This post was sent in by Carol of http://reallypapi.blogspot.com/, who is now Grace Gatsby.

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Did you watch Sarah Shahi on “Life?” How about Erin Daniels or Lauren Lee Smith on “CSI?” I bet you caught J-Beals on “Lie To Me” and are already planning your fall tv schedule around Kate Moennig on “Three Rivers.”

Are we interested in these shows? Not really. I’d never watched an episode of “CSI” in my life and “Lie To Me” was quite possibly one of the most uninteresting shows I’ve ever seen. So why do we do it? Because as much as we loved threatening to cancel Showtime week after week, we loved mourning dead or otherwise departed L Word characters even more.

As much as the show might have drowned in a pool of crazy, long before it took its final breaths, we became invested in the women playing these characters and the characters themselves. I want to see Bette again, even if she’s playing some guy’s ex-wife. I want to see Shane again, even if she’s walking around in scrubs and not low-ass jeans. The bottom line is that we secretly didn’t want “The L Word” to end, no matter how bad it got. It became the show we loved to hate, but our love for the actresses never went south.

We were always rooting for them, for better stories, for better lines, (BABY GIRRL!) even for better wardrobes. But when worse came to worse, we were still sad when Tasha (almost) left Alice, we were still happy that Bette and Tina stayed together and we are still dying to know who the fuck killed Jenny. Hell, I’m sure 90% of us would have secretly watched “The Farm” had it been picked up and I’m still waiting to see the final cut of “Lez Girls.” Does Jesse go back to Jim or not??!! If Mia Kirshner was in it, I’m sure a lot of you would watch it too, don’t lie.

But why do we care so much about these characters and these actresses? Because “The L Word” introduced us to a lot of the talent we crave. Aside from J-Beals and Laurel Holloman, I had never heard of anyone on “The L Word” cast until the show aired. Erin Daniels? Leisha what? Mia who? But now that we’ve been exposed to these wonderful actresses, we want to see them succeed where the limitations of their characters on “The L Word” may have failed. It’s because “The L Word” went out without a bang that we want to see these actresses rise above and regain what we loved about them in season one.

We’ve already bought “Flashdance” on DVD, we watched Kate Moennig in old episodes of “Young Americans” and we’ve even scoured the internet for a particular episode of “Boy Meets World” to see Leisha Hailey strumming a guitar singing about rainbows. But now with the L Word void, we want more. We want to see these in fresh, smart, funny roles and we want to see them again and again.