Showtime May Soon Kill The Real L Word and Resurrect It as a Documentary

Though Showtime has suggested that The Real L Word reality series has likely reached the end of its run, the concept could yet again receive a fresh look. Speaking to reporters on Saturday after his executive sessions at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour, Showtime entertainment president David Nevins described The Real L Word as “an important franchise,” and insisting that, though the reality iteration of the franchise is probably expiring, a feature-length one-part or two-part documentary could soon be in the cards.

If TRLW reality series does in fact end and then return from beyond the premium cable grave as a documentary, it will mark the franchise’s third format change since it began as a scripted series called The L Word way back in 2004. That series ran for six seasons, until Showtime exchanged it in favor of The Real L Word, which explored lesbian culture in exclusively in the two major media markets, New York and Los Angeles. However, against all odds, Nevins and L Word producers have discovered that there’s a pretty huge swath of America between, above, and below New York and Los Angeles, and that, as luck would have it, lesbians can be found in pretty much all of it. An L Word documentary, if it happens, would be, according to Nevins, “About exploring L Word culture — lesbian culture in places not New York, L.A. — where the subculture is not so defined and it’s not so easy.”

Though some L Word viewers have reacted with a measured “no shit” to Nevins’s assertion that compelling lesbian drama occurs in places like Pittsburgh, say, or, even Akron (The Real L Word: Akron could, for instance, feature lesbians trying to move somewhere cooler than Akron), it would be cool if such a hypothetical documentary moved beyond major cities and media markets to chronicle women in medium-sized cities, maybe somewhere like Louisiana or Tennessee. Just as long as it isn’t Miami. Gah, enough with Miami and reality shows, okay? We get it — it’s super warm and everyone does cocaine, which is just sooo 1986 it’s not even ironic anymore.