Previously: Sad queer novels, fixed.
Season One
Bette Porter breaks up with long-time girlfriend Tina after learning that Tina objects to their using a black sperm donor. They never speak again. After several months of mourning, Bette embarks upon a surprising, intellectually stimulating relationship with Peggy Peabody, a fascinating and challenging patron of the arts.
A young widower, Tim Haspel, moves next door after having lost his wife Jenny in a tragic carnival accident. Local tennis player Dana Fairbanks embarks on a tentative relationship with sous chef Lara Perkins. Exactly the same things happen to Shane as before. Someone else has to hook up with Marina, right? Let’s go with Kit.
Also, no one dates Lisa.
Season Two
After catching Dana cheating on her with Alice, Tonya hires Joyce Wischnia to finalize their quickie divorce. Shane rejects the roommate application of a strange young filmmaker named Mark and decides to move in with Carmen. Bette and Kit struggle to connect with their father Melvin after he reveals he’s dying. Alice and Dana form a warm and exciting throuple with Lara Perkins.
Season Three
Billie Blaikie and Kit have a wonderful time running the new show at the Planet. Kit meets and falls for incredibly loyal nanny Angus Bradshaw, who is capable of fidelity and treats her like a queen. LA transplant Moira moves to the neighborhood, and everyone is incredibly comfortable with the way Moira chooses to dress and identify, whether that’s using the word “butch” around Shane or eventually coming out as Max.
Carmen obviously can’t attend the opening party at WAX because she’d be an idiot to give up the chance to work with Russell Simmons. Shane totally gets that, and supports her decision. Despite seeing evidence of her father’s continued inability to maintain a long-term relationship, Shane realizes she is in no way destined to follow in his footsteps, and does not abandon Carmen at the altar in British Columbia, because she is not an idiot. Also, Cherie Jaffe starts dating Tonya. Weirdly, it works. Helena never forgives Dylan after her unbelievably horrific legal and personal betrayal. Years later, Dylan is able to come out, but never attempts to speak to Helena again, out of respect for her privacy. Helena ends up with that hot cop Lucy Lawless would have played in season six, if there had ever been a season six (there is no season six).
Dana still dies, but at least Alice is in the room holding her hand when it happens. Sorry.
Season Four
SHANE AND CARMEN GET TO KEEP SHAY. Janina Gavankar is allowed to play a character of her own ethnic background (let’s call her Lily), and it’s remarkable. Kit tires of Angus, dumps him, then hooks up with Papi for the rest of the season. Everything with Phyllis and Alice happens in exactly the same way, because it’s too good.
Alice finally meets Tasha. They have a flawless relationship for the next two seasons, and also forever, and they never meet anyone named Jamie, and they do that big kiss-and-twirl scene from that episode where they defeat Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell singlehandedly and also turn Kelly McGillis gay. Lots of Joyce Wischnia scenes, and someone should date Paige besides Shane, because Kristanna Loken is too good to not use…Bette! Bette dates her, and they wear a lot of color-coordinated power suits. At least one episode is dedicated just to Helena and Catherine having sex in gold-encrusted ballgowns on a baccarat table.
Season Five
Max and Tom still date, because they were cute, and have a long and happy life together. No kids, but a lot of hours spent working on home-carpentry projects.
“As Helena slowly adjusts to prison life, her angry mother, Peggy, finally arrives to post her bail.” NOTHING ABOUT THIS CHANGES. Dawn Denbo and her lover Cindi roll into town, and Carmen agrees to let Shane off the monogamy leash for a few days. The rest of the season is devoted to chronicling the massive street war that erupts between The Planet and SheBar. Phyllis and Joyce run off and get married, while Lily seduces Phyllis’ daughter Molly. Bette and Jodi move in together. There is no “Lez Girls.” The season is bookended by Tasha and Alice’s wedding, complete with one of those things where all her Army buddies hold their rifles up in a big aisle and they both run down it and everyone throws rice at them and it’s sort of heteronormative but also you can’t fight City Hall ALL THE TIME, you guys, and it’s much cuter than it is heteronormative, so they do it.
Season Six
THERE IS NO SEASON SIX.
There, it’s fixed. You’re all very welcome.
Tags: fixing things, lgbt, the l word
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Also, the season one opening credits remain the opening credits for all of the other seasons.
This is so much better. Shane and Carmen keeping Shay would have been so amazing. Carmen pursuing her own career and have Shane support her would have been amazing. It hurts to think of her continuing to live in LA and having billboards of the woman who left her at the altar plastered all over the place.
Tragic carnival accident is perfect.
Is there any way to retroactively make this what really happened?
As far as I’m concerned, this IS what really happened. And YES for the credits.
Ugh. The post-season one opening credit song was just plain terrible.
WORSE THAN LIVING LAUGHING LOVING FIGHTING FUCKING?! I think not.
YES! That’s the one I’m talking about! That song is awful
Oh, oops, I misread! Sorry for my INTENSE INDIGNATION! 🙂
No worries. The L word brings out intense love/hate feelings in me.
I used to watch these at a bar in LA where the cast would often be. When the new theme song debuted, I groaned like I had kidney stones and all the actresses sneered at me. Sorry/not sorry.
“A young widower, Tim Haspel, moves next door after having lost his young wife Jenny in a tragic carnival accident. ” That right there takes care of half the problems! Very efficient editing.
This is almost entirely excellent, but Dana dying a second time is reopening that Chaiken-shaped wound in my gay heart. WHY.
I never watched The L Word, because it was on while I was at Smith, and frankly it seemed superfluous at the time. Given how much fixing it seems to need, did I make the right decision? Should I go back and watch it anyway?
WATCH IT AND EMBRACE EVERYTHING TERRIBLE ABOUT IT
Even Season 6?
NO
I didn’t watch it while I was at Smith because some friends made me watch a random episode and all I got from it was EVERYONE IS THE WORST. No idea what season, though.
Thank you, Mallory, very, very much.
As far as I’m concerned this is how the show went and no one can ever convince me otherwise ever again.
(And, like, how cute were Tom and Max when the show wasn’t ruining them and also everything about Max as a character and trans man? SO GODDAMN CUTE).
I’m jealous of everyone who didn’t have to watch the L Word at Smith. I went to W&M in good ol’ Virginia and when I turned on the The L Word in my dorm, it doubled the amount of gay women in a square mile.
I, too, went to college in a southern state. So many viewing parties in cramped dorm rooms.
MAAAAAAAAAAAX you deserved so much better, my tiny little dude. That’s the batshit plot twist that made me realize just how batshit the show really was.
I think I ragequit shortly after Max got upset that Jenny was telling “their” story without his permission, then she flipped out and accused him of angry macho bullshit, which the show treated as a legitimate way for her to behave.
No Jenny EVER is the bestest thing. NOT EVEN IN FLASHBACK. I loved Mia Kirshner so much before the show (from having seen “Exotica”, etc.) that it freaked me out how much I loathed Jenny. Consistently.
My fondest wish for Season 6 (and my first post on The Toast) was:
“May you tie up all your storylines at the final episode and not inflict pointless webisodes upon your viewers that also heap extra (bonus!) ignominy on beloved characters and make viewers wonder where they can find a flammable pitchfork and whether it is possible to send same via express mail, pre-lit, for expression of last-straw exasperation and horror.”
Killing it with fire is a FAR better idea.
All of those revisions are marvelous and this is my new head-canon.
i think i still need someone to at least TELL the batshit crazy stories like when jenny MURDERS A DOG. we don’t need to actually witness them, but i would like to hear the characters gossip about this outrageous behavior nevertheless.
also, i cannot recommend this wikipedia page highly enough. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Schecter. the sections are “characterization” “sexuality” “sexual abuse” “transformation” and “murder”. WOWZA.
“Chaiken implemented a series of changes to the character, one of which being the inclusion of a sexual abuse storyline and self-harm, which some critics observed as being attempts to make her likable in the LGBT community. One storyline that gained mainstream attention was adopting a homeless dog, only to have it put down for personal gain. Other storylines include pole dancing, directing a film, writing novels, coming out, self-harm, affairs, and her possible murder.”
Oh, Jenny. Shine on, you crazy diamond.
“Kirshner herself has stated she loved playing Jenny because she felt like a brand new character during each season.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
it’s just SO GOOD.
Despite truly despising Jenny Schecter, I really valued Mia Kirshner’s performance. She’s good.
But now, whenever I see her TV or a movie, I look at my partner and we both scream “IT’S JENNY OH GODDDDD”
What would fixing the opening credits theme even involve? Would it have to be totally scrapped in favor of another (probably Ani) song? Is any aspect of it salvageable?
Honestly they should have just recycled the theme from The Facts of Life.
The season one word jumble thing was dumb but otherwise inoffensive. They could just stick with that. As a bonus it was really short.
I only watched this show for the first time this year. It’s a shame that I didn’t have that mass watching experience with peripheral lesbians coming out of the woodwork to watch it with me but at the same time I did get to skip through those credits every time. I have no idea how everyone else got through it. Did you just embrace it and sing along? Did you all scream in unison to block it out? Would you wait poised with the remote to mute it? And then as well you have to make sure you don’t unmute it too early because that last flat note is excruciating.
A hot-air popcorn popper helped with the 2nd + season opening credits. “This is the way that—-” *loud whooshing drowns it all out* Plus, at the end, popcorn!
“Alice and Dana form a warm and exciting throuple with Lara Perkins”
This most perfect of triads is basically my headcanon. Please tell me there’s fanfic of this?
On AO3 l could only find a threeway with HELENA, for which I feel personally responsible, somehow:
http://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&a…
is anyone else deeply confused and skeptical by chaiken’s involvement in empire?? i am so fearful for what will happen in the future! who will become a dog murderer? how many personality swaps will we have to endure? etc.
I share your confusion/fear. I am worried that one day Jamal will announce that he wants to collaborate with a hip new band called ‘Betty’…
I felt her touch acutely in the Courtney Love storyline, especially when she’s just left to fall off a hassock onto the floor. Odds on her to resurface and kill a dog, too.
At a guess, I would say the was responsible for the “bipolar” storyline. Not just because she worked on “Black Box” which is possibly the most insulting “portrayal” of bipolar disorder ever, but because the whole thing had a huge whiff of Schecter about it.
Huzzah to no Tina or Jenny! But as far as I’m concerned we should cut out Bette too. *ducks to avoid tomatoes being thrown* She was just smug and boring and I never understood her appeal, except that she’s pretty. Maybe she can show up every once in a while to help Kit pay for an expansion of the bar or something. I mean, if Tina is the love of your life, you must be a boring person!! Ipso facto
I LOVED HER, I LOVE SMUG PRETTY WOMEN
I tried to watch this a while back. Made it through only three episodes.
I gave up after season 2 because it was ridiculous and I hated everybody, so I will happily assume this is what happened after that season.
So much yes!!
Can we get a “Tim realizes he’s bi and dates a hot swim coach from a rival school” storyline in there too?
I just checked if there was fan fic of this. “You searched for: Tags: M/M, The L Word, Tim. No results found.” AT LEAST, NOT YET.
No Tina! Yes!
YES. Correct. Although my theory that everyone else in the cast had collaborated on Jenny’s murder, Orient Express style, has its appeal.
IF one were to follow up with Jenny, one would find that she had in fact faked her carnival accident to catfish a mild mannered history student at Duke, only to then arrange her own (furreal) death at the hands of a vampire. Vampire!Jenny comes back to LA to wreck havoc following season five of The L Word, then disappears again. For ever.
Ugh but Carmen though. Nope.
Yep, this is pretty much fixed. I would have deleted both Bette and Tina, though.
Trans and gender-non-conforming people are treated with respect, as are their sexual preferences, rather than portrayed as freaks to giggle over. There is no “how dare Lisa not want to use her penis when I want her to, what nonsense” plotline. There is no “deception” plotline with Ivan. There is no “trans men are too stupid to handle their own hormones or realise when they’ll get pregnant, and aha, not really a man, look, a functioning uterus!” plotline with Max.
Bisexual folks are as common as they are in real life (which in my experience is around half of queer women), and are not expected to see the error of their ways and become proper lesbians. Dating a man is not seen as a massive betrayal.
Jodi gets partners who are not ableist fuckwits and do not hold dinner parties which make her feel horribly isolated. Her being poly is treated as a joyous thing and she gets to have more than one relationship, rather than giving up being poly once she falls in love “properly”.
I stopped watching the L-word at the beginning of Series 3because I was so ANGRY that any positive, healthy relationship had to be sabotaged in the name of…what? Plot? Ratings? And Jenny freaked me out. Like, really freaked me out. I have now replaced irritating/disappointing plot lines with your ‘fixed’ version and am a happier person. : )
I just have to say that if you watch Lost Girl, the most satisfying part of Season 4, in an otherwise exceptionally satisfying show, is Jenny Schecter getting punched in the face.
On AO3 l could only find a threeway with HELENA, for which I feel personally responsible, somehow:
http://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&a…
“At least one episode is dedicated just to Helena and Catherine having sex in gold-encrusted ballgowns on a baccarat table.” Actually I sort of feel like I’ve seen that episode? or maybe I just dreampt it. In any case: [gavel bang] IT IS SO.
"At least one episode is dedicated just to Helena and Catherine having sex in gold-encrusted ballgowns on a baccarat table." Actually I sort of feel like I've seen that episode? or maybe I just dreampt it. In any case: [gavel bang] IT IS SO.
Ivan though. I loved Ivan. Please explain how he happened in this universe.
. . . . . . I actually loved Tina. (Ducks and covers)
My two terrible L Word Opinions: Jenny Schecter is an awful person but a great character who is our worst demons.
And Bette is just a terrible person!! Limb from Limb shows that!
Bette IS terrible! (And also a rapist, which, man, I think a lot of people forget about that???)
You had me at Jenny dying in a tragic carnival accident before the series starts.
No no no no no.
The L Word cannot be considered “fixed” if it leaves out one of the primary reasons* for the show’s existence, duh, which is Shane having strap-on sex with Cherie Jaffe by (and in) the pool. I don’t care if she has to cheat on Carmen, Carmen never really did it for me. If there’s any reason for Shane to be off the monogamy leash, it’s definitely not to have sex with Dawn Denbo and Lover Cindi.
*the other reason for the show’s existence being the cunnilingus montage set to Swimming Pool.
Yep, works for me. Especially the lack of Season Six. There is no Season Six.