L Word Review - "Literary Lisence to Kill"

[ripley78]

So it's been one of THOSE days...yuck. I slept in this morning, granted I didn't get to bed till nearly 4. I slept in till 11...which is when I'm supposed to leave to pick up my nephew. My mom went instead. I asked my mom when she returned WHY she didn't wake me up, her response "I shouldn't have to wake you up at 11

Comments

[trancer21]

Ooops, for got to add.

My biggest problem with this season is the show has *way* too many characters. Hell, even Joss Whedon didn't have to deal with this kind of cast bloat. Too many characters, and too many characters being given their own arcs that just can't fit into a thirteen ep season.

Take Alice and Tasha. I like them. But my biggest problem, aside from the PTB making Alice look like an idiot, is this arc is *all* about Tasha. There's no balance to it. What should be about two people learning to fall in love again (seeing as how, you know, Alice lost 'the love of her life' last season) has turned into Tasha, her PSTD and IC's patronizing platitudes regarding the Iraq War.

Then there's Phyllis and Leonard. Now, I like Cybill Sheppard and Bruce Davidson. But I don't think *either* character has earned the amount of airtime they're receiving. And didn't we already do a coming out story? Oh yea, that's right, it was the first season with the character who shall not be mention, ie, Dana. Like Max, this is a storyline soo far removed from the main narrative it might as well be its own show.

This season had been going pretty well, for The L Word anyway. But now it's like the wheels are falling off and we only have one episode left to put all the pieces together before IC erases the canon and starts all over again for season five.

[ripley78]

I completely agree that the cast is WAY to bloated. It's a problem on Lost with 24 episodes, I don't know why IC thought it would be wise to have a cast roughly the same size with HALF the episodes to explore. I think it was worked out a while back that as it stands now with the cast, there's only approximately 3 minutes per character each episode. Three minutes...no wonder everyone suffers from multiple personality disorders.

As for Tasha, I actually don't mind the storyline being all about Tasha, you knew there wasn't going to be any closure on Alice and Dana when she ran off with the soup chef and then had her "awakening" on the zip line. Come on, four years in and you are STILL expecting s/l closure? *g* What crack are you smoking! Anyway, I don't mind that the relationship is tilted more towards Tasha's POV, Tasha is interesting and adds a new needed flavour to the mix. What I DO mind is that the ONLY reason why Tasha is in the military is so IC and Co. can show how small minded they are and preach to the audience...who honestly, if they are watching the show, she's probably for the better part preaching to the choir. The writers unfortunately take it that step too far to where everyone just wonders why the characters are so narrow minded and petty. A political quip here and there is fine, but Tasha is merely an outlet for IC and EZ to throw insults about the war. IC sounds less thoughtful with this s/l and more like the polar opposite of Ann Coulter...and that isn't a compliment.

I can't disagree with you on Phyllis and Leonard, as a matter of fact I couldn't figure out why Cybil was added as a regular character when she may have had the same amount of scenes as Camryn Manhiem had a couple seasons ago. Sure, she was in more episodes, but I highly doubt the screentime is much different.

You've touched on one of MY core issues with The L Word that's caused this love/hate thing I have with it. The lack of consistency between seasons PERIOD. Yes, all shows change a bit season from season, but it still FEELS like the same show (except for Lost, but it just feel prey to it's own hype and mutated). TLW has NEVER done that. There isn't much that really carries over story wise from season to season, the only thing thats the same is the characters and background places. And that is what frustrates me. It's like TLW is a computer that IC reformats season to season, but then can't remember what programs she had on it so she buys all new ones (damn...that analogy was nerdy). If something is carried over to the next season, there's never any pay off for it. I understand why Bette/Tina fans are upset, just as I understand why Shane/Carmen fans are upset, there was never any pay off to either of those relationships. There was BARELY any pay off to the Dana/Alice storyline. Of course, if you go by the promo monkeys all the pay off to that storyline might be erased.

I will say this. I will be PISSED OFF if at the end of this whole series Ilene pulls a St. Elsewhere on the audience. I'm getting more and more frightened of that the more and more "famous" Jenny is getting as a writer. The idea is WAY to close to how the last season of Roseanne panned out.

Ok, I will end this super long response now...see what happens when I'm bored at work?!