The L Word – All 4 Seasons

After it happened to me with the tremendously good good show “Six Feet Under” I never thought it will happen to me again. But it did, obviously. Throw away 1 week and a half of school work, society, friends, fresh air, food, sleep, comfort. For 4 juicy seasons of L Word goodness, sitting in one crappy chair, in one shadowy room. With cigarette breaks. That has been my life for 2 weeks. But now I’m over. Actually, I’m waiting for 2008 for the release of the next season.

The show starts with a wonderful, gripping 2 hours long pilot where we get introduced to the characters and the setting. The cast is mostly composed by lesbians, one bisexual (for the color, I suppose?) and an alcoholic straight sister. The show doesn’t pompously announce to present all types of lesbian relationships or all LGBT issues. It would not be a television show if it did, but just an educational documentary. This is for all of those who criticize the show for not showing lesbian life as it is. As it is where? It shows just one possibility, one corner of this society, so stop bitching about the impossibility to empathize or find yourselves in one of the characters. You don’t have to empathize with art, honeys, in order to enjoy it. Art is not life, get over yourselves.

So yes, these particular lesbians life is idyllic. They have a lesbian friendly bar – The Planet – where they hang out, most of them are accomplished women, with jobs and huge LA-ian houses, extremely articulate and intelligent and good humored. One of the reasons why I got immediately hooked is the genuine nature of circumstances and feelings. Once again friendship is very much emphasized between this group of friends. I find myself crying like an idiot to the show’s most dramatic moments. Sex is also properly portrayed. But let’s start with the characters.

Bette and Tina (played by beautiful and charismatic Jennifer Beals and not so beautiful and charismatic Laurel Holloman) are The L Word’s couple and one of the best taking care of plot branch. Their story arch goes from a normal 7 years old relationship and their struggle to make it work: from break ups, sex slow downs, couple therapy, hate, struggle to make a baby and treason. Jennifer Beals is a tremendously good actress, her face can show pain without even moving a muscle, she’s a very transmitting actress and quite ideal in the role of a control freak/museum curator. The art element of the show is really a fresh supplement. Since Bette is an art critic, a lot of the episodes focus on her struggle to make contemporary art open to the large public and the freakish Catholic fanatics trying to ban artistic expression in a still puritanical America. I enjoy seeing most of the art pieces presented in the show, since I myself totally indulge in postmodern art. Laurel Holloman plays poorly in most of the scenes, but the two have indeed great chemistry together. Actually the only scenes were Holloman is credible are the scenes in which Beals helps with her presence. Apart from that, she is unhurriedly delivering her lines making it excruciating to hear, with a slowed paced voice rhythm that annoys like hell.

Shane, played by orgasmic actress Katherine Moennig, is probably everyone’s favorite character. This actress has so much sex appeal and calm-cool attitude that she’s almost aching to watch. Shane is a sexually deviant one hundred per cent lesbian who has sex with hundreds of different people but hides indeed an interesting, painful, character whose personality will be developed further in the show. Shane is a hair dresser. Interesting fact is that even if Shane plays a sleeparound character with few if any emotional implications, she comes off as a gentle, caring, thoughtful person who actually does care about people’s feelings. Very good performance from Moennig, all in one eye candy appearance.

Alice, played by Leisha Hailey (she used to play in The Murmurs a couple of years ago) is the bisexual journalist, who eventually becomes 100% gay. Her bisexualism anyway seems to resume to sex with boys, and real love with girls. While the character emerges in the beginning as a shallow, trendy girl, Hailey manages to convey one of the greatest personalities of the show, through her outstanding humoristic approach to life and will reveal in-depth layers in later seasons. She becomes my favorite character in the end, for some odd reasons; somehow she manages to transpose something very humane and likeable. When her relationship with fellow Dana is portrayed, and when this same relationship comes to an abrupt end, the onscreen challenges are perfectly matched by transposing diverse and intricate feelings. Also, she’s pretty.

Dana, played by Erin Daniels is another character who is build up progressively during the seasons. If at first she was my least favorite character, her humor and the character’s uneasiness, clumsiness and silliness create a very three-dimensional personage, highly likeable and much regretted afterwards.

Beautiful Mia Kirshner plays Jenny Shecter, a very controversial character. She’s the straight girl who is forced into becoming a hardcore lesbian after a troublesome relationship with ice-covered Marina and a disastrous marriage with a gym teacher. Then the character goes from ups and downs: craziness, self-injury, a weird striptease job, mental illness etc. She’s the most fucked up character of all and I’m really curios into what has to come for her in the next season. Her friendship with Shane in the 4th season is another aspect which I very much enjoyed.

Of course, there are other characters, some who appear in only one season, other who reoccurs. Phyllis (Cybill Shepherd) plays an old lesbian and brings a very lighthearted, humoristic side to the show. The stunning, also orgasmic Sarah Shahi plays beautifully Carmen, during season 3, and seeing her and Shane together was really enjoyable, especially since they have the most realistic on screen chemistry. Daniela Sea (also knows as Little Prince) plays the transgender Moira/Max but her powers to act are close to 0, particularly since they gave her such a tricky and multifaceted role. Karina Lombard is very good as the knowledgeable Marina who fucks up Jenny’s (Mia Kirshner) life.

The first season starts on a fast note, picking up on characters on the run and tries to develop things fast. We get a glimpse of the characters’ past (come out stories and such), of their life stratagems, their jobs, their aspirations, their personalities. Combining serious tone with humor, the best of both worlds I might add. Second season kind of goes on a more serious note, while season 3 is the most painful season of them all since we get to see one of the main characters dying and we witness 2 agonizing breakups. Some episodes are really hard to watch in the way they stress drama and play with our feelings for the characters. I’m a philology student, and like every true philologist I am schizophrenic in the way I relate and believe in characters and transpose myself from reality. In this way, suspension of disbelief is one of my most accomplished performances. So yea, I emoted like a motherfucker, crying my eyes out to some stories written by a stranger.
So after an excruciating 3rd season, life seems to normalize for the characters in a more laidback, relaxing 4th season, more focused on humor than drama, which is exactly what the viewers needed after the tearful adventure of the last season.

Looking forward to season 5.

Sex and the City Season 6

I’ve done it. I’ve decided to indulge in superficiality for a couple of hours and go through the 6^th Sex and the City season. I just wanted to see how it ends, mkay? I need my dose of trendy sexually deviant American girls in their mid-forties sometimes I guess. heh.

I’ve never quite followed this show, just caught it up sometimes on HBO and found it pretty entertaining. Certainly entertaining enough to deserve a download. (I’ve downloaded worse stuff)

Well after going through season 6 I’ve certainly got what I wanted: a few laughs, a lot of empathy and cheap entertainment. Ok that sounded really pretentious. Actually it’s a really good show. I appreciate the effort into making it since and all the 4 actresses deliver great performances. Kim Cattrall (Samantha) is tremendous as the fancy nymphomaniac and got my undivided attention when all 4 of them were on screen. Carrie (Sarah Jessicah Parker) is the main character therefore destined to be the most balanced – this is always going to be a minus, since the personality is going to always be faded in some way or another, in an attempt to equilibrate the others’. Who wants equilibrium on screen? But Sarah Jessicah Parker delivers it great. This actress is certainly intriguing. Sometimes she seems so fake and act-ish but sometimes she delivers the lines with such naturalness that I wonder if I didn’t judge her wrong in the first place. One thing that she does posses, besides a pair of beautiful, absorbing blue eyes, is charisma. Nonetheless, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) comes close after Samantha in terms of screen presence: with a nice dosage of cynicism and coldness, she has a twisted sense of humor and sarcasm that fits the overall atmosphere of the show. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) on the other hand, is not quite likeable, because the writers make her feel like a caricature most of the time, with only the “goody-goody” aspect of her personality being so highlighted that the character seems too much of a typology for my taste.

Well, I do like the revolution that this “show has made for single women” – (I’m guessing this is their advertisment line). I’m a feminist I guess so I’m going to appreciate something sort of progressive like this show is, or was. Because these women, apart from being obsessed with clothing, sex and expensive restaurants, are also quite smart, witty and sometimes show signs of independece.

A good show, all in all, nothing mind-blowing nor breath-taking. All actresses deliver good performances, and are credible as a group of friends. One thing that I find as truly lame are Carrie’s supposedely clever articles. Most of the time, though, they come off as pseudo-intellectual and banal.