The L Word - the loopy lesbian TV show which has driven us mad with desire or despair for three seasons is well into its fourth incarnation in the States. Chinese-subtitled episodes are already floating around the web for Asia-based fans to download. This time around there are some treats in store and more hot dykes than you can shake a dildo at. We have lesbians as soldiers, vets, uber-lotharios, and mature mothers on top of the regular cast - literally.

Its success is unprecedented. It's hard to believe that a show that dwells almost exclusively on lesbians - nary a hot gay stud in sight to boost ratings - has become so popular. The show's cable network, Showtime, said they had "seen a ratings explosion in season three, the likes of which we would never have predicted. Clearly something has caught fire."

And it's not only in the States.

Norwegian dyke Miss E, who is researching lesbian culture in China says: "I think it's quite amazing how the L Word has become this global lesbian phenomenon.

"Dykes everywhere talk about who they like the most, who they want to be like, which of the characters they'd want to sleep with etc," she adds.

"They have L Word watching parties in New York, my friends in Oslo come together and watch it on TV, bars in New York show it, the [lesbian] salon in Beijing show the episodes... There's even this world convention!"

The show has been variously blasted for its haphazard writing, dubious plot-lines, inconsistent characters, and unlikely-looking dykes. So how come we're all going lala for the L Word?

First off is getting off.

The show has a surfeit of some of the hottest women on television - thanks to Jennifer Beals (Bette) and Rachel Shelley (Helena). Top that with some of the steamiest and realistic lesbian sex scenes ever recorded. Hands up who didn't wear down their rewind button replaying Shane's poolside strap-on sex?

Miss E also likes the ladies.

"The concentration of hot women on the show� helps boost the quality rating," she says.

"I only watch The L Word for Jennifer Beals' sex scenes," offers one viewer cited by a US-based gay web portal.

Not everyone agrees. When the L Word first surfaced, its cast of fantasy dykes and glamour pusses was ridiculed for being unrepresentative of real gay women. The L Word world was this utopia of lipstick lesbians with the odd token butch thrown in for good measure.

"Too beautiful?" asks The Stud. "Only lesbians would come up with that complaint."

But it's in spite of that, that the show is so seductive.

"Who wants to watch dykes in Birkenstocks and plaid, hanging out in potlucks drinking tea?" argues Jockie, a Canadian-Chinese dyke, who starred as an extra in the show in season 3.

"It's a question of whether you want it to be hot or if you want it to reflect reality," she adds.

But it's not just the naked exposure that's good for us lesbians. It's having any exposure at all. Now we have a hit show where a whole palette of dykes - hot or not - juggle with issues that run the gamut from female-to-male sex change to lesbian parenting. It uses foxy chicks to smuggle lesbians and their lives into the mainstream.

"The L Word is the Trojan horse of lesbian TV rolled up with a bunch of chi chi dykes that we love to hate," laughs Jockie.

It's my bet that Greek mythology never dreamed it would be tied up in 21st century dyke politics. Although they did give us the isle of Lesbos.

And while the L Word actresses shimmy about the screen putting the lip gloss into lesbianism, it's their dyke-specific problems which makes the show so compelling to some viewers.

"The show touches on issues of our concern, such as having children, workplace romance, inter-racial dating, etc," says Ellen, a 20-something Hong Kong-American lesbian. "That sums up what I think a good lesbian show should be."

Despite the sloppy writing and the clumsy characterizations -Helena miraculously redeemed herself from conniving seductress to a tender-hearted pansy in the space of a season - the show gets its claws into stickier stuff than the tried-and-died dilemma of coming out to your parents. Take transmen's testosterone-induced sexual urges for gay men, for example. Although the show's writers didn't dig too deep into that one, Max's dildo rear entry into overt queeny fag, Billie Blaikie, went pretty far in.

Says Miss E: "For once [there's a show that] explicitly deals with themes and issues that lesbians face."

"[The] L Word is mixing entertainment and politics quite well too, such as introducing topics of sex change with Max, gay in the army with this new hot woman in series four, homophobia at work, and Tina's hetero-conversion," she adds.

For Jockie, the show just about muddles through.

"A good lesbian TV show should be hot, have good dialogue/plotlines and it has to have some activism element - a social conscience," she says. "The L Word satisfies these three requirements at various times but not all the time."

Sometimes the issues are closer to home.

"You see yourself reflected in it, in the issues raised," says the Stud. "When I first started watching it I was going through a grisly break-up. I felt an affinity with the characters."

And perhaps, in the end, that's all that we want. To see glam versions of ourselves in an impossible lesbian world, and to know that it's going to be alright in the end.

Failing that there's always the sex.