The L Word Season 1 Review - Very Informal

The L Word: Season 1

Grade: 5.8/10

The L Word Season 1 overall proved to be better than the pilot suggested. However, many of the issues I had from the pilot remained a significant part of the series as the viewer is essentially shown a group of women who are cruel to their loved ones for a variety of reasons; the primary one being “I couldn’t help myself”.

Worst of all is the character of Jenny played by Mia Kirshner. If ever a role could destroy an actor or actress for me for the remainder of time it would be Jenny ruining Mia Kirshner. The more I think about why these people would ever write a character so major to the story this bipolar, frustrating, mind-numbingly wishy-washy and just plain bitchy is beyond my comprehension as a human being. In the Pilot she wasn’t so terrible. She was clearly confused and realizing that she felt something for another woman; Marina. However this storyline plummets quickly as we see that Jenny begins to do oddly hypocritical things like; avoid Marina, then deliberately go to The Planet where she works, then tell her she it was a mistake, then follow her into the bathroom to do stuff, then tell her it was a mistake, then wait for her to call, then continue to do it with her, then feel really guilty, then not feel guilty. The stupidity goes on like that for a while. Then when Tim finally catches Marina going down on her the logical thing to do would be…to lie, say it was the first and only time and then go to The Planet to tell Marina she will never see her again and then get married to Tim. Totally logical, right? Right? :cricket…cricket: Granted, Tim was the one with the grand plan to get married but really liked Tim and I understand that he was very confused at that point and considering that Jenny makes about 100 of the stupidest decisions a person can possibly make so Tim gets to make 1 bad decision. I allow it. Plus it led up to the moment when Tim leaves Jenny in the motel room in the middle of the night after getting married which was basically the funniest thing ever. What does that lead Jenny to do? Jenny, being Jenny, decides to write stupid things while sitting in a fucking field and then she hitchhikes and takes some shrooms with Cally from BSG and then climbs a mountain and then sits next to a mailbox. Then she comes back and lies to Tim again who, hilariously, throws all of Jenny’s stuff onto the yard. Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I won’t even go into the rest because I’m getting mad just thinking about it. But I’ll tell you that it involves getting screwed over by Marina and her lover Francesca, throwing wine bottles, writing about manatees who can talk, going to an aquarium and looking at some manatees, having sex while manatees watch and then hooking up with a really nice woman named Robin (played by the great Anne Ramsay) who really deserves better. All in all she is truly a terrible concoction. This is coming from someone who loves flawed characters, deeply flawed ones, but Jenny and most of these characters are either too cruel or too uninteresting to hold my interest or sympathy.

The rest of the storylines did not fare nearly as badly as this. Bette and Tina end up being quite likable. My favorite stuff in the season involved Bette’s handling of the “Provocations” exhibit and her interaction with her father. She blew it all though by randomly fucking over a 7 year relationship by fucking a carpenter multiple times. Because that makes sense. It would have been a lot more interesting if she had been a character who we knew for a while. But no; Candace comes in for one episode and by the end of it they are making out. Poor Tina. Right now I enjoy Tina but I am going to take a wild guess and assume she will do something to make me hate her eventually. I am 5 episodes away from finishing Season 2. Bette gets so much worse in Season 2 but we will come to that in time. I found myself invested in the two of them and it was pretty heartbreaking when they had the miscarriage. Bette’s breakdown at the Fae Buckley debate was rather fantastic and moving.

Dana continued to be pretty annoying. I enjoyed her coming out to her parents and her relationship with the sous-chef but overall her moments of humor are what made her stand out. Her relationship with Tanya is just so stupid and makes no sense. Alice is much worse, in the first season at least (she becomes tolerable in the second season). All she talks about is her stupid chart and gossip. She had an interesting brief relationship with an ex and the stuff with her mother was interesting enough.

Kit was a waste of time. Her presence feels forced and awkward. One of my favorite scenes of the season though, was her encounter with her and Bette’s father.

Of course there is Shane, the saving grace of the show. Her storyline was actually very interesting and I loved where it took her character. Her refusal to get involved with Cherie Jaffe’s daughter was fantastic and the scene where she confronts Cherie both at the house and at the exhibit was really moving. Shane lights up any scene she is in and one the best things about her is the way she handles situations differently than anyone else. She comes off as very free and easy going, which she is, but she has so much integrity. What’s great about her is that she won’t get involved in anything if it’s not her business but she is so loyal to helping people out, to a fault. She’s so caring and it is adorable.

Overall the season was okay but nothing special. The episode where we see each of the characters first lesbian experience was great. Using Leonard Cohen is always very welcome (he is used twice more). Seeing Devon Gummersall aka Brian Krakow was a pleasant surprise as well as seeing Tigh from BSG as Dana’s father. A few storylines were genuinely intriguing but more often than not they were either actively bad or uninteresting. The women just come off as people who have nothing else to do but fuck up their lives in every way possible and then not take responsibility for anything. Essentially it’s like watching a bunch of children.

Sorry that this review is not an attempt at something deep or professional or meaningful or relevant. The show is simply not worth it to me. You will hear from me after I finish Season 2. I am fast forwarding through pointless nonsense with this show.

24: Season 8, Episode 11: "2:00-3:00am"

"24″: Season 8, Episode 11: “2:00-3:00am”
Grade: 6/10

This week’s episode of “24” was a step up from essentially the entire season thus far. While the majority of it was the mediocre to bad quality of television that us fans have become used to sitting through, towards the end of the episode we were given a 10 minute segment that was a breath of fresh air, easily the best of the season so far, which showed us that “24” can still provide genuinely interesting and suspenseful situations.
Bringing on Mare Winningham as the mother of the son who had a bomb strapped to him was a very smart move. There have been countless occasions when the audience is asked to care about characters we meet for maybe an hour and 99% of the time the show fails at bringing any level of genuine sympathy and attachment to the table in its efforts to make us invested in people we will only know for one hour. Or even several hours; for example, not once were the Russian brothers anything but a waste of time, yet we were supposed to care. Bringing on an actress we know and an actress that can evoke immediate sympathy draws us in very quickly and the situation then becomes something to invest in. Throw in the classic “24” scenario of a young fellow who has convinced himself that America killed his father resulting in the bomb strapped to him which then allows Winningham and Bauer to try to convince him to stop, and we have a bona fide great scene folks. And that’s what those 10 minutes were; great. This season has essentially been a joke; I’ve laughed more than anything else. It’s just bad. I’ve been watching this show since it premiered nearly 10 years ago so I am not about to stop now but the level of excitement in me when I know a new episode is coming is now at an all time low. However there are two things that hopefully signify a rise in quality this season. One are those 10 minutes which prove to me these people still have something left in them. Two is the preview for next week which actually looks decent especially with whatever seems to be going down at CTU.
Now that those 10 minutes which ended in tragedy have been covered, we can go over the rest of the episode. I have decided that I wish that Dana and Cole’s subplot was purely comedic. Think about it; this subplot sucks beyond comprehension and there seems to be no end in sight for it. “24” should have conducted an experiment in genre television by having the rest of the show be as serious as it normally is; don’t change anything. Then, every time we see Dana and Cole it would be like a Laurel and Hardy thing. Think of the hilarity that would ensue when they try to drown the bodies? How about the screwball comedy of trying to hide all of these phone calls that Dana has to take? It would be a huge failure, but it would be one of the most famous stunts a show ever pulled and either way it would be genuinely hilarious or gloriously awful. Think about it; at least it would be more interesting.
Anyways, Dana continued to be a moron this hour especially when she took that phone call. She is a moron for not assuming that this guy had information. And what did he have? Not much. He has proof that a few phone calls took place. Not that they met, not what was in the phone conversations. All she needed to say was he was an old friend of mine and we talked a few times. But no; she had to deny, deny, deny. Then she calls Cole because she made a boo-boo. I loved how annoyed he was when she called. And the “Lie; we both know you’re good at it?” Well guess what Dana; if you both get out of this okay (which you won’t) then you have a lovely lifetime of quips like that to look forward to. It was also funny how everyone made the rounds of taking a shot at Dana. First it was Head-Tilt Hastings, then Chloe and then Arlo who is the worst character of all time. Also, way too much time was given to Dana this week, even more than usual. The scene in which Head-Tilt Hastings lectures Dana in his office was unnecessary; we just had this scene 10 minutes before when Head-Tilt Hastings lectured both Dana and Cole. It was the same scene twice.
What else happened? Not much. We found out that the Tarin is in fact a co-conspirator which was pretty obvious. This continues to prove that if a couple are having sex during any part of the show, that one of them is bad and that we will find out in the form of a post coital hotel shower scene. It’s happened countless times on this show and it happened again. I have to admit though that the President’s daughter is one of the best I’ve seen at not showing how scared she is. Bravo.
Hassan and his wife yelled at each other. And is that it? I think that might be it. Character wise, nothing interesting is happening with Jack. I wonder how long Renee will stay at his apartment before something goes down. We shall see. Next week looks to be interesting actually. As I said, anything going down at CTU is welcome by me.