Best.
Lesbian. Week. Ever. (January 16, 2009)
by 
By Sarah Warn
January 16, 2009
Note: There are NO spoilers for the final season of The L Word revealed
below except who is killed (which has already been revealed in Showtime's
promos).
THE L WORD AT THE TCA
WINTER PRESS TOUR
Ilene and co. talked about the sixth season of The L Word on a panel at the TCA Winter Press Tour earlier this
week, which featured Jennifer Beals, Leisha Hailey, Laurel Holloman,
Katherine Moennig, Pam Grier, and Ilene Chaiken, and AfterElton.com's Michael Jensen gave us the run-down.
Much of the
information imparted during the panel confirmed information we already knew —
that Lucy Lawless is guest-starring, for example — but Chaiken
and the actors offered some interesting opinions about various aspects of the
series, and provided some details around the decisions made on the show.
Here are some
of the interesting excerpts from the panel:
On whether the murdery-mystery subplot of the final season reflects will
be too different for viewers
Ilene Chaiken: I wouldn't call it
an overarching plot. It's one story among many, and by far not the dominant
storyline. It's a story that gives us a framework for the whole season, but the
season is about these lives, these characters, their relationships, life goes
on.
And the tone
of the show actually hasn't changed. It's very much as it always has been, a
drama with some humor about life and love and career and everything in between.
And the so-called murder mystery storyline, I think, will finally put a few
things into place. More than anything it gave us just another metaphor for our
storytelling.
On choosing which character to kill off in the sixth season
Ilene Chaiken: ... we didn't say,
"We're going to kill someone. Who should we kill?" We said,
"What's the story that we're going to tell this year?" And the
decision to tell that story came out of a lot of things, but in part it was the
stories that we've been telling, and the trouble that Jenny's gotten into over
the years, the fact that she's just provoked everyone to that point at one time
or another, and there's no question.
And I couldn't
deny that all of the dialogues that go on around the show, the passionate
viewer reactions, the online conversations, the things that journalists and
fans say to me in the course of all of the events that we do were probably
resonating in there somewhere.
Jenny has a
lot of the very devoted fans, people who love her and think that she's the best
thing that ever was, and she is the character people loved to hate, and she
provoked rage among lots and lots of people, and it made it interesting to tell
that story.
On Showtime's decision to give away the identity of the murder victim in
the promos
Ilene Chaiken: ...the way that the
season is framed, we open the first episode with flash forward and then we go
back and begin seamlessly telling our stories from where we left off at the end
of Season 5. And so I would venture that the folks at Showtime who do the
incredible job of promoting our show felt that they weren't giving anything
away. They were taking the opportunity to build interest off of something that
happens in the first 20 seconds of the show.
Jennifer Beals: Also I have to say
that people tend to find out online. The show has such an incredible audience
online that they all talk to one another and somehow they know more than I do
usually. A guy would go to the boards to find out information from them because
they get footage in advance. They know so many of the storylines in advance. It's
very hard to keep things from them I think too.
On why The L Word has straight male viewers
Jennifer Beals: Well, it's pretty
obvious. (Laughter.) God bless them. Hope they're learning something.
Pam Grier: A lot of straight
women have been watching it, and it's enhanced their libidos, you know. I've
been getting great comments about that.
On shooting most of the series in Vancouver, B.C.
Ilene Chaiken: I think when we
first started the show, we went to Canada because that's what was done. That
was how Showtime made television back then, and many other people did, as well.
I think that it was a blessing for us because it was a rarefied situation. We
were all up there together. It's like working in a laboratory. You focus. You
concentrate. You become closer. You become collaborative in a way that you
wouldn't if you were lost in the big city and leading your lives.
Leisha Hailey: I think the fact
that we relocated up there — we really only had each other. We didn't know
anyone else. So I think that bonded us very quickly, and if we had shot down
here, we would have maybe never gotten to know each other so well. I'm just
going to miss these guys (indicating the rest of the cast).
Kate Moennig: [Vancouver] is so
accessible in a way that [L.A.] isn't. You can ride your bike ... you're able
to run your errands by foot. It's like, a small town sensibility in a big city
essentially. I'm going to miss that because there's a really cozy element to
that town that you don't see everywhere.
Pam Grier: I live in
Colorado. So coming to Los Angeles and Hollywood and sharing the lives with my
colleagues was always exciting and being in Vancouver is like a shore, an ocean
— it's very much like Denver in Colorado except for it has the sea, and we have
the mountains. I just thought that we could focus on other things ... I would
write, and on the end here (indicating Ilene), she's a conspirator. She talked
me into writing my memoirs — yeah. Don't even start — I'm going to need therapy
because of it.
On the L Word's
fans
Kate Moennig: One of the great
things about the show is the loyal fan base that we have. I believe they've
stuck with us from day one, and even when they're discouraged about the
storylines, they still stick in there, and they have such love.
I find I think
the most profound moments are when you get a letter or you meet someone where
they say the show helped their lives change. They were able to come out or they
were able to accept themselves for who they are. They were no longer scared. That's
the power of television, and I think we're lucky enough to be on a show that
can deliver that strong message.
Leisha Hailey: I feel like the
fans have kept this show alive. Without them, I don't really know the life of
the show. I think we sort of reflect them and vice versa, and it's just this
ongoing sort of dialogue between the show and the fans, and I think that's been
a really wonderful experience for all of us.
Jennifer Beals: I have two very
specific examples that have always been really moving to me over the year, and
sometimes really helped me get through the day when it's very difficult at
work, when I'm tired.
I think of
these two occasions ... a couple that came to visit us on set who won a walk-on
as an auction item [in their 60s, who'd been together for 30 years] ... told us
that from watching the show, they were able to have the courage to come out to
their friends and their family and people at work.
... [The
second one is] I recently got a letter from a young woman who told me she had
just come out. She was 16 years old, and she said it was the loneliest time of
her life, and she said by watching the show, the show had saved her life
because she had contemplated killing herself. And by realizing that there were
other people out there who were like her, and that there was a larger community
to which she belonged and that one day she might be able to take part in, she
was encouraged. (Beals tears up here)
...when we
started the show, really early on, I said to Ilene, you know, "I want this
show to change the world." And she's like, "Calm down. It's a TV
show."
I said,
"I want this show to be more about that young girl that might be living in
the middle of nowhere who discovered that she's gay and wants to come out but
has no immediate community and is afraid to come out to her family, and I want
her to be able to turn on the television and see her most fabulous resourceful
aspect of herself represented back to her."
On which season is their favorite:
Jennifer Beals: For me I think I
was most proud of my work in the second season because I was given so many
challenges. But then saying that, I have to say that with each subsequent
season there were moments that I really loved, and certainly our storyline in
the sixth season I really like a lot ... So it moves. It's malleable.
Laurel Holloman: I agree with
Jennifer. It just keeps changing, and it depends on what your character was
going through for that season, and you could probably go across and everybody
would have their favorite seasons. Like for me, the very first season was a
great challenge, and then Season 5 was a little bit of a bookend for my
character because she was so drastically different. But then I got to elaborate
on it in Season 6, which I didn't know was going to happen. And, again, our
relationship went through all these changes.
Ilene Chaiken: My feeling is we
had our ups and our downs, and we hit our stride in our sixth season. The show
just kept getting better and better, and hopefully we will go out on a high.
On the series finale photo of the cast all in black:
Jennifer Beals: I think the
biggest stir that that photograph has caused is Kate in a dress.
Kate Moennig: Yeah.
Pam Grier: You looked
adorable.
Leisha Hailey: You looked great,
Kate.
Laurel Holloman: They're blogging
about it all the time, you in a dress.
Kate Moennig: I like it. I mean,
the shoes were really painful, but I loved the dress.
