The ‘L’ Word – Season Two
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Extras: C+
Maybe the debut season was better, but picking up on the
Showtime cable TV show The ‘L’ Word in its second season, the show may
be the first exclusively devoted to the lifestyle and current world of
lesbians. As compared to documentaries
on the subject we have covered and “real life” lesbians on top of that, the
series still a soap opera that has some problems in common with its gay male
counterpart Queer As Folk. They
act like the world is free of homophobia, people within the lifestyle are
always nice, easy and accessible (a fantasy in any gay or straight situation)
and despite the number of such characters, none pose any real threat to the
system or society.
This is not to say they would only be interesting if they
were terrorists, communists, or the like, but the passivity in the political
sense and total absence of any sense of history without it being reduced to a
smart-ass one-liners that make the characters seem more cartoonish than the
very clever Daria series.
Jennifer Beals and Pam Grier are among the few known regulars in a show
that is well cast, but the teleplays (13 episodes in this set alone) have a
certain confinement of unreality that sabotages the series from becoming more
important as it should be.
Of course, for heterosexuals looking for hot (read thought
police) lesbian sex and action, the show is more suggestive than literal and
none of the encounters are, that memorable, even in context to the narrative. This includes some males who seem to get
even nude beyond the females at times, which is pretty much shot in a way for
the actual lesbian audience to consider the male as object that almost looks
like female as male. Now that is edgy,
if not slightly underhanded considering the failings of the show. Whether it was better before or gets better
afterwards this remains to be seen. But
as it stands, The ‘L’ Word is a high quality soap opera that gets to
enjoy the freedoms of cable, but without them, its limits are obvious.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is short on
color range and depth, no matter what the style of the series. Nothing extraordinary in the way of shots is
here either. The sound mixes are two
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo with Pro Logic surround choices between English and
Spanish, then a slightly better 5.1 English Dolby that works best. Extras include some Showtime promo interview
spots, a word game, contests, text with letter about how the show changed their
lives, text biographies, Ms. Foundation promo and a Music Video.
- Nicholas Sheffo
