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It’s too bad that there was so much Jenny (Mia Kirshner)—not to mention gratuitous straight sex with the cuckolded Tim (Eric Mabius)—in the promo to distract me from fantasizing about Shane and Alice and Dana. Like many viewers, I have not been a big Jenny fan. Sure, I empathize with her coming-out struggles and even her uncertainty over how to be bisexual, but most everything else about her annoys me: her hair (yes, I do feel that hair is very important), her big doe eyes that pretend to be innocent, her melodramatic writing about manatees, and her consistent lying and manipulating of her lovers who all, inexplicably, find her irresistible.

But to be fair, I remember that the Season 1 finale left me feeling surprised at how much more I liked Jenny at the end of the season than at the beginning. Maybe in Season 2 she’ll be less of a caricature of an emotionally wrought artiste and become a realistic character. The one thing that gives me hope is the shot of Jenny standing in what looks like a waitress uniform while she asks in a voiceover, “Did you guys hear what happened to Marina?”

While most viewers seem to think that Marina (Karina Lombard) is the bomb, I actually have never much cared for her. When I heard Jenny’s voiceover my first thought was, did Marina have some kind of accident that will force her to leave the show? Please? I hope that with Marina gone from her life, Jenny will come back to earth, learn some lessons, and get a haircut. If the spoilers are correct, at least one of my wishes might come true (hint: I’m obsessed with hair).

Which brings us, of course, to Ivan the drag king (Kelly Lynch) and his seduction of Kit (Pam Grier). The Season 2 promo does feature Ivan in several scenes—once with a bandanna sweatband that makes me think of The Dukes of Hazzard, and once with a do-rag that in profile looks like it ends in a rat-tail. The hair is still difficult to accept, but when Ivan tells Kit, “You’re a queen,” I actually caught myself thinking that he was sexy. I’m still not sure whether or not I want Kit to go down the queer path with Ivan leading the way, but it might be an interesting journey.

It’s clear from the promo that Bette isn’t at all happy about Kit’s interest in Ivan, and she tells her that “Ivan is not a good idea. You’re straight.” Kit’s naughty-child retort of “Who says?” made me chuckle though, and I wanted to cheer for Kit in the face of her younger sister’s prissy disapproval.

It was the scenes with Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman) that I found least interesting in the promo, although I was happy to see that they seem to be single so far in Season 2. I’ve never been a huge Bette fan, but it was fun to see her picking up a woman at a bar and being the mack daddy we all know she is beneath her perfectly pressed suits. I liked seeing Tina get pissed off at Bette, too, and I hope that the fire we see in the Season 2 edition of Tina—who tended to be too bland in Season 1—lasts for a good long while.

A season in which Bette and Tina are at odds, yet yearning at some subconscious level for one another, might be the perfect way to get us interested in this couple’s love life. We may all want to be married (or at least coupled) in our real lives, but do we really want to watch it on TV? I bet we’d rather watch heated arguments involving flying furniture, outrageous flirting in gorgeously lit bars, and Shane picking up every hot chick in L.A. (When she’s done with La-La Land, she can make her way up to San Francisco.)

So what’s an L Word fan to do while waiting those excruciating last 3.5 months for the second season premiere (Feb. 20th, 2005, for those of you who are marking your calendars)? I suggest hunkering down with the following: DVDs of the first season (which comes complete with the Season 2 promo), a few bottles of your favorite wine, and a bunch of friends.

Put it all together on a Sunday night and it’ll be just like last spring—or at least it will be at my house.

Get The L Word on DVD now at Amazon.com