Editor Reviews:

Description:
The third season of the hit show, The L Word, follows a group of friends - both gay and straight - through stories of career, family, inner struggle, friendship and romantic relationships. Stars Jennifer Beals, Erin Daniels, Leisha Hailey, Laurel Holloman, Mia Kirshner, Katherine Moennig, Sarah Shahi, Rachel Shelley and Pam Grier.

Amazon.com:
The third season of Showtime's The L Word is all about transitions. The season opens with Alice Pieszecki (Leisha Hailey) coping with her between-seasons break-up with Dana Fairbanks (Erin Daniels), who is herself headed for an even heavier series of transitions. Kit Porter (Pam Grier) both falls in love with a younger man and discovers she is going through menopause. Shane (Katherine Moennig), who spent much of the first two seasons of the show hopping from bed to bed, finds herself more or less committed to Latina deejay Carmen (Sarah Shahi). And the second season's resident villain, Helena Peabody (Rachel Shelley), becomes embroiled in a sexual harassment case that leaves her ultimately looking like the victim. As with previous seasons, The L Word gets all hot and bothered with various seductions filmed to sometimes jarring music on the soundtrack, but it's the day-to-day foibles and celebrations of Los Angeles's lesbian community that keep the show interesting. Newcomer Moira/Max (Daniela Sea) begins the process of gender reassignment, making for some curious situations with potential employers. Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman) begin to drift apart when Tina lands a big movie studio job and starts feeling attracted to men, leading to a custody battle over their baby daughter. Where The L Word starts getting preachy and obvious is in the opening flashback sequences. When these vignettes refer to current characters of the show, they make sense; when they depict situations meant to underline how queer identity has evolved over the years, they seem politically overloaded. The L Word works intelligently through its characters' concerns without having to resort to such direct appeals for tolerance. Its strength isn't in making lesbian culture appear more mainstream, but in making us care and identify with these women's struggles, regardless of our sexual orientation. --Ryan Boudinot

Rating : - A Challenging Season
I love watching this show on DVD. However, I agree with the other reviewers that season 3 took some wrong directions. Seasons 1 and 2 focused on character introduction and development. In the third season several unlikeable characters are introduced and the personalities of existing players became unlikeable. The one exception is Bette Porter, whose emotionality was slightly constrained this season.

The death of a major character in episode 10 was probably necessary to maintain high interest in the show. I too wondered if the actress wanted out of her contract to pursue another opportunity, or if this was strictly a writer's decision to kill off the character. Think about that point as you watch this season, and research her real life, if you are wondering about why she is gone. All things considered, the death scene was well done.

An unusual change concerns the beginning of each episode. As the season begins each episode has a flashback scene to the 70's and 80's, showing historical moments in alternate sexuality. Then strangely about midway through the series these flashbacks are replaced with much newer and often irrelevant flashbacks from modern day. It seemed as if the writers had run out of ideas, so the producer inserted scenes from recently shot footage which had no other use. This is yet another of the problems you will have to live with as you view season 3.

Should these shortcomings stop your viewing of the series? No. Continue on to season 4. Also, keep in mind that season 6, the final season, begins in January 2009. Sooner or later all good things must come to an end.