Tinaaaaaa!

Tina and Bette are, in so many ways, the heart and soul of The L Word. In a show that changed the game for lesbian visibility, they were the resident long-term couple. Their on-again, off-again romance arcs across all six seasons of the original. In the pilot, they are the first women we meet, sprawled together across an unmade king size bed, their arms draped lovingly and familiarly over one another in a private moment of domestic intimacy. Cut to them in the bathroom dressed in oversized PJs: “I’m ovulating”, “Let’s make a baby”. In 2004 these lines were groundbreaking and seeing a queer female couple starting a family was unprecedented.

Of course, another factor in their enduring appeal is that Laurel Holloman and Jennifer Beals have dynamite chemistry – the kind you’d be hard-pressed to prise your eyes away from, whether their characters are fighting or flirting, breaking up, getting back together or having scorchingly hot make-up sex. However, when the cast was announced for The L Word: Generation Q, there was no sign of Laurel. It seemed that their epic love story had finally run its course. But then, midway through the season, a cry went up in the homes of gay women everywhere, including mine, as we all yelled in unison at our TVs, “TINAAAAAA!” Once I’d calmed down from all the Tibette-induced hysteria,