It’s been two months since The L Word ended its first-season run on Showtime; The Ellen DeGeneres Show is on summer hiatus; Buffy has been off the air for over a year now; and even Will and Grace is in repeats.

That’s right, folks, it’s summertime: the land of reruns.

At least, that's what it used to be known as. But this summer there actually are several new options on TV for lesbian and bisexual viewers, with lesbian and bisexual characters on old standbys like Queer as Folk (who ever thought we’d call it that?) and All My Children, edgy new-ish series like Nip/Tuck and The Wire, and some quirky new reality series.

Here's a quick rundown of current and upcoming lesbian characters on TV this summer to get you up to speed:

In Sunday night’s fourth season finale of Queer as Folk, Melanie (Michelle Clunie) and Lindsay (Thea Gill) continued to confront the consequences of Lindsay’s one-time fling with Sam, the famous (male) artist. The finale was a cliffhanger for our two lesbian mommies, with Melanie going into labor and Lindsay—who has gotten tired of constantly apologizing for her extramarital heterosexuality—moving out.

But never fear; what with two children to raise (Gus and the newborn), it’s unlikely that Lindsay will be going far. Besides, there are only two lesbians in Pittsburgh, so we’ll probably see them reuniting next season.

You don’t, however, have to wait until 2005 to get more lesbian-motherhood drama. As reported in the June issue of Emmy Magazine, FX’s hit plastic surgery drama Nip/Tuck is about to begin its own maternal storyline for its lesbian character, anesthesiologist Liz Cruz (Roma Maffia). Last season, Liz had a brief relationship with a male-to-female transsexual woman after leaving her live-in girlfriend, but remains single so far this season.

Although she isn't a prominent character on the series, which began its second season last month, Liz has appeared in every episode and it’s clear that the show’s writers continue to position her as the plastic surgeons' moral compass.

The fact that Liz is a solid and interesting character is a wonderful thing, but could the producers have found something for her to do besides get pregnant? It just goes to show that even a show like Nip/Tuck, which prides itself on being one of television’s edgiest dramas, can all too easily fall back on the tired, clichéd lesbian-motherhood storyline.

Nip/Tuck’s producers might want to watch a few of the most recent episodes of Six Feet Under to get an idea of what makes a truly unique—and even edgy—lesbian storyline. In the first few episodes of this fourth season of the critically-acclaimed HBO drama revolving around the Fisher family’s funeral home, art student Claire Fisher (Lauren Ambrose) finds herself drawn to openly gay classmate Edie (Mena Suvari), whom a mutual friend describes as “hard-core," a "totally lesbian feminist."

In the fourth episode this season, the three girls have a conversation about cunnilingus and masturbation that has probably never been heard on television outside of Sex and the City. Granted, this is HBO, but the frank discussion is still welcome, especially in the context of a storyline about a girl who is coming to understand her own sexuality, a subject that is rarely explored with nuance. Although Claire hasn’t yet overtly expressed her attraction to Edie, the developing story has been promising, and given Six Feet Under’s skillful handling of gay relationships, we can hope that they will do an equally good job with Claire’s story.

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