AFTER A SLOW summer and a rocky autumn, it seems that, improbably, the winter is going to be the hot time for gay characters on television.
Of the new shows with gay characters that started on network TV this fall, only the CBS comedy “Out of Practice” gained any footing. This month, both network and cable television are premiering or bringing back series with strong gay representation.
But with the death of Showtime’s “Queer As Folk” last year, the highest gay quotient of any television show is the cable channel’s lesbian drama “The L Word,” which returns with a 12-episode third season Jan. 8.
Over on network TV, NBC’s new family drama “The Book of Daniel” offers gay viewers a promising new option with one regular and two recurring characters who are less than straight.
The new show, airing on NBC Fridays at 10 p.m., replaces the fertility clinic drama “Inconceivable” which offered two gay characters but failed to gain an audience this fall.
“Daniel” starts off with two back-to-back episodes on Jan. 6 at 9 p.m. before airing the remaining six episodes in its regular time slot.
“Your other glove is downstairs,” Ilene Chaiken, the lesbian creator, executive producer and writer of “The L Word,” tells one of her daughters moments before the child gets on the bus to go to school.
Though she is familiar with motherhood, Chaiken, 48, says that the relationship and struggles of “The L Word’s” new mothers, Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman), aren’t based on her life.
“My having a child has informed their story,” she says. “The arguments we have about parenting—you can’t get away from that experience. But their story, the dramatic narrative of their story is not taken from my life.”
The introduction of baby Angelica isn’t the only change for the third season of the show.
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‘The L Word’ creator Ilene Chaiken (right)—seen here with Katherine Moenning—says the upcoming third season of her series is the best yet. (Photo by James Dittiger/Showtime)
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“I had a very specific notion about how I wanted this season to work when we set out,” Chaiken says. “The second season was a little darker than I like to go. We tend to deal with real issues, and sometimes it tries to get dark.
“I loved the fun and humor of the first season and it seems our audience did too,” she adds. “We made a conscious decision to go back to that and make it more talky and paced like life as we see it and go to the humor whenever we could. It’s not an out-and-out comedy, but it’s more funny.”
And the humor often comes from class clown Alice (Leisha Hailey), who at the outset of the season is hysterically hysterical about her recent breakup with Dana (Erin Daniels).
Also adding some zest this season is gay actor Alan Cumming as outré “pansexual” club promoter Billie Blaike, who comes onboard to help Kit (Pam Grier) run her restaurant The Planet.
But the most prominent addition to the cast is Daniela Sea as Moira, a butch lesbian who Jenny (Mia Kirshner) befriends when living at her parents’ house in the Midwest. Jenny brings Moira back to Los Angeles.
Without giving too much away, Moira eventually decides to make the transition to become a man.
“The transgender story for us is a big story,” Chaiken says. “In our group [of writers], we had a number of women who had exes who were now men or becoming men and going through the permutations of gender redefinition.”
Chaiken says the most difficult aspect of the story was finding an actress who was believable in the role.
“I was aware that it could be gruesome if we cast someone you didn’t believe,” she says. “On the occasions when Hollywood decides to do trans stories, it can be really bad. Having lived in a community and known lots of transgender people, we know there are certain things we look for in mannerism and voice, and I wanted it to be real. Daniella was the one person who I absolutely believed in this part.”
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A med student played by Christian Campbell (left) finds it hard to be the gay son of a prominent minister (Aiden Quinn) on NBC’s ‘The Book of Daniel.’ (Photo by Justin Lubin)
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Jack Kenny, the gay creator of “The Book of Daniel,” is tired of the media calling his show’s central character, Episcopalian Rev. Daniel Webster (Aiden Quinn), “pill-popping.”
“[The adjective makes] it sound like he encourages it,” Kenny, 47, says. “Yes he has a problem with prescription medication. He’s struggling with it and trying to overcome it as we all struggle with our weakness on a daily basis—whether its donuts or vodka.”
At first blush, the show makes it sound like it would be a gritty independent movie. The wealthy, Vicodin “struggling” minister who talks to Jesus (no, really) has a wife who loves her afternoon martinis, a drug-dealing daughter, a randy adopted Asian son, and a gay son who isn’t entirely out of the closet.
In the hands of Kenny, a veteran sitcom writer, the show takes on a fun levity that likens these character twists to everyday struggles.
“I suppose in the back of my head there was the voice saying that there weren’t many sitcoms going on at the time, so I made the switch over [to drama],” says Kenny, who created “Titus” and “Wanda at Large” for Fox with his writing partner Brian Hargrove and also worked on NBC’s sitcom “Caroline in the City” for two years.
“So many writers have done that,” Kenny continues. “I think it’s a question if you can write good characters and good dialogue and good stories, then you can do it in any format.”
And there are plenty of good characters on “Daniel.” Peter Webster (“Trick’s” Christian Campbell) is like David Fischer from “Six Feet Under,” the over-achiever of the family who is dealing with the loss of his twin brother. Though he is out to the immediate family, he’s still in the closet at work as a med student and at church. The character says he doesn’t want to be labeled as the minister’s “openly gay” son.
Kenny says that the character is based more on his partner of 24 years than himself.
“He is from that WASP world where we don’t talk about things, we keep it private and keep it to ourselves,” Kenny says. “That’s a very WASP mentality. It’s not about shame it’s about privacy.”
Also on the show is Daniel’s sister-in-law Victoria (Cheryl White) who starts a relationship with her husband’s secretary, Jesse (Alana De La Gaza), after her husband leaves town. Rather than describing her as a lesbian, Kenny refers to her as a “swinging pendulum of sexual orientation.”
There’s also a gay mobster who gets involved with the building of the church’s new school.
With so many gay characters, Kenny doesn’t want to give critics the wrong idea, he says.
“I don’t want people to think I have an agenda,” he says. “My only agenda is to tell good stories.”
