Ah, TV! It's weeks like these we love it as much as we love sex, pasta or Nancy Pelosi as kick-ass Speaker of the House.
There's so much excitement, where do we start? Well, we're thrilled that Lost is back, of course. The return was everything we knew it would be. Nothing like a really well-written, well-crafted and well-acted drama series to keep us tuned in.
Speaking of dramas and returns, in the continuing saga of Grey's Anatomy, Isaiah Washington is out of rehab. That was quick! Only a week to cure homophobia, wow! And we thought it might take a whole month! (Remember, it's going to take Rev. Ted Haggard, the evangenital–evangelical who was caught with his pants down, five years to cure his closet homosexuality through spiritual rehab.)
Maybe T.R. Knight won't have to quit after all, as our sources at ABC tell us he is planning to do. Since Washington is cured and all.
Craig Ferguson (who was in rehab for drug and alcohol addiction 15-odd years ago, "before it was trendy, when it was just about saving your life") noted when Washington was released, "Eight days in rehab for anger management and homophobia. All those episodes of Will & Grace. Yep, he must be cured." Then he just rolled his eyes.
Isn't Paris Hilton due for rehab? She was spouting the n-word and the f-word out in public. Why is she still allowed out in public? Aren't her 15 minutes like totally up?
Well, since we now have a cure for homophobia and it's incredibly quick, let's get homophobes into rehab, shall we? If it becomes a trend in Hollywood, how long before the whole country will want to do it, too? Can't you see it: The Democrats will be hosting rehab parties: Stephen Spielberg, Barbara Streisand.
Speaking of trends spawned by the tube, we've been seeing these cool little ads with hip 12-year-old girls for Gardasil, the vaccine for cervical cancer developed by Merck. It's a great ad campaign with a catchy tag-line: All the girls are singing, "I want to be one less." The one less refers to one less woman with cervical cancer. In the TV ads, the girls are doing pubescent girl things: jumping rope, skateboarding, singing together, going to school.
The images clearly represent young, carefree girls who are enjoying their non-sexual lives as girls. There are no boys in the ads. Some of the girls are obvious tomboys. Some are girly girls. But all are just girls having life-affirming fun. They clearly have no thought of sex in their young heads. It's a perfect advertisement for what it's selling: a product to help vibrant young girls grow up to have a life free of cancer.
Anyway, there we were, placidly watching the news on Groundhog Day — not April Fool's Day, mind you — and there it was, the lead item after the terrible tornadoes in Florida. (We like how the new Republican governor there thinks FEMA will be right over. No, that was just for brother Jeb, dear. You will have to sit and twirl, just like they are still doing in New Orleans 18 months after Katrina.)
The news item was this: Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order on February 2 making Texas the first state to require schoolgirls be vaccinated against the STD, human papilloma virus (HPV), that causes cervical cancer.
Maybe he saw the TV commercial. Or perhaps Deal or No Deal?
The networks could not get enough of this story, of course, because Perry is not some flaming East Coast liberal, but an evangelical Christian Republican. Parents were just hysterical over his decision. One mother interviewed on NBC Nightly News said, "Is he going to issue chastity belts, too?"
It was a rather remarkable series of news stories, each more hysteria-inducing than the next. You would have thought that Perry had just signed an executive order insisting that Mark Foley or a bunch of Catholic priests go visit every schoolchild in Texas after dark.
Here's what actually happened: Perry chose an executive order because he didn't want the legislature or conservative groups or parents' rights groups interfering with his decision. Has he been to rehab to be cured of conservative illogic?
Every single person interviewed on every network said that the vaccine meant condoning premarital sex, and that Perry's decision was interfering with how parents choose to raise their children.
And they say the US is a backward country.
According to ABC, NBC and CBS News, Perry declared that beginning in September 2008, all girls entering the sixth grade will have to receive the vaccine, Gardasil. And just to be sure all girls get the same protection, Perry insisted that state and local health departments make the vaccine available free to girls nine to 18 who are uninsured or whose insurance does not cover vaccines. As if that were not enough, he also wrote into his order that Medicaid offer Gardasil to women ages 19-21.
Wow! It was like an episode of Boston Legal, except it was real. So a Christian, evangelical, conservative Republican, anti-abortion, anti-embryonic-stem-cell-research Governor of Texas, the Kill Me state, thinks that it is better for little girls to be protected against cervical cancer than die from having sex when they get older. Does this mean he believes in science over fake morality?
On ABC's newscast, Perry said simply, "The HPV vaccine provides us with an incredible opportunity to effectively target and prevent cervical cancer. It's no different from polio."
What's next? Teaching evolution?
Let us just say now to all the little girls in Texas: you owe your lives to Gov. Perry, who cared enough about you not to see you punished irrevocably for being human when you grow up.
Decent dissent
Speaking of poignant moments, Boston Legal has consistently been keeping the heat turned up on the Bush Administration, focusing on issues of dissent, free speech, Katrina, the war on Iraq and a host of other political bullet-points. (Plus, they have a black cross-dresser on the show who is not gay, but who is fabulous.) On last week's show, which was about the lunacy of no-fly lists, Alan Shore (Emmy-winner James Spader, one of the best actors on prime time) gave an impassioned speech about how much he loves America. And how important dissent is to protecting the country. It brought a tear to our eye, to be sure.
If you aren't watching BL, you have to ask yourself, Why not? David Kelley is doing his utmost to remind the viewing audience there are political issues that we cannot afford to set aside. Like free speech, privacy, human rights and people still waiting for New Orleans to be rebuilt.
Speaking of waiting for hell to freeze over, we thought that's how long it would take before we ever found another sitcom we liked after Frasier went off the air. We are not sitcom fans, we like drama. Of course we like drama, it's genetic! That said, we have fallen in love with more than one sitcom this season, the most recent of which debuted this week, CBS' Rules of Engagement (Mondays).
It is, in a phrase, pants-pissingly funny. And smart. Very smart. Patrick Warburton and David Spade are gearing up, after one episode, for Emmys. Warburton's dead-pan delivery as the jaded married guy Jeff is superb. Spade is at his ironic best as the carefree bachelor Russell. The third member of the trio is Adam (Oliver Hudson), newly engaged. (Adam: "I think marriage is going to be great." Jeff: "Based on what?")
One of the reasons we don't watch sitcoms is because they all seem to be hopelessly heterosexual in ways we don't enjoy. Rules is definitely straight, but all about the foibles, and thus actually funny.
The Class, which debuted in September, took a while to warm up. It is now so funny you will want to get the DVD set the second it becomes available. It isn't just heterosexuals, it's a myriad of characters, all dysfunctional, some straight, some queer. The ensemble cast is superb, although Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays Richie Velch, is perhaps the most hilarious actor on prime time. The show has more than one gay character, Kyle Lendo (Sean Maguire), who's out, and Perry Pearl (Sam Harris), who's flaming but closeted and married.
Speaking of married and flaming, Sara Gilbert, who plays Richie's bitchy ex-wife Fern, is having a baby. Gilbert (Roseanne, ER ) and her partner, TV producer Allison Adler (Commander in Chief), are expecting their second child. Adler gave birth to their first child in 2004. Take that, Mary Cheney!
Speaking of devil spawn — well, we don't really have a segue to that, but we just had to say it. Devil spawn and Mary Cheney. Yes, that does sound right. Far right.
Soap dish
Speaking of queers on TV, we continue to be immersed in the lesbian/transgender storyline on All My Children. The fight for Bianca's love is heating up. When, oh when, was the last time, other than The L Word, you saw a lesbian love triangle on the tube anywhere but in your own fantasies? Zoe and Maggie are duking it out over Binx. At this point we are so in love with Jeffrey Carlson's wild and crazy Zoe that we don't know whom to root for. Which means that AMC has successfully integrated not just the lesbian characters but also the TG one into the larger soap landscape.
See what rehab can do?
A source tells us that NBC will not be outdone by ABC in the queer-as-soap arena. According to our very knowledgeable source, on Passions (which already has had the first black lesbian soap character, Simone), Chad Harris Crane (Charles Divins), one of the main heartthrobs of the quirky soap, will be outed as a closet case. Our source tells us that the married Mr. Harris Crane will be caught en flagrante with another man.
Since Passions is soon to be cancelled, all we can say is, talk about going out with a bang! Two men in the sack together?
On AMC this week, JR caught Babe in bed with Zoe. Perfectly innocent on the part of Babe and Zoe, who are just girlfriends, but JR noted as he found them sleeping together: "I don't know which to be more bothered by: a man in bed with my wife or a lesbian with man parts in bed with my wife."
The times, they are a-changin'.
Over on As the World Turns, the MIA Luke came to a family dinner just in time to be verbally gay-bashed by his cousin Brad, who's back in town and didn't know Luke was queer. Luke handled the moment well, but his mother, Lily, tossed Brad out on his hunky ass and told him such language was not acceptable in her house. Hmmm, they could have used her over at Grey's Anatomy.
Meanwhile, on the soap where all the fashion designers are straight — really, every one of them — the hunky, suave Kyle Lowder (check out his website, kids) has taken over the role of Rick Forrester. Lowder, who spent five years on Days of Our Lives as Brady Black, is the best Rick since Jacob Young (who has played JR on AMC since 2003). We wish that Rick's comment that he was at a leather bar in Silver Lake meant there was finally a gay designer in the family, but we have a feeling he's going to go for his pseudo-sister, Phoebe. To which we say, ick.
Then, over at General Hospital, Robin Scorpio (Kimberly McCullough), the only character living with HIV on daytime, is facing the prospect of having possibly transmitted the disease to her lover, Patrick Drake (Jason Thompson).
The docs have been playing safe, and Patrick was certain he wanted to be with Robin despite the HIV. But since he got his iffy test, Robin pushed him to be re-tested, and he's afraid to find out for sure.
Since America has pretty much forgotten that AIDS exists outside of Africa, this is edgy stuff. Robin contracted AIDS more than a decade ago from her boyfriend Stone, who died of the disease. It was then the first AIDS storyline on daytime with a central character. (As the World Turns also had an AIDS storyline, but it was more peripheral.)
Bringing Robin back as a doctor with a chip on her shoulder who only wants to tell patients the bald and often painful truth was smart. Having her team up with the brash and hunky Dr. Drake was smarter still.
GH is showing that people with HIV live normal and responsible lives. Sources at ABC hint that there might be a baby in the future for Robin and Patrick.
Finally, with everyone and their sister having babies, we were struck by a very pregnant Julie Bowen on Craig Ferguson, February 1. Bowen, who plays attorney Denise Bauer on Boston Legal, is about to have her first child. Guesting on The Late Late Show, Ferguson asked her if she liked being pregnant.
Most women assert that, of course, they love it! In fact, we have never heard a woman say anything else.
Bowen said, "Being pregnant? I hate it. It's like having a rabid squirrel inside you cleaning itself all day long." Then she added, "And I just got the news every mother-to-be wants to hear: 'Your baby is healthy, but has a very large head.'"
She followed these quips with our quote of the week. Bowen, a football fan, asked Ferguson if he was going to the Super Bowl. Ferguson said yes, and she asked if he was doing the whole thing, since it's Miami. "Getting the full wax? Back, crack and sack so you can wear a thong?" The audience howled, the usually unflappable Ferguson blanched. It was a South Beach moment, for sure.
Bowen is terrific on BL, and apparently, quite fun in real life. Her little tyke is going to have one amusing mama. Someone save the tape of this show for the wee one. Stay tuned.