L WORD SHOWTIMES POWER DYKES WHAT LIES AHEAD

blogs are going crazy in anticipation of Sunday's 9 p.m. season-five Showtime premiere), and you'll find posters debating whether power dyke Bette should dump famous artist Jodi and get back together with movie producer Tina. And whether Tina should move on or go back to Bette, who, after all, is her baby's other mother.

As the first television show to tell the story of out, urban lesbians, The L Word has helped empower real gay women who had never before seen their lives so positively reflected in the media. And it has helped pave the way for more gay programming, including Exes & Ohs. A comedy series about a group of lesbian friends who hang out in a Seattle coffee house, it was launched last year by Logo, the gay and lesbian television network introduced by MTV Networks in 2005. (Logo has not decided if it will renew the series but later this year will air the first two seasons of The L Word, cleaned up to meet basic cable standards.)


The femme has always been overrepresented in films, says Jaime Babbit, a lesbian film and television director whose credits include the 2007 indie film Itty Bitty Titty Committee and a couple of episodes of The L Word, including the new season's second episode.

It's been great to have a show that at least is in the ball park in terms if how real lesbians live their lives,. ``In five years, the show has had enormous cultural significance. You just have to listen to Latino and African-American leaders and how they bemoan the absence of enough actors of color in TV and films. To be represented is to gain legitimacy.''

Plus, is it really so wrong to have some sugar-coated, girl-on-girl fun on TV? Even Kendell gets into the Bette and Tina fray. ``I think Bette and Tina are bad for each other. I don't get the spark. I know there are people who desperately want them to get back together. But I think they're a yawner as a couple. I think Bette and Jodi [Marlee Matlin] seem better matched.''

So will it be JoBette or TiBette?

Bette and Tina just have incredible chemistry together,since season one, the show has gotten endless flak for breaking up the one couple on the show that seemed to have a happy, long-term relationship. ``We knew we had to find ways for them to engage this season, whatever happens in the end.''



So far, Showtime is not saying whether this season is the end. But, 'because of the writers' strike, this could be the last year,``My guess is if we're lucky, we'll get another season,''


Clearly, this year Showtime is banking on fans' tuning in for a TiBette fix. It recently announced that Holloman and Beals will host tonight's premiere on camera. But, Beals cautions, none of the hoopla, not even the cable and Internet promos that offer a glimpse of TiBette in a liplock, confirms that the couple will ride off into the sunset together.

First, Bette and Tina would have to deal with everything that made them fall apart.