What was on TV? Thurs, Feb 10, 2005

20 years ago, the Iraqi election that was supposed to solve everything needed a recount. Meanwhile, bodies were piling up with no end in sight. Let's see what was on TV!

8:00 The OC on Fox

2x12 "The Lonely Hearts Club"

Zach continues to be uninteresting. This Sandy and Kristen cheating subplot is tiresome. They're really dragging their feet on the Alex and Marissa stuff (just kiss already! It's sweeps!) But we got a comic book bitch meeting and a standoff over pool that was definitely inspired by a bunch of fancy movies. So at least there's that.

10:00 ER on NBC

11x14 "Just as I Am" (record Without a Trace on CBS)

Yesterday, I talked about all the lesbians on TV this February. But I missed one: Kerry Weaver.

Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) is a quietly radical character: a disabled lesbian who appeared on one of TV's hottest dramas for a whole decade. From the very beginning, was presented as an incredibly competent woman who happened to use a cane. She went through an entire coming-out arc, she had multiple love interests. She was admired by her colleagues, and Laura Innes got the "and" credit once held by Eriq La Salle for much of the show's run.

In this episode, Kerry meets her birth mother (Frances Fisher, replacing Sissy Spacek). The adoption angle allows the show to speed-run a coming-out-to-the-parents arc. It's very clunky, everyone is way too articulate and we get lot of speeches. Innes finds the truth in it, but it's not great. But that's just the scenes with Fisher. What makes the episode is the way it shows how this monumental episode affects her professional life. Kerry is the ultimate boss. And incredible doctor and manager who's able to see the whole picture when others can only see two feet in front of them. We see the way that this roller-coaster experience makes her worse at her job, too harsh and too scattered. But Kerry is still the boss, and never more so than when she returns to work after she comes out to her Evangelical birth mother. In this episode, she handles several complex cases (including a woman with dementia and a pair of demerol addicts), gives unheralded intern Sara Gilbert an opportunity to shine, and subtly forces Dr. Pratt to pull his head out of his ass. And all that is possible because she owned her queerness wasn't easy. It made her a better person and doctor.

So many of the queer stories on TV at this time aim for tragedy, or titillation, or controversy. Clunky as latter-day ER can be, it's incrediby refreshing to see an episode focused on a lesbian's professional and emotional life, and on how her queerness enriches her professional and emotional life. Also, this episode is the very first time we learn why she uses the cane! It wasn't part of a tragic backstory or anything! When we talk about queer and disabled representation on TV, Kerry Weaver isn't part of the conversation. That should change.

Late Night

This week, the news broke that a makeup artist Kylie Bell was suing Snoop Dogg and ABC/Disney, claiming that he and his entourage sexually assaulted her while he was guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2003. This affair is forgotten today, but boy was it messy. She was being paid hush money but people claimed it was "bridge loans." Snoop counter-sued for extortion, and the settled out of court with representatives of Snoop Dogg claimed she was paid no money, but I suspect another shady "bridge loan" situation. Snoop contracted the woman personally, but ABC was still worried about liability, especially given fratty atmosphere of Jimmy Kimmel Live! (Audiences were serviced with alcohol in the first-ever show).

This story gets lost in the shuffle of Snoop Dogg's career (his Wikipedia page has a whole "legal issues" section with a dozen sub-headings). But it bears remembering. Kylie Bell worked on Now and Then, Austin Powers, GI Jane, and The Nutty Professor. She was capable of standard cosmetic work and special effects makeup. She won an Emmy for her work on Six Feet Under. That is the last credit on her IMDB page.

What Else Was On

Tonight's Special Sweeps Guest Stars: Jane Lynch on CSI. Chita Riever AND Edward Burns AND Jeff Goldblum on Will and Grace. And Elizabeth Pena maybe played a ringleader of a video game pirating ring on Without a Trace? I recorded that.

TiVo Status

The Masterpiece Theater miniseries He Knew He Was Right and The Lost Prince, the Frontline documentary House of Saud, and one episode of Without a Trace. 8 hours total.