“The L Word” was supposed to be the beginning of a new era of teevee shows about the real true lives of lesbian and bisexual women — and although we never quite got there, here are 15 examples of shows that don’t just have queer characters in them, but are also *about* being queer.

These were entire TV episodes that paid off queer storylines that had been building, or approached lesbian and bisexual and trans stuff in ways we’ve never really seen on-screen, or expanded queer storytelling into genres where it’d been lacking, or utilized new TV platforms in queer ways.