Network TV Shows: December 2006 Archives

Just noticed this in The Hollywood Reporter: ABC has given the green light to the drama pilot "Football Wives," based on the popular British primetime soap "Footballers' Wives" which airs on BBC America in the U.S.
Hooray! I love this show for many reasons (the delicious character of Tanya Turner (Zoe Lucker) being the biggest one!)But here's a few queer reasons to cheer: the character of Noah Alexander (Marcel McCalla), introduced in season three, is gay. Not only is he gay, but he fancies the team's David Beckham-ish captain, Conrad Gates (Ben Price). Conrad is married and is carrying in various affairs with women but being the open-minded guy that he is, he also has an affair with Noah!
So here, the deal. How gay will the U.S. version, centered around the NFL instead of pro soccer, be? Football is such a homophobic sport so it will be interesting to see if the show will have a character like Noah and allow the captain to be bisexual.
There is reason to be optimistic though. Openly gay director Bryan Singer ("Superman Returns" and the first two "X-Men" movies) has come on board to potentially direct the project, which revolves around women whose lives are transformed when they marry NFL superstars. I also like the fact that the show is being produced by Touchstone TV for ABC which is behind hit primetime soaps "Desperate Housewives," "Grey's Anatomy" and promising new entries to the genre "Ugly Betty" and "Brothers & Sisters." All but "Grey's" have significant gay characters (provided Andrew gets utilized again on 'Housewives').
Openly-gay writer-director Marco Pennette penned the pilot script and is one of the executive producers.
I. Can't. Wait!

The handsome Eric Mabius has found well-deserved success in one of this fall's breakout hits: ABC's "Ugly Betty." He plays Betty's in-over-his-head boss at a high-fashion magazine. Mabius first got our attention as a buffed-out stud in the indie fave "Welcome to my Dollhouse" then played gay in "Cruel Intentions" opposite Joshua Jackson (pictured below). He was on "The L Word" and "The OC" before landing the gig on "Betty" and is featured as a star with a "Big Gay Following" in the next issue of The Advocate. Here is some of what this guy has to say about his gay fans and gay roles.
On playing gay in "Cruel Intentions" all those years ago: "Listen, I went to Sarah Lawrence [College]. I went to high school in Amherst [Mass.], and nearby Northhampton has the largest lesbian population on the Eastern seaboard. So I've been user-gay friendly for a while (laughs).
On gay fan mail: "I was touched during spring break this past year - some of the soldiers in Iraq got their spring vacation, and I was out to dinner in Hollywood. Quite a few soldiers came up to me, obviously some gay and some lesbian, telling me how the DVDs of "The L Word" got them through their tours."
On the latently gay character of Betty's nephew on Ugly Betty: "I've seen some negative response to that character specifically. There are comments about "warping" the youth of today or that it's "immoral." Nobody's making him anything other than who he is. Hopefully, in a year or two that will just be a bump in the road, and there won't be any more of it. It won't be about pointing out ethnicity or orientation; it'll just be part of the fabric. And that's why the show is so good."

From where I stand, you're so good too Eric!

"Ugly Betty" executive producer/showrunner Jim Parriott has left the new hit series and is being replaced by Marco Pennette, the openly gay talent who has created/co-created and executive produced such series as the comedies "Caroline in the City," "All About the Andersons," "I'm With Her" and "Crumbs" as well as the light drama "Inconceivable."

The show is already terrific and I think Pennette will only make it better, particularly anything connected to the gay characters. It's also great to see Pennette land on a show that is already a hit. I interviwed him last year for The Advocate's fall season preview when he had two shows with prominent gay characters on the fall schedule: the NBC fertility clinic drama "Inconceivable" and the very funny ABC comedy "Crumbs" that starred Fred Savage as a closeted gay man and Jane Curtain and William Devane as his parents. I loved this show and still have the preview screeners from it. It's rare a reporter keeps preview screeners but this show was worth hanging on to.

Anyway, during our interview for The Advocate, Marco told me the most hilarious story. It was about how he was outed, in front of his parents, on the red carpet of the People's Choice Awards. He was there for "Caroline in the City" and a friend, unaware that he was not yet out to his parents, asked how things were going with his new boyfriend!

Classic!

Pennette has been serving as a consulting producer on the show. He now will executive produce alongside the pilot's writer Silvio Horta, Ben Silverman, Salma Hayek, Jose Tamez and James Hayman. "Betty" stars America Ferrera as not-so-attractive but intelligent and sweet Betty Suarez, who works at a fashion magazine. The show co-stars Eric Mabius, Vanessa Williams, Alan Dale and the recently added Rebecca Romijn.

I urge you to read a terrific round-table discussion on the state of gays on television on AfterElton.com which includes thoughts from the site's editor, Michael Jensen, Bryan Fuller, producer of NBC's "Heroes," actor Jack Plotnick, and GLAAD Media Director Damon Romine.
I have excerpted comments made by Damon (pictured, right) because of his overall view but the conversation between the four principals is quite compelling.
Says Romine: "There’s been kind of a lot of anticipation this year, from all the visibility from "Brokeback Mountain" and "Transamerica" and a lot of discussion about [gay people’s] lives on TV with the election and all. If you look at the numbers of scripted characters on TV, though, LGBT characters only represent 1.3 percent of all characters currently on broadcast networks. That’s pretty low and not representative of us at all.
There is "Brothers & Sisters," however, which is telling an incredible and inclusive story, especially in comparison to what else is on. And there’s "The Class," which has a leading gay character. And gay characters are fairly well-represented on unscripted shows. As far as gay and lesbian youth, there’s been improvement, with shows like" Desperate Housewives" and "The War at Home" and "South of Nowhere," which features two teenaged lesbian characters.

Even on daytime television, on shows like "General Hospital" and "All My Children," the gay characters are members of the family. … In all the 50 years [of daytime soap operas], this is the first time that they’ve included gay characters [as] core members of the central family. [Editors note: All My Children just introduced a transgender character on the show.] Now that that’s happened, it will be hard to get rid of them.
Usually with gay characters on soap operas, they’d have their story lines around for a week or two, and then they’d go away. Bianca on "All My Children" is the daughter and one of the main characters on the show now. Of all the people on the show, she’s kind of considered the moral compass. And when you have a gay character and make her the moral compass, that’s really important."

We won't be seeing a new episode of ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" until Dec. 10 but news about some future plot twists are leaking out involving Kevin (Matthew Rhys). A lot of us were so bummed that things didn't work out with Scotty but hey, it seems like an on-the-market Kevin could be lots of fun. Michael Jensen reports on his AfterElton. com blog that Jason Lewis has been cast as Kevin’s new love interest. The sexy Lewis, best-known for playing Samantha's season six boyfriend Smith on "Sex in the City," is going to play Chad, a closeted soap opera star.
Talk about perfect casting. Could Lewis look any more like a soap opera star? Kevin and Lewis will meet at an exercise boot camp and their relationship will run for at least four episodes starting in February. (Ratings sweeps time!)
But Kevin is also supposed to get involved with someone he meets through his sister Kitty (Calista Flockhart). It's supposed to be a big plot twist so there is growing speculation that his love interest could be Rob Lowe's new U.S. senator character.
I'm all for that!