Tasty Taties!
DOUBLE TIME (Sat Sept 5, ABC- 10pm)
Gay actor James Dreyfus (GIMME GIMME GIMME) plays both a hardened criminal sociopath doing time for multiple homicides and an effete gay actor who is the criminal’s exact double in this predictable but still funny little offering. When dealing with ‘someone who looks just like someone else’ films, you just know that they two will eventually be forced by circumstance to assume each other’s identities (just like you know that in ‘killer in the woods’ horror films anyone who gets naked is about to get an impromptu machete enema, or that films with Nick Gianopoulis in them will a] have the word ‘Wog’ in the title and b] Suck)) but Dreyfus makes it good, campy fun anyway.
DEXTER (Mon Sept 7, Ten-10:40pm)
-Fourth season of the brilliant, mamba-venom black comedy about a Florida-based Forensic Serologist, Dexter Morgan (SIX FEET UNDER’s Michael C. Hall) who knows everything there is to know about blood and blood splatter analysis- because when he’s not analyzing blood splatter, he’s *causing* it, as a prolific serial killer trained over decades by his policeman father (Gay actor James Remar) to use his ‘gifts’ for good (i.e. he only serially kills other serial killers). Season four’s arc sees Dexter, now (somewhat) happily married to the fragile Rita (Julie Benz, miles away from her sexy ubervamp Darla in BUFFY), becomes involved in the search for The Trinity Killer (Academy-award winning actor John Lithgow in a chilling performance), a cunning maniac who kills people in groups of three and who knows Dexter personally- and who also knows that Dexter has a wife and two adopted kids…
DROP DEAD DIVA (Mon Sept 21, Nine- 9:30pm)
-Pretty but vapid game show assistant, Deb (Brooke Elliot) who dies in a car crash at the exact same time as overweight but smart lawyer Jane (Brooke Dorsay) is killed by a criminal; Finding herself in Heaven, Deb hits the ‘Reset’ button on Saint Peter’s desktop computer (!) when he’s distracted and finds herself back on Earth- only in Jane’s body. Deb must now cope with suddenly being smart but fat and fifty in a society which worships those who are dumb but young and beautiful- just like she used to be. Fairly clever little comedy/drama (the US writers refer to it as a ‘Dramedy’, surely the lamest buzzword this side of ‘Bromance’) which benefits from some clever writing, plus some high profile, high-camp guest stars (Margaret Cho, Liza Minelli, Rosie O’Donnell, Paula Abdul) suggesting that the show is attempting to woo the pink viewer.
Soggy Fries!
ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER? (Mon Sept 21, Ten-7:30pm)
-Nigh intolerable quiz show that combines two of my least favourite things- a] children and b] asinine ‘comedian’ Rove McManus, who seems smarmier and less amusing each time he appears on television- one of these days he’s just going to devolve into Daryl Summers right there in front of the horrified studio audience.
THE SIMPSONS (Wed Sept 23, Ten- 7:30pm)
-Remember a year or two ago when we hardcore Simpsons fans were fervently wishing Ten would break out the new episodes? Well, we have them now, and I’m reminded of both the old maxim ‘Be careful what you wish for’ and a certain song by Alanis Morissette. The show that used to be the funniest program on television back around season 8 is now, in season 20, capable of raising perhaps one tired smile each episode. D’oh!
Hot Jackets!
61st PRIME TIME EMMY AWARDS (Mon Sept 21, Arena network- 8am)
-Only in an incestuous, self-congratulatory Hollywood event such as the Emmys could Sir Ian McKellan (for KING LEAR) and Charlie Sheen (for TWO AND A HALF MEN) both be nominated for Best Actor (fortunately in different categories- Drama and Comedy- or I would personally have to hunt down and bitch-slap Martin Sheen for ever having sired Charlie in the first place). Other queer goings on at the primetime preening party this year include living legend Betty White being nominated as Best Guest Actress (for MY NAME IS EARL), Sigourney Weaver getting Best Dramatic Actress nod for her superb turn in the Gay drama PRAYERS FOR BOBBY, and Justin Timberlake for playing an extremely fey version of himself (dude totally channeled JC Chasez) on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Of course the primary drawcard for a gay male audience –aside from the ‘Outstanding Achievement in Hair Styling’ category- is the presence of awesome and, of late, inexplicably hot out actor Neil Patrick Harris as the event’s MC. Maybe this will be the gig that finally gets this awesome gay actor an actual, y’know…gay role?!
CALIFORNICATION (Tues Sept 22, Ten-Midnight)
-It says a lot about my godzilla-sized lust for ex-X Filer David Duchovny that I’ve still got a big yen for him despite a] His marriage to stick insect Tea Leoni b] my recent fascination with AMERICAN PIE’s Seann William Scott and c] the second X FILES movie, I WANT TO BELIEVE (which was so persistently homophobic literally in every scene that the Cigarette Smoking Man seems to have been replaced by the Gay Marriage Boogeyman). A lot of the reason I stick with Duchovny can be seen on regular display each week in the comedy/drama series CALIFORNICATION, in which Duchovny plays an LA writer stricken with both writer’s block and sex addiction- he’s looking dang good for a fifty-year old guy, and his butt is onscreen so often it practically deserves its own screen credit…
Spuds in Space!
TORCHWOOD ‘Captain Jack Harkness’ (Fri Sept 4, ABC2- 8:30pm)
-Those of who whom have seen the execrable Torchwood Season 3 five-parter ‘Children of Earth’ and are still fuming (queer series creator Russell T Davies proves quite nicely with a certain plot point that a gay man can still be homophobic) can take some small measure of consolation with this repeated screening of the season 2 episode Captain Jack Harkness, in which bisexual Torchwood team leader Captain Jack Harkness (awesome gay actor John Barrowman) and computer whiz Toshio (Naoko Mori) fall through a time rift and find themselves trapped in 1940’s London during the Blitz. Whilst Tosh learns the hard way that Londoners in WWII were just a wee bit suspicious of Japanese nationals appearing in their nation’s capital, Captain Jack Harkness meets Captain Jack Harkness (Matt Rippy), an American airman whom ‘our’ Jack knows is doomed to die in 12 hours- because he loved him and lost him and took his name as a way to remember. This awesome, beautifully gay romance episode won a deserved Hugo award for best short drama and features a heartbreaking, sweet, homoerotic dance culminating in the the most passionate gay kiss ever shown on British television. My advice? Watch this and skip Children of Earth altogether…
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