5. South of Nowhere, The N, Spencer & Ashley ’05->’08
All For This One Moment: Spencer & Ashley on South of Nowhere
Riese: I have one question for you, The N! Perhaps you already know it. Perhaps you already know it because Carlytron and I asked it every thirty seconds while recapping Season Three for you. WHAT THE FUCK GLEN? GLEN always wins the SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP Award (Trademark Calytron) and what time is it? Sportstime! Don’t even get us started on the Jake with the website situation, or Dad & Aiden cooking all the time. We’re pretty sure the rest of the show was better when it first started, but by Season Three we could barely tolerate the non-lesbian parts, we screamed a lot and made faces.
This recap, SON Episodes 13 & 14 sums up the problem: “I’m thinking they should rename it “Glen of Glen.” “Central Glen.” “Beverly Hills, 9021-Glen.”
4. Edgemont, Canada’s CBC, Shannon & Stevie ’05
All For This One Moment: Shannon & Stevie on "Edgemont"
Intern Xandra: There are so many relationship cliches in this show it’s painful to watch. Even the lesbian relationship is a cliche — Shannon & Stevie are the only lezzies in town, Stevie doesn’t wanna date a fresh-out-of-the-closet girl but it happens anyway, they talk about their feelings a lot, “you don’t feel like a friend,” etc., they break up over an accidential outing and get back together two eps later (when the characters are pointing out a story-line is stupid it’s a problem) — but before that, we must endure the following:
The young award nerd gets together with the cute weirdo girl, the guys are consistently jerks to the girls they’re with (e.g., the model comes into money and her boy takes her to buy his dream car for himself so he can ride around in it and the moviemaker boy casts his girlfriend in the lead, then fires her when he finds someone better) yet the girls always take back said asshole boyfriends with little consequence (unfortunately, probs one of the more realistic aspects of the show). Another guy seduces a girl by writing her a bad song.
For a coming-of-age show, these kids looked like they’d already come of age and there were no interesting/realistic storylines. Fun fact! Shane’s twink friend from Season One and Fake Tim the Midget from Lez Girls (Season Five) are both in Edgemont. So, that’s something.
3. All My Children, ABC Daytime, Bianca: 2000 –> present
All For This One Moment: Reese & Bianca Wed on All My Children
Intern Elizabeth: In all the years of Bianca actually being gay we *rarely* got to see her happy with a girlfriend. Instead we had to watch her first ‘girlfriend’ be murdered, her next ‘girlfriend’ (acutally, the next two) be straight, then she was raped got pregnant and had the baby swapped with a dead one… then she got her baby back and had another one using her comatose sister’s husband’s sperm. Never mind having to watch Erica Kane judge her daughters and everyone else all the time. And then there were the wacky murder mysteries, secret/surprise adult children, tornado induced comas, falling-through-glass-table blindness, shot-in-the-head amnesia …
(Confession: I actually took to watching just the Bianca storylines on Youtube a while ago to avoid the rest of the crap.)
2. Neighbours, Australia’s Channel 10, Sunny & Donna ’09
Donna & Sunny - WTF.
Crystal: I haven’t been watching the show lately, however I can tell you about the key non-lesbian storylines that I sat through during the 80’s and 90’s. Harold gets washed away at sea, leaving Madge a widow. Harold shows up again later with amnesia and joins the Salvation Army. Charlene and Scott get married, and Charlene releases a hit single called ‘I Should Be So Lucky’. Dr Karl has an affair with his receptionist, divorces Susan, falls in love with Izzie, discovers her baby is not really his and returns to Susan. Paul burns down Lassiter’s hotel and Gus is killed in the fire. Billy Kennedy breaks up with Anne after he reads her diary, and moves to LA to join the cast of House. Boyd cheats on Sky with Serena, Susan gets diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and Harold goes to live on a farm.
Sky and Lana kiss. Donna and Sunny kiss.
I flipped the channel over just as the kiss happened last night and it went like this:
[Donna kisses Sunny]
[Sunny freaks out]
Donna: It wasn’t that bad, was it?
Sunny: No you don’t understand, YOU STOLE MY FIRST KISS!
[credits roll]
I also don’t understand. ugh.
1. Grey’s Anatomy, ABC, Callie & Arizona ’09
All For These Moments: Callie & Arizona on Grey's Anatomy
Intern Emily: This season fans went through some pretty ridiculous crap – the random Owen Hunt arrives, randomly kisses Cristina in the first ep and then becomes a recurring character with PTSD who eventually tries to strangle Cristina in her sleep. Enter Lexie: she likes George but gets in a serious relationship with Mark who subsequently gets into a physical fight with Derek ’cause Meredith & Lexie have issues. Izzie’s seeing her dead fiancé everywhere (and is also talking to and sleeping with him??) but is also dating Alex who is really falling for her. George gets even less screen time than the lesbians. Derek keeps killing patients, goes into a depression over it, hides in his trailer in the woods and won’t go into work, then the Cheif tells Meredith that Derek wants to propose, but then he doesn’t and he bats the ring into the field bla blah it turns out Izzie’s got cancer (that’s why she was seeing dead people?). Meredith & Derek make amends and plan to get married but instead Izzie & Alex get married before Izzie’s surgery, Meredith & Derek get married via post-its, Izzie crashes after surgery, George is run over by a bus, and no one knows if they’re dead ’cause then the season ends.
Closing Statements: Really, the more you weed through all these other shows, the more you lament the passing of IFC’s masterpiece of self-sabotage The Ilene Chaiken Show, which we endured to get to The L Word, and you wish it had been better so that there would be more lesbian shows on the air right now. A Shot at Love With Whomevs does not count.
Speaking of things that are so bad they are good, it’s not all tragedy and bromance — sweeps lesbian storylines, when they happen on good shows and without too much trauma, can be pleasant enough to endure. I’m thinking here of Marissa & Alex on The O.C. and Paige & Alex on Degrassi: The Next Generation (what is it with all the Alexes, I feel this in my own life as well).
Many of these are covered in our Top 20 Favorite Fictional Lesbians. Just BTW. I’ve heard good things about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Skins, though I haven’t seen either show.
In closing, I don’t think we should have to spend so much time enduring things.
What’s your greatest feat of lesbian television endurance?
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SKINS series 3 with emily and naomi stories..yay!
I have to say that on the theme of enduring non lesbian parts of shows…Skins is actually amazing. Not only is the emily/naomi story-line well done/hot but jeeze the rest of that show is just as good.
also this post is full of truthiness, the things we do to watch two chicks make out on our tv screens (worth it/not worth it?).
I think that the Emily/Naomi relationship was amazing and JJ was interesting, but I fast-forwarded through the rest of the show when I watched it on YouTube. I couldn’t have cared less about the Effy/Cook/Freddie “love” triangle.
But… Emily and Naomi are super cute together and I sort of love both of them (especially that scene where Naomi kisses Emily against the locker).
Yeah, I only watched scenes with Naomi/Emily/Katie in them. Couldn’t give less of a shit about Cook, JJ or Freddie, and I didn’t enjoy Effy or Panda much when they’re onscreen with the boys (and obv this method catches them when they’re onscreen with Nay or the twins).
Still a great show, though. I am 24 and I still fell 100% for Naomi Campbell.
Oh, yeah, and Buffy was actually a good show!
All My Children sounds so intense and not even worth watching. Also LOL re: South of Nowhere. That show was pretty ridiculous too, but at least the lesbians were there for the whole time and none of them got booted off the show.
I love Buffy, but if you’re going to start watching it, don’t start at the beginning… find some recaps and then start mid/late season 2. Willow is still straight then, but the episodes are so good, and you won’t understand what’s going on if you start in too much later.
I admire the immense courage it takes to admit that you have NOT seen Buffy.
I highly recommend the situation be corrected at your earliest possible convenience. That is all.
Seconded.
Like really, if there is one show you have to see, it is Buffy. Particularly since every great tv show made after it exists because Buffy showed what tv could do.
ahahahaha this is awesome.
Oh, but I love Greek! Some of the plot lines can be a somewhat trite, but I think it really captures a lot about the college experience. Plus, there are some great one-liners with awesome pop culture references. And Dale, Rusty’s right-wing Baptist roommate, is actually hilarious.
But I guess I could be biased because I was once–very briefly–a sorority girl…
I think I could be biased because I was once — for errr two years — the girlfriend of a fraternity boy, and it was such a weird culture, so I think probs seeing it again brings me back in a not-so-good way? And almost all my friends were in sororities, our last year of school I lived with eight Kappas and Natalie. Hm.
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But at the time, I really did like that MTV show about sororities. Now I just wanna SEE THE LESBIANS!!
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But yeah I realize Gawker said it was the best show you’re not watching, and people seem really into it and it’s gotten good reviews, so I think probs I am in the minority here?
I have so many feelings about this topic. In high school I had this VHS tape that I would record every lesbian scene on TV onto. I watched Party of 5 that one time there was some lesbian storyline. I recorded the Ally McBeal where Lucy Liu kissed Calista Flockhart (I actually watched that show religiously, but that’s another story for another post), and I started watching both Buffy and All My Children after hearing about lesbo scenes. AMC was impossible so I gave it up but Buffy is amazing and Riese, you can borrow all of my DVDs whenever you want (Buffy marathon anyone?).
In the past few years I stopped doing it but good lord, I used to know every single lesbian scene on tv ever. Sigh.
I’m glad I’m not the only person here who owns all 7 seasons of Buffy on DVD. My first year of college I tried to take them all but those suckers are HEFTY so I broke and only brought season 4 as that is the college/willow coming out/buffy & spike getting married but not really season… haaah
Hello you are not alone. I have all the seasons on DVD too. I started with VHS tapes and had 20+ of them filled with Buffy episodes. Obsessed? Maybe.
I sat through all of season 2 of the OC even though i hate that show just to see mischa barton and olivia wilde’s relationship… I still love that couple..
I also started to watch buffy the vampire slayer because of the lesbian relationship, but stopped. This was recently when buffy isn’t new.
Ohh great post.
I will admit, I used to be a humongo Buffy fan. How can you not love it? Good actors and actresses. I wasn’t a huge fan of Alyson Hannigan with Amber Benson, but Alyson and Iyari Limon was pretty good. Just saying.
There isn’t enough of this on TV anymore… And if it is, it’s too cheesy and always ends badly.
I just started watching Skins, we’ll see how that goes.
ohhh i endured 6 of those 10 shows. i’m not ashamed in the least. buffy is my fav show ever, i watched from the very beginning and was so very pleased when joss whedon rewarded my loyal viewing with the gaying up of willow.
Also Joss had to wait for the comic book to gay up Buffy?
My heart broke a little
true, but there was a decent amount of gay subtext in the buffy/willow dynamic. at least there was when i closed my eyes and imagined it.
I feel like in the show there was more Buffy/Faith subtext… and there’s the fanfic to prove it ;)
They were going for a Buffy/Faith kiss in S3 but the network wouldn’t allow it so we got the infamous kiss on the forehead instead. SO I AM TOLD.
WHAT. WB, how could you deny me of this happiness
Ooooh Riese (and interns). I am so happy and have lots of feelings. I’m glad you come up with these awesome top-ten lists that make my heart sing. But I also think it’s sad we have to hunt for lesbian story lines. Shouldn’t they just be old hat by now? And everywhere? On every show? Always? Yes. I think they should.
this is all so sad / funny / true
I WAS SO OBSESSED WITH THE FIRST SEASON OF SOUTH OF NOWHERE. and then…………………
….Glen. And then Glen happened!
They just never made us care about any of the other characters except the guy who got killed, I think. And Aiden’s storyline got really wonky.
remember the saucy latina who went to go be a dancer for justin timberlakes tour? That storyline was pretty important to me. Hah, i remember reading your re-caps and legit feeling bad you guys had to sit through it. But ya know once every couple of episodes spashley would hold hands and i would smile.
Crystal: i have probs mentioned this. but VJ sat at MY table at jungle juice. child actors are so rude, everyone knows that table is mine. *cough* he ordered a McBagel (without the HP sauce),& a hot chocolate and i obvs didn’t recognise him, otherwise i would’ve gotten you his autograph to frame/tape to the fridge etc. I have no shame.
my sister explained neighbours to me, which is a worry. apparently Sunny (why does the asian have to have a weird name?) is dating Zeke who is “too pretty for her”. This explains nothing, however next! Zeke is going dump her & make out with Lily Allen. Wait, how old is he?
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I’ve heard good things about Skins. I wish to see this show. Australian TV sucks.
I think maybe you told me that about VJ? I heard that Lily Allen is going to Ramsay St, I’m excited because I sorta love her.
Double thumbs up recommendation for skins season 3. Emily and naomi actually get a quasi season finale in the penultimate episode. Don’t bother with the actual finale its a boring sausage fest revolving around freddie, JJ and cook.
When I grow up I want to be emily
haha awesome post, i also have watched most of those… and i’ve gotta join in and say you should really watch skins! the other characters have their moments and i’ve always watched the show anyway (especially cos it’s filmed where i live! yay!) but the naomi/emily thing really was handled well. like south of nowhere it definitely has its super ridiculous moments but its in a different league in terms of how much i can relate to it anyways.
alsoo i really think you guys are doing such a great job with this website, you always get the balance between making really important points and humour spot on and all your articles are so interesting and well written, really appreciate all the time and effort you put in to it.
I agree with you all re: Skins, the Emily / Naomi story was well done, and the entire show was well written. I hope they’ll continue the Emily / Naomi story in the fourth season.
Yapppp…i totally agree..that scene where Naomi kisses Emily against the locker = HOT
First off, The OC. I still don’t understand how I was able to watch it. Ever!
Then to the matter at hand, the show I have a love-hate relationship with is Guiding Light. I started watching the Otalia clips on YT. Then came pbps, and soon I was watching the whole show on TVU, ’cause I wanted to know what people were talking about and the Otalia storyline made more sense when I knew what was going on in Springfield. I’m a sucker for soaps, that’s why I try to avoid them. Now I find myself not THAT frustrated on nOtalia days, the other characters are growing on me.
And I love Otalia storyline, I haven’t found it cheesy, okay it’s still a soap, but WAYYY less cheesy than Bianca (granted I have only seen a few clips of Bianca). Otalia is nicely written. I recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
But generally in soaps, you don’t get the lesbian storylines in every epi, which sucks. Thanks to internet, mostly, nowadays you know in advance what is going to happen, though.
There really hasn’t been a secret kept silent in awhile. At least I can’t recall one right now. I’m going to blame my sleepiness if (=when) someone proves me wrong :D
Okay done with my novel now..
I MISS the days of minor lesbian storylines! These days I have to watch completely heterosexual shows and scrounge to find some girl-on-girl subtext. (Gossip Girl, anyone? When will they finally put the cards on the table and give us a damn one-off gay episode? If Autostraddle is to be believed, there are plenty of hot lesbians in New York!)
wow, you must rectify this lack of Buffy watchage at the soonest possible instance! The initial Willow + Tara chemistry in ‘Hush’ in season 4…intense. Willow/Kennedy was hot too.
Nip/tuck anyone? Personally I hate this show, but Portia is in it so why not.
ps.: Skins win the award for best lesbian storyline (apart from the L word and sugar rush of course).
The Oc was cute because of Olivia Wilde, House was cute because of Olivia Wilde, but nothing compare to Lily Loveless and Kathryn Presscott … in my opinion of course.
Anyone watching Exes & Ohs ??
I can’t figure out if you’re joking or not.
what about the L word ?
ok i’m joking
but now you have to go and watch skins season 3, you’ll see you don’t need any endurance for this one. Only if like me you have to watch it with subtitle to understand their damn accent!
I think being a french canadian is a curse, we don’t understand any accent!!!! We don’t get the french (France) speaking accent, even worse for the UK accent and sometime not even the american accent. And let me tell you that there’s not so much lesbian storyline in Quebec television history! So it’s a double endurance experience to watch tv shows for us poor lesbian living up north east!
At least Montreal have one of the best gay scene!
ohh and Montréal got Sara !!!!
what about that soap opera about college life that MTV used to air late at night? there were def some gay couples and i think some les. anyone know the name of it???
UNDRESSED.
I don’t understand why the fuck they would want to do a dumb assesed storyline of making Charlie Ruby’s mother. Seriously, like the writers don’t hate her enough.
I’ve pretty much given up starting watching show just because they have lesbian storyline, they are usually utterly lame. I only watched H&A because I always watch it anyway.
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Oh this crap is why I watch so little tv.
There are a lot of lesbian storylines. Even better than some posted here.
– hospital central maca and eshter
– los hombres de Paco pepa and silvia
– guiding light olivia and natalia
Just to name a few. Just watch on youtube.
I love this, I hate how there’s always the dead boring hetro couples.
Soon as I saw this I thought of the Millenium series by Steig Larsson; mainly Lisbeth and Mimmi’s friends-with-benefits relationship in the 2nd book. I really hope they play it up in the film like it is in the book (coz it’ll be reallyreally hot) because they skipped over a fair few things in the first one.
And I really hope at the end of the 3rd film they show the part when they meet each other again in Paris (I think). Coz Lisbeth is definitely in love with her, no matter what she says. They should have got togther. They’re beautiful and amazing.
I can’t wait for Friday now, I get to see this shit! :D
Methinks yes: http://www.traileraddict.com/clip/girl-who-played-with-fire/come-here
ok i love alot of these shows but really no one watched AMC (all my children) bianca was great the righters sucked and we didnt get any girl on girl action a few kisses like 4-5 over 5 or so years but man i had the show recorded every day (i was in school like 11-13) thank god i had a water bed then i had 50some tapes of the show just to catch a glance between bianca and her love intrested all the drawers under the beed were filled up on one side for maybe a hole 10 min of semi lezie looks between the girls .. yeah i know alot of DRAMA but it was so good … ok so i was 11 and didnt have cable or a movie rental place in the town i was in but it was still so good .. the fanfic was better but the show was good to .. i know i just read it im lame lol :)
Did I miss the disclaimer that said “We will never mention the show that started it all”? WHERE IS MY XENA GABBY LOVE
Also, Buffy references but no actual Buffy? “Kill one of the lesbians” is pretty much a TV Trope article. (I couldn’t find it but I know I’ve read it.)
i may be late on the uptake with this
but ive watched 2 seasons of “Lost Girl” now
a somewhat poorly acted fantasy drama involving human-mythical creature hybrids called fae
for a fleeting romance between main charcter Bo (a fae who feeds off human sex drive) and human ‘hot doctor’ Lauren
Bo seems to fancy everything that breathes, but takes a special shine to Dyson (a wolf, although commonly mistaken for a popular hoover), but he loses his ability to love when he lends his strength to Bo to kill her mum
anyway that makes the path clear for hot doctor Lauren, however her comatose girlfriend suddenly appears and throws a spanner in the works
But she got infected by these mind control guys and tried to kill Lauren, so Bo then killed her
so maybe for season 3 Bo and Lauren get back together?
I certainly live in hope, as the lesbian scenes when they eventually come are fairly worth watching all the crap in between for…