I’ve not lost interest in the show at all! Please don’t take my lack of giffing and posting to mean that, I’ve just been busy with real life things. What free time I do have, I still very much spend on it.
How I feel about the show itself, though, lately… Well. Yes, I do think it’s been lackluster. I don’t like the lack of Jathea lately, or that Jade is still married, how much David we’re getting. I don’t like how they drop crucial plot points that end up making Jade look uncaring or dim. But mostly, I really don’t like what Althea is going through. They’d already shown her abused and traumatized, for apparently no reason anyway, since we’re getting the cautionary tale of the married lesbian in slow mo with Jade still. And we had Paul and Wila also beaten up for their queerness, so at this point it’s really in very poor taste.
But. My realization, or rather, reminder of what I was watching was way back at the introduction of Althea’s kid. Since then, I’ve never really forgotten that this is a soap and there are going to be soapy plots. So I’ve appreciated the good in what we’ve gotten and handwaved the rest.
My problems with the show are objective, not in a specific lesbian way, and of course there’s overlap, since we get so few lesbian shows, but I don’t feel the same as I did for Faking It, Last Tango in Halifax, or Call the Midwife. It’s become a bad show in general, not bad lesbian representation. There are so many things TRMD has not done and while they shouldn’t be getting credit for avoiding others’ mistakes, I feel that they do sometimes get the blame for them (”why so much of this male character?” is something that has arisen after way too much lesbian media focusing on dudes), so I’ll grant them that.
In terms of lesbian content, I think the missteps they’ve made have come from well-intentioned ignorance, not apathetic ignorance (see all the deaths and sleeping with dudes). Jade and Althea’s romance has really been very pure in a way I don’t see often anywhere, let alone in lesbian romances. I’ve made my share of gay panic jokes but Jade has not once wavered in how much she loves and is in love with Althea, no matter how much David we’ve had. In fact, the one thing that really drew me to the show, Jathea, has not gone anywhere. Even through some of the terrible plots, it’s shown through adorably.
After seeing how the MTRCB rapped them on the knuckles for the mildest bit of dialogue, I’m again reminded just where this show is coming from. And it’s done really well for that. When you think about it, the show tried to be daring in THREE different ways. Not only did it focus on a lesbian romance (rare enough across the world), it tried to go for a more realistic non-soapy format, which I guess didn’t work ratings-wise and made them rethink their approach, and it didn’t have a leading man. My Husband’s Lover, similar in being gay-themed, DID have the hunky dudes that the target audience would much more readily watch. In fact, that’s probably another reason for so much David after the second half.
I think, barring a few terrible tropes they could yet introduce, once this finishes, I’ll still think of it as a success and remember it fondly. Sure, it could have been better, but when it was good, it was soooo good, and I’m glad it happened and I’m glad I’m watching it.