Showtime has issued the last word on The L Word: Generation Q tonight—but maybe not on The L Word, in general. Per Deadline, the revival series has been canceled at the network after three seasons on the air, just half of what its parent series received during its original run back in the mid-2000s. (Still, not bad at all by the standards of the TV reboot trend of the last few years, which tend to get booted out the door pretty fast after the novelty of seeing The Gang Back Together wears off.) (R.I.P. Murphy Brown.)
Intriguingly, the decision not to renew Generation Q for a fourth season coincides with reports that Showtime is currently developing The L Word: New York (working title), a full reboot of the series, with a whole new continuity (and with series co-creator Ilene Chaiken reportedly still somehow involved). This is a bold new step in the ever-evolving field of TV rebootology: We’re not sure we’ve ever seen a show attempt to make the revival-to-reboot leap. That’s, like, comic book-level rebooting.
Created, like the original show, by Chaiken, Kathy Greenberg, and Michele Abbott, Generation Q once again centered on Jennifer Beals as art director/sentient chaos factory Bette Porter, plus fellow returning stars Katherine Moennig and Leisha Hailey. As the name suggests, the series also introduced a whole new generation of characters, including those played by Arienne Mandi, Sepideh Moafi, Leo Sheng, Jacqueline Toboni, Rosanny Zayas, Jordan Hull, and Jamie Clayton. (Folks like Donald Faison, Rosie O’Donnell, and original L Word star Laurel Holloman all popped up in recurring roles, too.)
Deadline notes one interesting trend in this whole ordeal: Generation Q is just the latest Showtime show not to get renewed since Viacom announced it was folding the network into its Paramount+ branding. Not a single Showtime original has been renewed in the two months since the news broke, as Paramount reportedly evaluates its programming slate.