James Wolcott on the L Word

I think James Wolcott's commentary is always on the mark and pretty funny, too. Check out his latest post which mentions the L Word -- like me, he skipped the interminable Oscars broadcast to check out Tina and Bette --

Of course tonight I have nowhere to go apart from the few feet separating our cathedral bathroom from the TV room, where I should be tweezering out sociocultural nuances from the Oscar broadcast, pondering the intimations of mortality peeping through the plush self-congratulation, but instead find myself docked in front of The L Word, hooked on the negative suspense of whether Bette and Tina, America's most boring lesbian couple, will get back together and spare us another season of Marlee Matlin's sign-language overacting, and when, where, and how the bratty, insufferable poseur Jenny will finally get hers. Oh, when will the long-postponed reckoning come? Well, not tonight, as the big dramatic payoff featured the annoying, nattering Alice reprising the climax of An Office and a Gentleman lesbian-style with her black lover. I recognize that if you're not a regular viewer of The L Word, it may seem as if I'm trafficking in obscurities, but to those of us who have watched The L Word from its pagan beginnings, these are matters of utmost doctrinal importance, testifying to the emptiness of our entertainment lives.

I mean, the way they've diminished the role of transgendered Max is a crime, particularly since s/he has emerged as the moral center of a series that's misplaced its center and now spills in every ugly, impulsive direction.