By Magdalena Burnham

Before I watched the season premiere of The Real L Word, a reality show following a group of Los Angeles-based lesbians, I was lucky enough to meet two of the stars, the unbelievably gorgeous Lauren and Amanda. They were enthusiastic as they discussed the new season. “Both coasts colliding is really the best part,” Lauren said. “There’s definitely an interaction between every different person in the cast and there’s a way that each of our stories actually naturally ties to each other,” added Amanda.

It was interesting to hear how magnanimous their reasons for auditioning for the show were. They both talked about wanting to help normalize the lesbian community in the eyes of viewers. “The show was something that I wanted to do to get involved with the community and show a very femme/not femme point of view. I see myself as femme but not exactly your typical femme,” Lauren explained. “For me, it was trying to show my story, get involved in the community and do something fun.”

Lauren and Amanda both emphasized how much fun doing the show was, but acknowledged that there are challenges. “When you have somebody waking you up every morning and putting you to bed every night for months, there’s no way to hide anything,” Amanda explained. “If it can go back and normalize [the community] and create equality, then I don’t give a f—k.”

With the promise of a fun show about a group of friends who really care about each other that also represents the lesbian community in an interesting and diverse way, I was sold and ready to dive into the season premiere.

The show didn’t disappoint. All the bubbliness and affection and charisma of the cast translates well to the screen. And there really is a nice variety of relationships on display. We see single girls, a couple in an open relationship, newlyweds, a couple that is soon-to-be-engaged, friends with benefits and a married couple expecting their first child.

The character I’m most interested in is Romi, who is now in a relationship with a man. She explains that being gay has never been a big deal to her, but now that she’s involved with her boyfriend Jay when all of her friends are lesbians, everyone she works with is a lesbian and she’s on The Real L Word, she understands what coming out is like. What’s nice about this portrayal is that it’s so different from the cliché way scripted shows always portray lesbians who decide to be with men. While the nauseating, insulting TV trope is to show lesbians helplessly overcome with some primal desire to be with a man, here Romi is very much an in control adult making a decision about who she wants to be with. I’ve seen many TV shows where a lesbian decides to be with a man and this is the first time this story has been told in a way I found relatable. This is just one example of how The Real L Word feels more genuine and complex than your average reality TV show.

Overall, the show is seriously sexy, relatable, entertaining and funny. While the girls in the cast are, of course, more beautiful and glamorous than your average girl off the street, there’s still a nice variety of types and lifestyles that reflects a fair amount of diversity within the community.

The Real L Word airs Thursdays at 10 on Showtime.

Laura Linney as Cathy on The Big C. Photo by Ken Regan, courtesy of Showtime.

Never has television programming had such commitment issues as it does when concerning the issue of cancer, which, according to late comedienne Gilda Radner, is “the most unfunny thing in the world.” First, as I wrote about yesterday, Walt White’s cancer went into remission on Breaking Bad. Then, in the second season of The Big C, fortysomething teacher Cathy Jamison’s (Laura Linney) melanoma no longer seems to be the terminal sentence it was at series’ end, thanks to an aggressive experimental treatment.

That’s great news for Cathy and her family, which includes husband Paul (Oliver Platt), mentally imbalanced and previously homeless brother Sean (John Benjamin Hickey), son Adam (Gabriel Basso), and essentially adopted student Andrea (Precious’ Gabourey Sidibe), who moved into the Jamison household last year as Cathy’s health took a turn for the better.

But it signals an identity crisis for the current third season of Big C, a show that never knew exactly what it wanted to be from the beginning. A cancer comedy? The very idea sounds incongruous, and while 50/50 toed the line with a large degree of success, such a story is easier to tell within 100 minutes, with a finite end in sight. Initially Cathy kept her diagnosis a secret from her husband and started acting out, talking back to her students and even having an affair (in fairness, Paul was unfaithful as well). Finally, she told Paul and Adam about her disease and they supported her through appointments, insurance woes and side effects.

As Darlene Hunt’s series progressed, it got lighter. Or at least Cathy’s load did. Other characters started bearing more of the series’ burden: in an extended guest role, Cynthia Nixon left Sean after a miscarriage. Cathy’s neighbor Marlene (Phyllis Somerville), afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, committed suicide. Lee (Hugh Dancy), a fellow patient in Cathy’s clinical trial, succumbed to the disease that was starting to release its hold on Cathy. And then, at the end of last season, a coke-riddled Paul had a heart attack – a seemingly fatal one.

Evading what would have been a jump-the-shark moment, Paul turned up alive in the third season premiere. Now he and Cathy are both survivors. And yet Hunt’s series is currently neither inspiring nor riveting. The main storylines this season involve the Jamisons’ attempt to adopt a new baby and Paul’s burgeoning Internet celebrity. Sean, though heterosexual, has started fielding calls on a gay sex hotline. Andrea, while still a teen, has adopted a new African name and become Paul’s manager, and Adam’s girlfriend troubles, which could be meaty, are played for sexual laughs. Is Big C biding its time for an eventual dramatic humdinger? Or does Hunt just want viewers walking down the sunny side of the cable TV street?

While the material feels thin, Big C nonetheless attracts a cadre of terrific actors. Its Connecticut filming location attracts a cadre of great New York-based theater actors, including Michael Chernus, Victor Garber, and Hamish Linklater, and this season has season major stars like Allison Janney and Susan Sarandon make appearances too. And lest we forget about the show’s main cast, Linney, Hickey and Platt turn in razor-sharp work week after week. They know how to ring each line of dialogue for just the right amount of zing.

That’s what makes this show, middling in its current form, so frustrating. A show about life and death really should us far more to laugh and cry about.