BSG Prequel: Caprica has a couple of gay characters, possibly more.

[Touchdown]

Friday's episode has Will Adama's (Commander on BSG, now a 12 year old in this show) uncle serving him dinner with his husband. He even said he was married, not with any shocking revelation, but just matter of factly. He's complicated as he is a sort of hitman for a Tauran mob, so he's not necessarily a good guy. Apparently Taurans on the 12 Colonies are the equivalent to Sicilians in real life. There is also a woman who is in a polygamist family, she seems to care for her wives as much as her husbands. Both of these seem to be key characters in the plot, so I see them sticking around awhile.

Friday Nights on SyFy network. Along with an out lesbian on the new Stargate:Universe, it seems that Sci Fi is finally getting out of the "no gay people in the universe" bigotry that plagued the 5 Star Trek shows for so many years.

[dsc]

1. caprica is good enough that I am going to watch BSG on netflix

I love the role that Sam is playing in Joe's life.

[xultar]

3. I was just thinking of going BSG with netflix too. I love last week when he said he was flirting

with a guy but his brother got a date with the sister.

I thought that was sweet.

And this week the husbands @ dinner was so awesome!!!! I love Caprica!

[RoyGBiv]

2. He referred to it the week before ...

He mentioned something about hanging out as a teenager picking up guys. It was done so matter-of-fact-ly I almost missed it.

[xultar]

4. I hit rewind acouple of times on that. It was so smootth, great writing, acting the whole

thing was awesome.

[HillWilliam]

7. It WAS smooth, wudnit!!

My jaw dropped. My partner missed it the first time so we had to watch the rerun on Friday. I shushed him right before that part came up and made him pay attention. He blinked and I asked him, now how cool was that how they just slid that in.

I didn't care for BSG but I'm really liking Caprica. It's slick, pretty, and really appeals to my software-developer self.

[Touchdown]

5. Wel, I did miss it.

[RoyGBiv]

11. Hulu ...

Go here:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/125498/caprica-rebirth#s-p1-s...

After the intro commercial, slide over to about the 20:30 mark. That's just a bit before the scene, sandwiched in between bits from the group marriage family.

[FreedomRain]

6. I missed both times :o

But a fan-frakkin-tastic show.

[TheWraith]

9. That was a frakking work of ART.

So incredibly smooth, so casual, that most people would miss it. One of Ronald D. Moore's big issues in having openly gay characters in Galactica was, according to him, finding a way to introduce it in the context of the overall story arc without making it look like "oh look, they introduced some token gay characters." This is an example of being able to slip it in there via brilliant writing. Mark Verheiden deserves some definite plaudits for that one.

[RoyGBiv]

10. The writing is excellent ...

... and the acting and directing is at least as good.

Even with a well-written line, there are about a hundred different ways they could have screwed that up.

[TheWraith]

8. Star Trek aside, sci-fi has usually been much more progressive with gay characters.

In fact BSG had one of the very few openly bisexual characters on a major television show: Lieutenant Gaeta. (Although this was never fully established on screen, with since his affair with a Number Eight on New Caprica was left on the cutting room floor, and his liaisons with Lt. Hoshi being only in webisodes.)

There's a great hard sci-fi trilogy from the late '70s and early 80s by John Varley, which has lesbianism and polysexuality as major themes.

Edited to add: Arthur C. Clarke's 1972 novel Rendezvous with Rama featured not only bisexuality as casually accepted practice, but also polygamy as common practice too, including male/male/female triangles.

[Touchdown]

12. Somebody up thread said something about tokens.

A book few people have the patience to finish, and a mini-series where it's title even you can't remember, I believe qualifies as tokens.

In the realm of popular science fiction, I do see progressive ideals, but not so much with gays.

Star Wars? Only one love story, or two if you count the prequels... so you can have that. We'll see what they do with the upcoming TV series.

Buck Rogers 1979? Big haired bimbos abound and all have the hots for one man. When it matured, it became Baywatch.

The Stand- Stephen King. 25 main characters and not one is even curious. He has written gay characters since then, but few are as popular as this book.

Alien Series? Reyez? Never established... she's only butch, which doesn't mean anything.

Independence Day.... Hey We Got ONE! Harvey Fierstein.

Planet of the Apes. Too old of a film to make it worthy of debate?

Logan's Run? Sex is all over this one, but not for us.

Batman? Comics or film? I haven't seen 'em.

X-Men? A 40 year franchise allegory to diversity and discrimination. The only experience I have with them is the 4 films, so I'll have to just say I'm not aware of any.

Firefly? One little non-speaking role for a rent boy in one episode. Considering Whedon's Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (which I will give you), had this series continued, there might have been. But let's face it. Whedon loves his hot chicks who fight.

Up until Universe, none of the previous Stargates had any known gay characters.

Quantum Leap? Only two main characters, so that would be out. One episode, IIRC dealt with the subject. 1 out of 140 or so.

X-Files? Please! The two mains never even got in the sack!

Heroes? FINALLY! And Claire's still not sure about her new girlfriend.

Total Recall? Where?

Terminators? A go go boy in the 3rd installment.

LOST? One! Only one, and he was run over by a Vanagon.

V? Too early to tell, but the 80s mini series had none.... but did have big hair like BR.

Sorry, for true lovers of the genre, who know who Piers Anthony, Roger Zelazny or Orson Scott Card is, and who eat up all the novels and book series, finding sexual diversity may be old hat, but among the masses? I'm not buying it.

EDIT: I completely forgot Back To The Future... Not a chance.

[Occulus]

13. "Doctor Who" spinoff Torchwood had Ianto and Jack

and that relationship was repeatedly referred to and sometimes acted upon. Gwen even caught them "in the act" in Jack's office once... Kissing.

Naked.

(Actually, they were doing a whole whole lot more than just kissing. Had she entered about fifteen seconds later, they wouldn't have been able to show it on TV. I'm surprised they got away with what they did, but it is Who-related, after all. They seem to be able to do whatever they like.)

In fact, that reminds me: in the second-to-last-scene of Doctor Who's "The End of Time", the Doctor introduces a rather morose and drifting Jack to someone Jack might be attracted to (or, knowing the Doctor, will in the future care deeply for) by slipping him a note saying "his name is Alonso". After the Doctor does this, a cute guy (Alonso, obviously) slides onto the barstool next to Jack. What follows is fairly predictable.

Note: although Jack is known to have a daughter and a grandson, he's never actually shown hitting on women to any great extent (though the character describes himself at least once as 'omnisexual'). It's always been men that have caught the character's eye more.

So that's one series, but there is great doubt that it can return after what the writers did to it in "Children of Earth". We'll have to wait and see, I guess.

Edit: According to this blurb (nice fan art of Jack, by the way) as well as this article, it seems Torchwood will indeed be back for a full season and not a miniseries as was the case last year. I liked this show; I'm glad to see it coming back.

[Touchdown]

14. Brit pop culture is much more mature than American ones.

...Which is why I stuck with the big money maker American genre. I guess I should have specified that.

And... I have heard nothing but good things about Torchwood. I'll have to catch them.

I also forgot Avatar. So new I forgot about it. After all, nobody talks about that little film.

[Occulus]

15. Watch Torchwood's "Children of Earth" LAST.

Make it the very very last thing you watch related to Torchwood. Seriously. It'll spoil the rest of the series if you watch it anywhere else but dead last. I say this because "Children" is the most recent thing to have aired. I think you can find places online to watch all Torchwood episodes, including "Children of Earth", by Googling "watch TV online" and going to sites other than Hulu (by the way, I know you can do the same for SyFy's "Warehouse 13", another show well worth watching).

In fact, I'd recommend watching Torchwood episodes in exact order, because the show does try to maintain some continuity. There are three episodes I can think of that you could watch to get a taste of the show. The pilot, obviously, as well as the episodes titled "Meat" and "Adrift" (I can't talk about "Meat" without spoiling, but "Adrift" is actually pretty sad and a little shocking).

Oh, and if you haven't seen "Doctor Who"'s episode titled "Blink", please do yourself a favor and watch it as soon as you can; the episode won a Hugo Award in the "Short Form" category and it's very, very well-written and well-acted. I use that episode to introduce people to the series, actually. It's one of the creepiest "Doctor" episodes ever aired.

[TheWraith]

18. That's mostly very old stuff you're referencing there.

Buck Rogers? Stuff produced for TV is always going to lag behind the rest of the genre. But even today sci-fi programs have more gay characters than regular "mainstream" shows.

Also, a few other notes.

"A book few people have the patience to finish, and a mini-series where it's title even you can't remember, I believe qualifies as tokens."

If you haven't finished Rendezvous with Rama, then you've missed the best part of a good book.

Also, referring to a trilogy by John Varley doesn't mean a "miniseries." It's a trilogy of novels: Titan, Wizard, and Demon.

And on Firefly, Inara was self-admittedly bisexual, both professionally and privately.

[Touchdown]

19. You are missing the point.

Lagging behind literature isn't the point of my criticism of popular sci fi in film and television. The fact that since Star Trek has held itself up as the epitome of diversity, open mindedness and inclusiveness, it's influence on other shows/films as obvious makes the omission of gay characters all the more hypocritical. Every new offer is trying to out Star Trek Star Trek. ST, and SF by extension loves to brag about it's inclusiveness, but in this arena it has a history of having too many offerings which are nothing more than whacking material for horny teenage straight boys, especially those who are inept in the social graces, and they don't want their their barely dressed bimbos with ray guns sharing the screen with any gay people. Go to some of the fan sites' message boards and see the outrage and exasperation at the idea that gay people are invading their exclusive genre of entertainment. Gateworld's largest thread is about the gay character in Universe, and it's not pretty.

This is why there's been resistance. That and the standard Hollywood excuses. One otherwise open minded Trekker said openly in a forum that homosexuality has been "cured" by the 23rd Century, and that's why there's no gays on Star Trek.

[Touchdown]

23. Another reply... bugging you again. Very old????

X-Files, ID4, T3, X-Men, Batman, All Stargates, Firefly, Alien 3,4, AVP. All 90s and 2000s.

Terminator just had it's 4th film last summer, and a TV show was just cancelled last spring.
LOST, Heroes and V are either new, still going or in a final season.
Batman had it's umpteenth version two summers ago.

That's the most of what I said. Unless you really love QL, POTA, and BR more, and count them 3 times... and even Quantum Leap ended in the early 90s.

And for the record, Nolan's novel Logan's Run did have an orgy scene where men were screwing men and women were doing the hot stuff together too. It was written in the late 60s.

[T Wolf]

21. FWIW - Card is a reich-wing asshole and his "writing" is crap. Sci-fi fans may know who he is

but we do ourselves proud by ignoring him.

[Touchdown]

22. All true. But Sci fi fans do know him enough to stay away.

The people who know who Marty McFly is is a much larger group.

[glowing]

16. I just caught up with the whole Caprica series... missed the pilot and the first episode.

But it was on re-run this week.. so I tivo'd it.. And it really is worth the hype. I love how some things seem old and other things seem advanced. Loved the brother who is all hard core violent ass thug being married to a guy and it is normal.. thought that was super cool. AND love their "fraking" use... You know what they mean when the mom says she needs a good "frak".. Once the olds die away and I'm the olds, I hope its like that in reality.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. As above, so below

I love this show, and agree with everything you said, twice.

[sui generis]

25. Yes - and because it's written and filmed in Vancouver

it brings a slightly more enlightened view of the world to our puritan backwater born again wannabe fundie viewing public here in America.

Family Matters pixiliated Al Bundie's buttcrack, for heavens sake, apparently to keep straight men from going into a sexual frenzy and butt raping the nearest dumpy old middle aged man.

Jeepers, what a world, what a world.

[T Wolf]

20. IMO - a great show. Very clever the way they have re-created the back-story for BSG. As to this

issue - they have done it as a "no-big-deal" commonplace part of life on Caprica which is to be commended.

For those criticizing sci-fi for not being as "progressive" as it might be - it is a far-cry more advanced than any other non-issue genre. Hell, even in Star Trek (going back to the original), they were still pretty damn sexist. The race thing, they dealt with. Gender bias, not hardly at all.

This series has the potential to say a lot about any society. Let's hope they keep doing it.

Besides, it is a frakin' blast.

[sui generis]

24. Polly Walker -

guess who played Attia of the Julias on the series "Rome" . . . .

She seems to get to play some interesting scheming complicated characters.