It's Showtime

*SPOILER WARNING* if you are one of my thousands of readers following Showtime's "The L Word" and you have been living under a rock and/or don't have Showtime to know the latest on What Happens To Dana: stop reading now if you don't want to know.

OK, welcome to today's Most Interesting nugget: TV character death.
Now, I must say that I always found all the frenzy involving TV character death a bit...um, overdone in the media and amongst fans. I mean, who shot J.R. and all was just not remotely interesting to me. Whatevah! It's just Tee Vee, people! Snap out of it!

All the telly characters I ever got attached to either disappeared into outlaw sunset (Mulder & Scully), went their merry ways (Little House) or fake-died so many times and returned as evil twins in dream sequences that it was just laughable (Days of Our Lives). And on shows like The Sopranos, well, they can get a guy whacked and make you look forward to it. So imagine my shock when last night, one of my for-three-seasons-now favorite TV characters, professional tennis star Ms. Dana Fairbanks (played by Erin Daniels) on Showtime's "The L Word", well, it's so freaking depressing...did not win her fight with breast cancer.

Ugh, it's really sucky. Beyond liking this character on this show, this outcome just so irks me because (a) it's not shiny happy 'she's a survivor' which the writers/producers could have framed it as; (b) this is a character about my age and yes, we have to think about this disease as a whole (d) the story arc has been heart-wrenching in its portrayal. GAWD!

And while I won't divulge my deeper fears and experiences with real-life people suddenly faced with critical or terminal illness, making me toss, turn and scream with "why this person? Is anyone up there listening??" I will say, this storyline hit home in a few ways few ways (I mean, I know that Lisaopolis fears are usually of the "crap, I have to grade this stuff-stat!" nature, but I prefer it that way in this public forum).

I like that television can piss me off, make me think and make me frame larger issues into things going on in my own life.
And obviously I need to vent about this, so thanks for listening.

And has this happened to you? How did you cope? Who was your character? Please share!

And dammit, ladies, get your mammograms! I will be happy to share any boob-squashing-but-its-worth-the-negative-test-results stories in case you haven't had one yet.