A Real Letdown

I gave it the benefit of the doubt. I ignored the little voice inside my head that said, "Oh, this is going to be a disaster."

I thought that without a pre-designed plot and lengthy script, Ilene Chaiken, the woman at the helm of Showtime's new lesbian reality show "The Real L Word," couldn't possibly make the same mistakes she made with "The (fake) L Word." Reality TV is a completely different animal. Her influence would be minimal compared to what fans were used to, I thought. Her desire to "tell our stories" her way would give way to the reality of lesbian life, the unscriptable drama, the stuff writers can't make up.

But just because "The Real L Word" lacks a script in the traditional sense, that didn't stop Chaiken from returning to her own script, the same tired hoo-ha that made original "L Word" viewers roll their eyes whenever she spoke of her plans and desires for the show.

So, if there's anyone to blame for the poor reviews (here and here, for example) of Sunday night's premiere, it's Chaiken. And it's not necessarily because her idea is bad (I don't think the world is missing out on anything if there's no reality show about lesbians, but others would disagree), but rather because she couldn't let the show speak for itself. Not only is she never at a loss for words, she's never at a loss for words that reveal a narcissism that's usually reserved for sociopaths or people far more successful than she, who can actually deliver on their promises.

The most successful reality shows of this nature never claim to be more than what they really are: Shows featuring a bunch of vapid, self-obsessed individuals acting like idiots. And they almost never come with an explanation or unrealistic promise from their creators or networks. "The Real L Word," via Chaiken's yakkity-yak (and by virtue of being on Showtime and co-produced by Jane Lipsitz, whose company Magical Elves produced “Project Runway” -- in its original run on Bravo -- and “Top Chef"), promised to be more but didn't deliver. Chaiken and team set the standard and then failed to meet it right out of the gate.

Now I'm not saying that confidence in a project is a bad thing, but I will repeat something I've said before: There's a very fine line that separates a confident person from a jackass. And Chaiken, who is clearly the mouthpiece for the project, crossed that line. Again.

Chaiken's problem now is what it always has been: She won't get out of her own way or her show's way; she won't bite her tongue and, to quote Bravo's tagline, "Watch What Happens." She repeatedly opens her mouth and spews pomposity. Her delivery, rife with arrogance on the back of unnecessary and multi-syllable words, has always sucked. She doesn't converse, she lectures in a way that only a self-unaware person can. And it's a real turnoff. Until she learns to communicate better with her audience, her projects will likely suffer for it.

The best example of how she opened her mouth and sabotaged "The Real L Word" premiere was given in an interview she did with New York Magazine last Friday. When asked if the women who auditioned for "The Real L Word" expressed any apprehensions about revealing so much of themselves on-camera, Chaiken answered, "Absolutely ... of course they had qualms, and we had very detailed and intimate conversations on what they were doing, why they were doing it, and they needed to know what my intentions were. I had to reassure them that I didn’t want to make them look like fools. I’m not about to put on a show about lesbians that pushes us forward as trashy, ridiculous, vulgar people that behave badly all the time."

Um, oops!

The show has only just begun, so we've got a long way to go before we find out if it redeems itself in any way. But my hope is that Ilene will one day stop trying to tell our stories and admit that she's telling her own.