Lost Girl first aired on September 12, 2010 on the Canadian network Showcase. It was created by Michelle Lovretta, who was also showrunner for the first season (along with Peter Mohan apparently) and wrote several episodes, including the pilot and season one finale. It was really popular in Canada, and it was pretty groundbreaking in the way it portrayed sexuality. In today’s world, we are blessed with many gay characters and ships on TV, flawed and incredibly flawed as they are. But in 2010, this was not so. Lost Girl was pretty unique. And not just because of the gayness, but because of its unapologetic approach toward sex in general.
But the show is groundbreaking to me personally for another reason entirely. Lost Girl is, at its heart, a love story between its two main characters, Bo and Kenzi. A platonic love story, but one that is just as powerful if not more so than any romantic one they possibly could have told. If the concept of soul mates existed, Bo and Kenzi would be it. Any other interpretation of the show, like the idea of it being a love story between Bo and Lauren, for instance, just does not jive with me. Doesn’t ring remotely true, though you can have that interpretation if you’d like.
Lost Girl is often hit or miss. It has low budget special effects, oftentimes corny dialogue and subpar acting, and is just generally full of camp. It never tries to disguise Buffy’s influence. It tries to mimic the supernatural campy found family vibe that that show made a genre out of, and oftentimes falls well short of it. Is it a Buffy knockoff? Like with most Buffy knockoffs, the answer is yes and no. But in spite of its obvious roots, it sets itself apart in a couple of crucial ways, like its approach to sexuality, and manages to find its own unique voice. It has a lot of duds, like, a lot. There’s a lot of shit to slog through, hence my clever icon where Kenzi is covered in dirt. But in the midst of that shit are some fucking gems of episodes, and I shit you not, some fantastic fucking writing.
Yes, it can be cringey. But I cannot stress this enough. In terms of Bo and Kenzi’s relationship alone, no other show even attempts what (I feel) Lost Girl manages to achieve. I have legitimately never seen another show sell a central platonic female friendship this hard. In any other show, Bo and Kenzi’s relationship would slowly but surely fall by the wayside and they would become less important to each other, less present in each other’s lives, as they each grew closer to their respective love interests. That’s just how it works with fiction, usually. The romantic relationships would gradually become the more significant ones in each character’s life.
But this show never does that, in its entire 2010-2013 run. Bo and Kenzi each have a series of love interests, even endgame love interests (though we will never know for sure because of how the show ended after Season 3), and those relationships are incredibly important for both of them. But the story is not about those relationships. The story is about them. Bo and Kenzi are consistently each other’s call to action, their inspiration, and most importantly of all, their home and family. They choose each other again and again. The story begins with them choosing each other. Theirs is an active love. They are each other’s heart. It’s a love story. It’s not about romance or destiny, but about family, about choosing to care about someone. And you know what? Still totally platonic.
No other show does this, or at the very least no other show manages to pull this off quite this successfully. In other shows, if the platonic relationship isn’t diminished in importance, it’s made romantic. Even my favorite show of all time, Revolutionary Girl Utena, kinda does this. (And for the record, I LOVE that show for doing exactly that! But my point still stands. They gay.)
Bo and Kenzi’s friendship was so important to me in high school, but now as an adult having come to realize I am an aromantic/asexual person (or at least very much on that spectrum), it is even more important to me. It’s not a queerplatonic relationship, not exactly--like I said, they each still have legit love interests. It’s--well, it’s family, I guess. It’s better than family, because it’s chosen family. It’s soul mates.
As much as I wish I could have said something more profound about the show, something it deserves, I’m not actually very good with words when it really counts. Before I dive in to my episode thought dumps, I will leave it with this. Make fun of Lost Girl all you like for its cheesy shit and oftentimes subpar writing, but consider this. The show is truly unique, a phenomenon if you will, in that it somehow manages to boast both the greatest written character in all of television, and the worst written character in all of television. In the same show. Pretty crazy, right?
Tfw it’s a gay show and the best character is straight. F (In my gay show? It’s more likely than you think.)
