cal u 4 eva

Sunday night’s episode of The L Word (or maybe it was last week’s episode—we watched two back to back at Nicole’s and they blurred a bit) found Bette working as the new dean of the art department at California University.

On one hand, I was annoyed that the show increasingly seems to be about a group of lesbian celebrities: the hot young author, the hairstylist to the stars, the studio exec (didn’t Tina run a community center last season?), the radio personality and now the art world hotshot.

On the other hand, I was excited to see that Bette was teaching at my favorite fake university. Cal U was also home to Saved By the Bell: The College Years and the college years of Beverly Hills, 90210. For the longest time, my TV fantasy was that Tiffani-Amber Thiessen’s characters, Kelly and Valerie, would run into each other on campus. They’d look exactly alike, except one would have AquaNet bangs and one would have an early version of The Rachel.

Now that The L Word has landed at Cal U, there are even more opportunities for crossover episodes:

--Jessie, who was clearly A.C. Slater’s beard, hooks up with Alice after cruising her on OurChart.com.

--Donna and Jenny train together to compete in some sort of dangerous extreme-sports event. Both are constantly being victimized, and I often find myself wanting them to die. This would either kill them or make them stronger—either change would be welcome.

--Screech announces plans transition to female. Max offers to mentor him, but discovers that it’s all just a wacky plan to get into the girls’ locker room.

--Shane and Dylan pick up chicks, get their secretly sensitive hearts broken, go on coke binges, then drive around town like madmen/women. They crash their respective luxury cars and emerge with matching eyebrow scars.

--Tina leaves her new man for Principal Belding (who wasn’t technically on The College Years, but whatever) because she’s into lame-ass straight people now.

--Wannabe fashion designer Lisa Turtle takes Bette’s art class and worries that her new prof doesn’t take her seriously. But when she designs her final project—a puffy, splatter-painted prom dress with shoes dyed to match—she wows them all. Campus fashionistas Kelly Taylor and Helena start sporting the style, and the gay-straight divide is bridged once and for all.

--Annoying Character Threesome: Screech, Jenny and Brenda. Does their annoyingness cancel out the inherent hotness of a threesome? Talk amongst yourselves. And post your own plot suggestions, which, yes, will involve admitting your familiarity with three distinct eras of bad television.