There were those at last Saturday's GLAAD Awards who mumbled about how ironic it was that "Grey's Anatomy" won an award for "best individual episode." They were, of course, referring to the fact that "Grey's" had so much off-screen drama surrounding Isaiah Washington who dropped the f-bomb toward his gay co-star T.R. Knight last fall then ignited an even bigger controversy when he denied ever using the word backstage at the Golden Globe Awards.
But that should take nothing away from the accomplishment of "Where the Boys Are" which featured a gay couple (pictured below) who go on a fishing trip with the male doctors of Seattle Grace. When Chief of Staff Richard doesn’t have a tent to camp in, he asks gay bartender, Joe, and his friend Walter, if he can sleep in their tent but then realizes that Joe and Walter are a couple.
While fishing, Joe tells Richard they’re thinking about having children and Richard says he and [estranged wife] Adele never did because she didn’t want raise them alone since he was always at the hospital.
I talked to an elated Mark Wilding (pictured, above) who wrote the episode. He said the GLAAD recognition was "a wonderful honor. I'm delighted, I think it's great."
"It was a fun episode to do because we got to do a couple of stories. One of them was the chief surgeon going camping and discovering that a couple of the campers were gay and how he dealt with that and his reaction to it. And we also had a little more serious story which was the transgender story when a wife is coming to terms with the fact that her husband wants to become a woman. The [episode] just sort of came together that way, that wasn't the intent in the beginning."
I then asked him if the show will have more gay characters or storylines. "Will McSteamy suddenly have a change of heart?
Wilding laughed and said: "That's for season four. Right now I'm still struggling to finish season three. But a lot of that depends on what [show creator] Shondra Rhimes would like to do, she's really the creative voice of the show so I don't know at this point."
I said: "Maybe you can lobby her?"
Wilding: "[laughs] That I'll do."