The L Word: Gen­er­a­tion Q review – still strug­gling with grow­ing pains

A black woman wrig­gles and writhes in ecsta­sy, her sen­su­al moan­ing sig­nalling her immi­nent cli­max. From between her thighs, a young lati­no woman steals glances at her, study­ing her reac­tions, gaug­ing the right spot that will final­ly send her over the edge and plung­ing into that warm, joy­ous pool of post-coital bliss. As they share their breath­less sen­ti­ments for one anoth­er, the recip­i­ent of this deli­cious bout of morn­ing plea­sures ques­tions the inten­si­ty of her horni­ness. The answer shim­mers on her partner’s fin­gers in crim­son red – a sim­ple fact, a part of female sex­u­al­i­ty that is nei­ther cel­e­brat­ed, analysed nor shamed.

Fol­low­ing in The L Word’s tra­di­tion of tan­ta­lis­ing open­ing scenes, the revival’s pre­mière episode, ​‘Let’s Do it Again’, throws us straight back into a Los Ange­les that appears to con­sist entire­ly of LGBT+ folk and the occa­sion­al cis­man or woman – only this time around, the per­spec­tives have changed. While The L Word: Gen­er­a­tion Q is still very much focused on the shock val­ue of scenes such as the afore­men­tioned peri­od-sex open­ing and old-school L’Worder, Shane’s (Kather­ine Moen­ning) sex­ca­pades, our favourite tribe of LA les­bians is going through its fair share of grow­ing pains, and it seems as though these are set to be the main dri­vers behind this new sto­ry arc.

Alice (Leisha Hai­ley), Shane and Bette (Jen­nifer Beals) are all nav­i­gat­ing new lifestyles, career choic­es and mod­ern patch­work fam­i­ly dynam­ics that feel true to their char­ac­ters and pose intrigu­ing ques­tions. See­ing Bette run­ning for may­or makes per­fect sense giv­en the pow­er­house of a woman she is, and even Alice’s first clum­sy attempts at par­ent­hood (“It’s a whole thing”) feel nat­ur­al to her char­ac­ter. Shane, on the oth­er hand, seems to be stuck in the same cycle of mean­ing­less sex brought on by an unshak­able fear of com­mit­ment. And while, in some sense, it’s sad to see that she has not grown as a per­son – at least in respect to love and rela­tion­ships – it some­how feels right that she hasn’t. After all, some trau­mas take a life­time to repair.

Pri­or to reunit­ing with the three orig­i­nals at their new Plan­et-esque hang­out, the audi­ence is intro­duced to a fleet of new gen­er­a­tioners such as Mic­ah (Leo Sheng), a trans­man smit­ten with his new neigh­bour; his room­mates, Dani (Ari­enne Man­di), a suc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er who likens a younger ver­sion of Bette, and her girl­friend, Sophie (Rosan­ny Zayas); and, Fin­ley, a Shane-meets-Alice hybrid who moves – and pos­si­bly fucks – like Shane, and talks with the inex­haustible ener­gy and wit of Alice, por­trayed by Jacque­line Toboni.

Fin­ley, so far, is the most intrigu­ing and enjoy­able char­ac­ter of the Q gen­er­a­tion. We are drawn to her relaxed vibe, unapolo­getic pres­ence and lust for LA life, where­as the afore­men­tioned char­ac­ters are still strug­gling to com­pete with the vet­er­ans, with whom they all share (in)direct con­nec­tions. While we hope this new era – aka this sea­son – will give the new­com­ers a chance to devel­op into mul­ti­di­men­sion­al char­ac­ters, we sus­pect showrun­ner Mar­ja-Lewis Ryan may be rely­ing on past, tried and test­ed (often stereo­typ­i­cal) char­ac­ter types to attract the same demo­graph­ic that tuned in back in the ear­ly 2000s.

It is doubt­ful whether the cur­rent LGBT+ gen­er­a­tion will respond to this reimag­i­na­tion the same way it did with Tales in the City, in which hot top­ics and socio-polit­i­cal debates were con­front­ed fear­less­ly and, at times, annoy­ing­ly head-on, true to Mil­len­ni­al wok­e­ness. Sex and nudi­ty were explored from the queer gaze of Lau­ren Morel­li, rather than exploit­ed for the het­ero mass­es; there was a soft­ness and sin­cer­i­ty to the Bar­bary Lane rela­tion­ships and love-play. The same can­not be said of The L Word: Gen­er­a­tion Q.

Instead of redefin­ing the queer TV land­scape, it seems Ryan and Show­time dove into the show with a let’s‑do-it-again atti­tude – and, unfor­tu­nate­ly, this means they are bound to make the same mis­takes all over again.