Ask AfterEllen.com (August 4, 2009)

Want to know the status of a particular movie, TV show, or band? Wondering what a certain actress is up to these days? Send your entertainment-related questions to askafterellen@gmail.com — with your first name, city and country — and we'll try to answer as many as we can.

Question: I heard that I Can't Think Straight is going to be a TV show. Is it true?

― Lesley M.

Sheetal Sheth and Lisa Ray in I Can't Think Straight

Answer: I reached out to Aida Kattan, the head of the Los Angeles office of writer-director Shamim Sarif's Enlightenment Films, and she confirmed that I Can't Think Straight, the series, is indeed in development by Sarif and her wife and co-producer Hanan Kattan.

According to Aida, Sarif is currently writing a pilot and series arc, and she's aiming for a North American network/broadcaster. If it gets developed by a network, it would take another year to go into production.

[The film's stars] Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth are both attached at this point to star in the show, which would be a one hour drama. The series would have less of the broad humour of the film, but would still contain subtle humour and a chance to explore Tala, Leyla and their families in depth as characters building on some of the character development that was part of the novel version of I Can’t Think Straight.

The series would probably begin where the movie begins – with Tala engaged and meeting Leyla, but would move quickly to bring them together, and look at the reactions of their families. The series would follow the main characters in each family and develop their own storylines and arcs too.

Shamim Sarif told AfterEllen.com:

Hanan and I are thrilled to have this chance to re-visit and greatly expand Tala and Leyla’s worlds. TV is perhaps even more competitive and hard to break into than movie making, but we are enjoying the process of trying! And we’d like to thank the commitment and unfailing support of all the fans of I Can’t Think Straight and The World Unseen, because their responses to the movies has inspired us to look at new ways to explore these stories.

Let's all keep our fingers crossed that ICTS is going to be one of many antidotes to the current television lesbian drought. We'll keep you posted on the progress of the project as it develops!

Question: I've held off on buying the L Word DVDs because I really want a complete boxed set, such as Showtime put out for Queer as Folk. I was wondering if you knew if there were any plans to release a complete box set, and if so, when it would come out?

― Hannah

Answer: The complete series on DVD will be released October 20, 2009, and is currently available for pre-order online.