The L Word Series Finale: A Total Failure
After 6 seasons, loyal viewers and political advocates of the L Word, the Showtime original series about a specific sector of the lesbian community, were left with no closure.
The season long "Who Shot Jenny" theme was leaked early and addressed in episode one. Jenny Schecter, played by Mia Kirshner, was found dead in a pool.
For those of you that didn't watch the series, the character of Jenny was the central usher to the series initially. She was new to the lesbian scene as were many of the viewers. She was artsy, quirky, wide eyed, and a little annoying. We watched her love, live and grow.
By season three, Jenny was "out of character." The writers failed to keep her like-able or consistent. By season five there was no shred of the original Jenny left.
Another characterization mess was Shane McCutcheon. Played by Katherine Moennig, Shane was supposed to be the Brian Kinney of L Word. She was built up to be the fast, sexy, no-relationship hard core heart throb. And by the end of season 1, she was in love and that image was broken. And again in season 2, she fell in love with someone else. And then again. Such a badly written character full of inconsistency had no place to go but to wither. The only reason the audience loved Shane was because of Katherine Moennig.
Ridiculous plot line after dropped plot line, after dumb-ass plot twist, we road the wave for 6 years, only to end last night with Jenny's death, and no answers. Important story lines were dropped. Peripheral storylines were driven into the ground, and THEN dropped. A cheesy video of characters past reaffirmed the storyline inconsistancies and the amatuer writing. (Yeah, like it's even remotely possibly that Jenny contacted Marina, while Mark, played by Eric Livey, the former roommate and hidden camera videographer just disappears forever with no explanation. What a joke.)
Just about the only good thing about the end of this series was the appearance of Xena Warrior Princess Lucy Lawless.
But Chaiken, the used car salesman that she is, didn't write an ending so we'd all carry over to "The Farm." Again, word of it leaked like the Jenny death twist, or a bad 80's silicone boob job.
"The Farm" has long been hyped as centering around "Wrongfully accused Alice Pieszecki in jail for a crime she did not commit." Even on such common websites as IMDB, "The Farm" has been leaked, out there, with spoilers stating - "wrongfully accused."
Ilene Chaiken is nothing more than a salesman: not a creator, not a writer, and certainly not someone I'll ever think of with respect.
6 Feet Under set the bar. No television show has come anywhere close to the brilliance, consistency and beauty Alan Ball crafted. The legacy of that show will stand the test of time. Every scene was a portrait. Characters grew and changed, but in a way that made sense and won your awe.
I wanted to like the L Word. I really did.
I wanted to like this show because of the social and political statements it made. It was so important for someone to do a show like this. It's such a shame that this incredibly important task fell into the completely incompetent hands of Chaiken.
Each season the writing got worse and worse, & the characters were more and more inconsistent, but I stuck with it because I thought that was the right thing to do. Some of the acting was so good that I would sometimes forget how idiotic a scene was. Jennifer Beals should have won an emmy for her role as Bette Porter. Beals was graceful, powerful and convincing. Over and over again. By far, her acting was the best part of this show.
I felt obligated to keep watching because of the significance the issues hold in history and in my heart. I would even tell people they should watch it because it's so important, knowing all the while that even though it was dealing with such groundbreaking and important issues, it was still bad TV.
Bad TV was made worse with this ending. It was worse than the horrific Soprano's ending, or the cop-out lame-ass Queer as Folk ending. I felt worse than the way I felt when shows I watched just disappeared, like Carnivale and Dead Like Me. Let's face it - there are mayonnaise commercials with better endings than the L Word.
I won't be watching "The Farm."
All text is original content by Veronica.
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