To Lesbians
Everywhere

"if you've seen alias, you basically know what's going to happen in [our show]," jokes Michelle Paradise, the writer, executive producer, and star of the new lesbian "dramedy" Exes & Ohs, premiering on Logo in October.

Paradise's goofy-pretty charm may begin to explain how, without an agent and with just one short film under her belt, she came to be auteur and leading lady of the first (and long overdue) lesbian comedy on TV. Logo president Brian Graden says the pilot hinges on Michelle's character and "how endearing and relatable she is in such a universal, everywoman way."

Paradise plays the hapless Jennifer, a documentarian in the middle of such a long post-breakup dry spell that she's practically reverted to a virgin. Jennifer is coaxed into "getting out there" by her close circle of Seattle friends: bossy ex-girlfriend and best friend Sam (Marnie Alton), pet accessory store-owning life partners Chris (Megan Cavanaugh) and Kris (Angela Featherstone), and wannabe musician "Crutch," played by Heather Matarazzo.

Once you get over the fact that Matarazzo, as the baby dyke next door, does not resemble your neighborhood boi but rather a grown-up version of her character Weiner Dog from Welcome to the Dollhouse, her mix of gooberishness and "edge" is hilarious. Similarly, Cavanaugh (A League of Their Own) brings her dopey comic persona to the wouldn't-hurt-a-fly Chris. The lesson here seems to be that lovable-misfit actors have been gay all along (if we hadn't learned that already from Lily Tomlin), so they are raring to play openly gay characters.

Paradise plays the hapless Jennifer, a documentarian in the middle of such a long post-breakup dry spell that she's practically reverted to a virgin. Jennifer is coaxed into "getting out there" by her close circle of Seattle friends: bossy ex-girlfriend and best friend Sam (Marnie Alton), pet accessory store-owning life partners Chris (Megan Cavanaugh) and Kris (Angela Featherstone), and wannabe musician "Crutch," played by Heather Matarazzo.

Once you get over the fact that Matarazzo, as the baby dyke next door, does not resemble your neighborhood boi but rather a grown-up version of her character Weiner Dog from Welcome to the Dollhouse, her mix of gooberishness and "edge" is hilarious. Similarly, Cavanaugh (A League of Their Own) brings her dopey comic persona to the wouldn't-hurt-a-fly Chris. The lesson here seems to be that lovable-misfit actors have been gay all along (if we hadn't learned that already from Lily Tomlin), so they are raring to play openly gay characters.

But before I describe the show in too much detail, let's get The L Word-ephant in the room out of the way: Comparisons between the two shows seem inevitable, and Exes & Ohs' creators are braced for them. Graden grumblingly blames it on the relative infancy of lesbian TV: "There should be 30 other shows to compare it to, but they don't exist yet. Today, you would never look at a show with an all-black cast and say 'This is just another Cosby Show.' "

So let's start with three basic things Exes & Ohs has on The L Word. One: theme song. Though it may be shooting fish in a barrel, Exes & Ohs wins hands down for the catchy tune "The Constant Lover" by Canadian femme rockers Magneta Lane. Two: no actor coyness about who's into girls. Paradise, Cavanaugh, and Matarazzo are openly gay, and the other two cast members are openly straight. There. Was that so hard, L Word cast? Three: Exes & Ohs is the first lesbian TV show to be intentionally funny.

The show has rich comedic ground to plow -- thanks to the newness of the genre, basically everything untouched by post-coming-out Ellen is virgin territory -- and it gleefully plows it. Chris and Kris's matching sweaters are the bulky woven items you can't bring yourself to tell your dorkiest lesbian friend to burn. Crutch's songs hilariously knock off the Indigo Girls ("I'm trying to tell you something 'bout my dog..."). And Jennifer's chronic inability to avoid her exes is very, very lesbian.

Lesbian in-jokes could probably carry the show through at least a season, so extra props to Paradise et al for working in the "drama" aspect of "dramedy." The complexity is in no small part due to her vivid and dogged imagination, which may be even more crucial to her success than her goofy charm. The characters of Exes & Ohs have existed in her head for almost 10 years, sprouting out of the first script she ever wrote in a San Francisco coffee shop in 1998.

"It's a Horatio Alger-esque story," Paradise says of the road to Logo. "It's one of those things where if I was reading it someplace I would think, God, why can't that be me? You're in your room typing, or in an audition with 500 other people who look just like you, for years, and then for something to finally come -- and in such a big way!"

A few years after penning that first script, she uprooted to Los Angeles, a move she calls "insane.... At the point where people are starting to settle down, they're buying their cars...I'm renting a room in someone's else apartment with all of my stuff in storage." She met producer Abbie Ludwig and producer-aspiring director Lee Friedlander, and together they made the romantic comedy film short The Ten Rules: A Lesbian Survival Guide, which introduced Jennifer, Sam, Chris, Kris, and 12 or 13 others (no Crutch yet). The short traveled to dozens of festivals, won awards, and caught the eye of Logo to eventually become Exes & Ohs.

After 10 years the characters are so real to her that they're more like friends, albeit imaginary ones. When I ask whom she might have cast as Jennifer, if not herself, she blinks at me in confusion. Same bewilderment when I ask whom she might cast in future projects. There are rumors that she is working on a new screenplay. ("Who are the characters?" she asks.)

Paradise is much more comfortable discussing her characters' foibles and biographical details (of which she has reams, not yet in the show) than her own. Though at home with self-mockery -- she announces that, like Britney Spears, she is in the habit of driving around without pants -- Paradise is cagey on personal details. Her age? She jokes that she's 24; her MySpace page says 99. Her love life? "I'm not single." Her time at Brigham Young University? "I was Mormon for about seven years and pretty much left the church after graduation...all for reasons that are pretty personal."

Back at work, Paradise manages to juggle the roles of actor, writer, and executive producer, and the result is worth it: a comedy with a pervasive quality of realness, from the nuanced characterization to the low-fi production to the moody Seattle weather -- that's richer and better acted than most on TV, gay or straight.