HOT WEDGES!

OPPOSITE SEX- RENE’S STORY (Mon Dec 7, Fox Bio Channel- 5:30pm)
Interesting and for once non-exploitative in a “they’re not like us!” way documentary about Rene’s journey from female to trans-male, with the support of his wife and (eventual) understanding of his children.

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LILIES: THE SEA (Mon Dec 14, ABC-8:30pm)
Fifth episode of this gritty (read “depressing”) British drama about a family of Liverpudlians struggling to survive the Great Depression. This episode introduces Billy (Daniel Rigby) a deeply closeted gay man who is tempted out by Nathan “Nazzer” (DOCTOR WHO’s William Ash) a former friend and now convalescing soldier. The two men get (very) close again and Nazzer helps Billy overcome his crippling fear of the ocean but Billy is nervous about his masculinity and as this is a BBC drama involving homosexuality things go tragically. You can always count on a British period drama to make your bad moods worse!

BACK STAIRS BILLY: THE QUEEN MUM’S BUTLER (Tues Dec 15, ABC- 8:30pm)
Nifty documentary about Billy Tallon, the late personal butler to the (even later) Queen Mother at Windsor Castle. Billy and his lover Reg ran a meticulous and well ordered royal household; polishing the silver-ware, walking the corgis, running the Queen Mum’s daily bath of young virgin’s blood to keep the grim reaper at bay for another week….

STALE CHIPS

WITHOUT A TRACE (Wed Dec 30, Nine- 10:30pm)
I was into this interesting, well-acted and scientifically accurate CSI-clone from the get go. Then a friend had to spoil the fun by pointing out that lead actor Eric Close is a card-carrying fundamentaloony wingnut and homophobe. I fancied a bigot? Uck, I feel so dirty- I need a looong bath with the male cast of BUFFY…

SPUDS IN SPACE!

TORCHWOOD- “Fragments” (Fri Dec 4, ABC2- 8:30pm)
Fragments sees the Torchwood team- a crack bunch of alien hunters spun-off from DOCTOR WHO- reminiscing how they all got together (in more ways than one). Tosh (Naoko Mori) has her first brush with alien technology in the form of a extraterrestrial device that can heal the sick (my advice- be an outpatient; the trip to the hospital takes light-years); med-student Owen (the chimp-like Burn Gorman), during a routine cranial operation, discovers a woman who has daleks on the brain…literally (don’t eat calamari whilst watching this part), immortal bisexual Jack (yummy gay actor John Barrowman) finds himself in the Victorian era and meets a pair of lipstick lesbians on the trail of Jack the Ripper, and Ianto (Gareth-David Lloyd) reminisces about slowly falling in love with Jack, over cups of coffee, alien uprisings and games of nude hide-and-seek. Ianto and Jack are possibly the first gay male couple in all of sci-fidom. Let’s hope the howls of outrage over certain events in Children of Earth that I’m totally denying ever happened means that the inevitable fourth season will bring Jack and Ianto back for some more coffee and naked board games (especially if one of them gets to be the board!).

Gavin Pitts