The L Word

The L Word
File:Lwork promo.gif The cast of The L Word
Created by	Ilene Chaiken
Starring	Jennifer Beals (2004-) Erin Daniels (2004-2006) Janina Gavankar (2007-) Leisha Hailey(2004-) Laurel Holloman (2004-) Mia Kirshner (2004-) Pam Grier (2004-) Karina Lombard (2004)(2007) Katherine Moennig (2004-) Daniela Sea (2006-) Sarah Shahi (2005-2006) Rachel Shelley (2005-)
Country of origin	USA
No. of episodes	50
Production
Running time	approx. 50 mins per episode
Original release
Network	Showtime
Release	January 18, 2004 – present

The L Word is a television drama series that was portrays the lives of a group of lesbians and bisexuals and their friends, family and lovers in Los Angeles.

The show was created and is executive produced by Ilene Chaiken (Barb Wire, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). Other executive producers include Steve Golin (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Larry Kennar (Barbershop). Besides Chaiken, writers of the show include Guinevere Turner (Go Fish, American Psycho) and Rose Troche (Go Fish, Six Feet Under). The L word is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia at Coast Mountain Films Studios, which was formerly Dufferin Gate Studios Vancouver and originally owned by Dufferin Gate Productions, the sister company to Temple Street Productions, the Canadian producer of Queer as Folk (U.S.). The pilot episode premiered on January 18, 2004, and since then three seasons have aired and the fourth will begin on January 21, 2007.

The show's main setting is the trendy L.A. neighborhood of West Hollywood.

Cast and Characters

The first season had ten major speaking roles. The main cast was composed by Jennifer Beals (Bette Porter), Erin Daniels (Dana Fairbanks), Pam Grier (Kit Porter), Leisha Hailey (Alice Pieszecki), Laurel Holloman (Tina Kennard), Mia Kirshner (Jenny Schecter), Karina Lombard (Marina Ferrer), Eric Mabius (Tim Haspel), and Katherine Moennig (Shane McCutcheon).

For the second season, the characters played by Karina Lombard and Eric Mabius were written out. New cast members included to the show were Eric Lively (Mark Wayland), Sarah Shahi (Carmen de la Pica Morales), and Rachel Shelley (Helena Peabody). A new storyline of a Female to Male Transgender was incorporated into the series in season three with the character Max Sweeney, portrayed by Daniela Sea. Joining the show's fourth season are Academy-Award winner Marlee Matlin, three time Golden Globe winner Cybill Shepherd, Kristanna Loken, and Janina Gavankar. Karina Lombard will reprise her role as Marina Ferrer for several episodes early in the season.

Season Synopses

Season 1

Season one was first aired in the United States on January 18, 2004, and featured 13 episodes. Several entwined storylines are presented. Set in West Hollywood, the series first introduces Bette Porter and Tina Kennard as being a couple with a seven years relationship and who want to have a child. Tina eventually becomes pregnant through artificial insemination, but has a miscarriage during episode 1.09: Luck, next time. Later in the series, Bette develops an affair with Candace Jewell, which Tina discovers during the season finale.

During the pilot, a coming out/love triangle storyline is introduced in the show, which involves Tina’s and Bette’s next-door neighbor, Tim Haspel, his new-in-town girlfriend, Jenny Schecter, and Marina Ferrer. Marina is part of Tina and Bette’s circle of friends and also is the owner of neighborhood café, The Planet, which as the group's hang-out, serves as a focal point for the show. The season also presents Shane McCutcheon, an androgynous, highly sexual hairstylist and serial heart-breaker; Dana Fairbanks, a professional tennis player who is still in the closet and torn between her career and finding love; and Alice Pieszecki, a girlish, bisexual journalist looking for love in any way she can.

Season 2

Season two began airing in Showtime on February 20, 2005. It starts by unveiling to the viewers a secret Tina is keeping from everyone: she successfully became impregnated after a second insemination. Tina begins seeing Helena while Bette’s life is portrayed as a wreck: alcohol abuse, problems with her job, the death of her father in episode 2.11:L'Chaim, and getting fired during the season finale. Tina and Bette reconcile during the final episode. Since the character of Marina was written out from the show, the Planet is bought by Kit Porter during episode 2.01:Life, loss, leaving.

Introduced in the second season are Carmen de la Pica Morales, a confident DJ who becomes part of a love triangle with Shane and Jenny; Helena Peabody, the daughter of a wealthy supporter of the arts and who later becomes Tina's temporary love interest; and Mark Wayland, a documentary filmmaker who moves in with Shane and Jenny. Mark makes them part of his latest documentary, by setting up hidden cameras in the house to videotape them. During episode 2.09: Late, later, latent, Jenny discovers Mark’s tapes and also Carmen’s true love.

Season two also presents insights into Jenny’s past as an abused child in episode 2.11: Loud and Proud along with episodes of self-mutilation that climax in the season finale. Also, the storyline covers a developing affair between Alice and Dana which becomes a public relationship in episode 2.07: Luminous.

Season 3

Season three first aired in Showtime on January 8, 2006. The storyline is set six months after Angelica's (Tina's daughter) birth. Tina's and Bette's relationship as a couple is depicted as decadent and finally ends when Tina starts a heterosexual relationship on episode 3.09:Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

New characters in this season include Moira Sweeney (a working class butch who is Jenny’s girlfriend for most of the season) and Angus Partridge, who is Angelica’s male nanny and who further on becomes Kit’s lover. Sweeney later starts the process of transitioning from female to a male, switching her name to Max. With respect to Shane and Carmen, the relationship that had started in season 2 is kept and the further advance of it leads Carmen to face her family and reveal her homosexuality to them in episode 3.09:Lead, follow or get out of the way.

Concerning Alice and Dana, during the first episode of the season the viewer is informed they are no longer dating and that Alice is having a hard time dealing with it. Dana is later found to have cancer and is ultimately written out of the show in episode 3.10: Losing the light, dying of a heart failure. This death triggers Shane to ask Carmen to marry her in the following episode. Carmen agrees, but in the season finale Shane does not show up to the ceremony.

Helena's character storyline is switched from being Bette's rival into a new member of the circle of friends, paired mostly with Alice. During episode 3.01:Labia Majora she buys a film studio and later in the series Tina starts to work for her. Further in the season, Helena meets a documentary producer with whom she has an affair: Dylan Moreland, portrayed by Alexandra Hedison. A sexual harrasment lawsuit filed by Dylan during episode 3.09:Lead, follow or get out of the way, along with Helena’s prodigal behavior puts her family business in jeopardy. During the season finale, her mother Peggy (potrayed by Holland Taylor) decides to cut her off finacially.

Throughout this season, each episode begins with a short pre-credits vignette of two individuals meeting romantically or sexually. As the season progresses lines from Alice's chart (see below) connect one member of each vignette with a new individual in the next. Beginning in the early 70's with a housewife named Marilyn, these connections eventually wind through several of the series main characters showing scenes of their earlier lives until it ends with Lara, alone in Paris. A much older Marilyn is introduced in the season finale, showing once again the interconnectedness in all of their lives.

Season 4

Schedule

Season four is expected to have 12 episodes. The season premier, Legend in the Making, is currently scheduled to air on January 21, 2007. Filming began in Vancouver, on May 29, 2006. Showtime announced renewal of the series, in a February 2, 2006 press release:

On the heels of a year highlighted by industry recognition and critical acclaim for its award-winning original programming including Weeds, Huff and Sleeper Cell, Showtime has ordered a fourth season of its hit drama series The L Word, it was announced by Robert Greenblatt, President of Entertainment, Showtime Networks Inc.

New cast members

Joining the show's fourth season are Academy-Award winner Marlee Matlin, three time Golden Globe winner Cybill Shepherd, Kristanna Loken, and Janina Gavankar. Karina Lombard will reprise her role as Marina Ferrer for several episodes early in the season.

The Chart

A small portion of The Chart, covering some of the relationships established between the most important characters along the series during seasons 1 through 3. Pink signifies main female characters, blue signifies main male characters, purple and green minor characters featured in the series (female and male respectively), and golden signifies characters that are only alluded to.

A notorious aspect of the L word is its constant reference to The Chart, which is a recopilation of the affairs that go around Alice's surroundings. In its origins, The L Word was to be based around Pam Grier's character Kit Porter, who was initially written as a lesbian with The Chart tattooed on her back. When Kit Porter was changed into a straight character, The Chart was given to the character of Alice instead.

According to the storyline, Alice first started the Chart on the back of a napkin and has evolved to cover a white board stretching all across a wall in her apartment. It would be impossible to reproduce the whole Chart into a simplistic network, since its lines cross and tangle just as everyone in the series is sleeping with everyone else.

The Chart's popularity among the lesbian community within the show grew as the network became public. During episode 1.02:Let's do it, story goes Alice attempted to write an article about it on L.A. Magazine. Being unable to convince her supervisor editor, she opted to publish the Chart on the internet. The network was then enriched by the visitors, and was one of the resources used in season 1 when Lara's sexual orientation was in question.

Late in season 2, the Chart regains plot relevance in the show when a disturbing encounter with Alice's former girlfriend Gabby Deveaux prompts her to put it up as a topic during an interview at KCRW. Story goes the producer was amazed at the complexity of the affair network and granted Alice a section for its public discussion. The program's low popularity is mentioned during episode 2.11:Loud and Proud, but by the third season it is pictured as a hit among the lesbian community, even heard at public places (Dana is forced to listen to an ad of the program while visiting the hospital in episode 3.04:Light my Fire).

From Alice's point of view, the Chart is about her and how she is connected to everyone else on it. With the exception of Kit (whose connections cannot be put up on the Chart up to the end of season 3), any of the main characters can be connected to Alice in less than four moves. In fact, in episode 2.08:Loyal, Alice claimed she could connect almost anyone to her in less than six moves. However, in episode 1.02:Let's do it it is established that the major contributor to the Chart is Shane, which is later confirmed during episode 1.12:Locked up by a comment in which she points out her connections could sum up to about twelve hundred. As the series advances, the Chart becomes bigger, being enriched by the relationships every character develops. During Season 3, the Chart serves as a marginal storyline that advances through each episode and concludes in the season finale.

Characters

File:LWord Cast.jpg

The Ladies of the L Word

Main characters

Main article: List of characters from The L Word

Guest stars

(in alphabetical order)

• Anne Archer as Lenore, Alice's vain actress mother
• Rosanna Arquette as Cherie Jaffe, a "Hollywood wife" with whom Shane had a romantic fling
• The rock band The B-52s as themselves
• Sandra Bernhard as Charlotte Birch, a college professor of a creative writing class that Jenny attends
• The rock band Betty as themselves. They also wrote/performed the theme song used since season two and a number of tracks for the musical score.
• Elodie Bouchez as Claude, a French writer that becomes romantically involved with Jenny
• Kate Clinton as a lesbian sex therapist
• Lolita Davidovich as Francesca Wolff, Marina's lover
• Ossie Davis (his final acting role) as Bette and Kit's conservative father, Melvin Porter
• Dana Delany as Barbara Grisham, the Senator (and lesbian in the closet) from Massachusetts
• Snoop Dogg as rapper Slim Daddy for whom Kit appears in a music video
• Charles S. Dutton as the motivational speaker Benjamin Bradshaw who becomes romantically involved with Kit
• Steven Eckholdt as Henry, a divorced father that becomes Tina's first boyfriend after breaking up with Bette.
• Lisa Gay Hamilton as a nameless art show attendee that attends Bette's show in New York
• The rock band Heart as themselves
• Alexandra Hedison as Dylan, a documentary director that becomes Helena Peabody's love interest, and later her sexual harassment plaintiff
• Nona Hendryx as herself
• Ariana Huffington as herself
• Sharon Isbin as herself
• Irene López as Carmen's mother
• Dr. Susan Love as herself
• Jane Lynch as Joyce Wischnia, a gay-rights attorney who puts the moves on Tina in Season 2 while representing her against Bette, and who Bette subsequently retains against Tina in the custodial fight of season 3.
• Kelly Lynch as 'drag king' Ivan who helps Kit with her alcohol recovery
• Camryn Manheim as the egotistical and hot-tempered movie producer Veronica Bloom, who hires Shane as her assistant
• Meredith McGeachie as Tonya, Dana's celebrity-obsessed temporary fiancée and manager
• Tammy Lynn Michaels as Lacey, Shane's stalker
• The singer Peaches as herself
• Melissa Rivers as herself
• Eric Roberts as Gabriel McCutcheon, Shane's dysfunctional father;
• Julian Sands as Nick Barashkov, Jenny's former college professor of Russian literature;
• Helen Shaver as Fay Buckley, the leader of an extreme right-wing activist group bent on shutting down Bette's art gallery;
• Lauren Lee Smith as Lara Perkins, a chef that both Dana and later Alice become romantically involved with;
• Gloria Steinem as herself;
• Holland Taylor as Peggy Peabody, the wealthy contributor to Bette's art gallery and Helena's mother
• The indie-pop band Tegan and Sara as themselves
• Guinevere Turner as Gabby Deveaux, Alice's hot and cold recurrent girlfriend

Episodes

Main article: List of The L Word episodes

Trivia

• The original code-name for the project was Earthlings, a slang word for lesbians. The Planet, the name of the group's main hangout, is a pun on the original title.

• Though not displayed onscreen, each episode's title (except the pilot) begins with the letter "L," though the third season was rumored to have a thirteenth episode entitled Black Market. It was later canceled.

• The show has introduced several neologisms:
  • Bette Porter introduced the term hasbian during season one.
  • During the first episode of season three, Labia Majora, the phrase "Panty Hamster" was introduced as a euphemism for "vagina."

• Several shows have referenced the The L Word:
  • On the medical drama House Dr. Gregory House said he watches The L Word, but only on mute.
  • On the dark comedy series Weeds, after finding her daughter Isabel kissing another girl, Celia Hodes asks her to focus on the L word for lesbian role models.
  • News satire program The Daily Show, which features news headlines altered to reflect pop cultural gags, referred to its coverage of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict as "The L War" on the July 24, 2006 episode. Host Jon Stewart is a close friend of L Word actress Jennifer Beals, and has previously invited her on to promote The L Word.
  • On the "Chapelle's Show:The Lost Episodes", Dave Chapelle mentions "watching the L Word On Showtime, BYAAAAH!!" in his impersonation of Howard Deans famous outburst in the election runnings" Dave (as Dean) - "I like lesbians. BYAAAAH, I watch The L Word on Showtime, BYAAAAH! *Smells his finger* BYAAAAAH!!!"

External links

• The L Word Official Site
• The L Word at IMDb
• AfterEllen's L Word section Comprehensive news, reviews, interviews, recaps, and polls related to the series.

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