mainstream movie machine.

Cast of The L Word

Like the spectacular fourth-season finale of The Sopranos, in which Tony and Carmela’s marriage literally exploded in a torrent of psychic violence so vivid and real and uncomfortable that viewers felt as if they were trapped in the very same room, certain sequences on The L Word momentarily seem to stop the world. Tellingly, those scenes are generally quiet, rather than volcanic, and they are propelled by words (and silences) rather than visuals. The closer the viewer pays attention the more she or he takes away from these scenes. This is a noteworthy achievement in the current noisy television environment, and the credit goes to series creator and executive producer Ilene Chaiken and a very fine cast of gifted actresses.

Beals, Moennig, and Kirshner Stand Out

There isn’t a poor performance in this show’s ensemble, but three women in particular have carried most of its emotional weight of late. Jennifer Beals as Bette, struggling to hold herself together following the end of her long-term relationship with partner Tina, mounting problems with her career and her elderly father’s illness; Katherine Moennig as Shane, a young woman who enjoys a satisfying sex life and carefree substance abuse but is incapable of, and seemingly disinterested in, real relationships; and Mia Kirshner as Jenny, a bi-sexual basket case with unresolved issues from her childhood that are only beginning to make themselves known.