It started out so promisingly: boy has crush on girl, boy is disappointed to discover girl is a lesbian, boy discovers girl makes a good friend anyway. That's where Monday night's episode of FOX's North Shore seemed to be headed, anyway--until it all went annoyingly, if predictably, wrong.

A primetime soap set in Hawaii, North Shore follows the lives and loves of the employees at a resort called The Grand Waimea. One of these employees is pro-surfer-wannabe Gabe (Corey Sevier), who lifeguards at the hotel to pay the bills while he practices his craft in his off-hours.

In this week's episode, "Ties That Bind," Gabe meets Charlie (Krista Kalmus), an attractive blond whom he is shocked to discover is a better surfer than he is; he's even more shocked to discover that she has a girlfriend named Erika (Makika Dominczky) when he opens to door to Charlie's van to leave her a gift and stumbles across them kissing. "What the hell are you doing?" she asks when he interrupts them. "What are you doing?" he stutters in surprise--to which Charlie replies indignantly, "My girlfriend," and shuts the van door.

Later, we see Gabe lamenting to Frankie (Jason Momoa) that "I found the perfect girl, and she's a lesbian." Frankie tells him that even if Gabe can't date her, he can still become friends with her, and Gabe reluctantly realizes that Frankie is right. He goes surfing with Charlie the next day, clearly enjoying her company but resigned to only being her friend--until Charlie suddenly asks him out at the end of the day. "Aren't you taken?" Gabe asks in surprise, and Charlie replies coyly, "not completely." Besides which, she tells him with a sexy smile, "Erika thought you were cute. Maybe the three of us should go out sometime."

Thus begins the storyline's descent into network TV's skewed version of lesbianism, as Gabe proceeds to date both women over the next two episodes--maximizing the titillation factor and demonstrating once more to men around the world (or the hundred or so that watch this show) that lesbians truly are just waiting to meet the right guy, and that "bisexual" truly does equal "promiscuous."

To be fair, the women never describe themselves as lesbians--that's just Gabe's assumption. And on the positive side, a scene like this on TV a few years ago would likely show Charlie to be embarassed at being caught kissing another woman, while in this case it is Gabe who is embarrassed. Charlie's casual and nonchalant attitude about her relationship with Erika is refreshing, as is Frankie's easy acceptance of it when Gabe turns to him for advice.

But the language the writers use gets them into trouble. Having Gabe describe Charlie as a "lesbian" and never having Charlie contradict that (by describing herself as bisexual or a similar word) leaves his assumption unchallenged. So to the viewer, she is a lesbian--the bisexual kind that is so pervasive in entertainment created by men, like Spike Lee's recent film She Hate Me or the infamous J. Lo bomb Gigli.

Charlie's description of her relationship with Erika also compounds the confusion. The word "girlfriend" is usually used to denote some kind of exclusive relationship; introducing Erika as her "girlfriend" and then later saying their relationship is not exclusive reinforces the already-too-pervasive belief that lesbian relationships aren't real relationships, or that they are merely sexual ones--i.e. friends with benefits.

In short, this is nothing more than the usual male fantasy depiction of lesbianism.

There is nothing terribly wrong with that in and of itself, especially on a fluffy show like North Shore which is mildly entertaining but hardly designed to be a bastion of moral leadership. But when added to the cacophony of similar storylines that currently dominate U.S. entertainment, and in the absence of actual lesbian characters and other (more accurate) depictions of lesbianism, storylines like this begin to substitute for real lesbian visibility and contribute to the erroneous impression many straight viewers have that lesbians are "all over" television. If there's an unofficial quota on the number of lesbian characters and storylines on TV at any given time, we don't want this pseudo-lesbian-suplot taking up a spot.

Besides, North Shore already used up their free "gratuitous lesbian kiss scene" in the pilot episode with a weak Dana Fairbanks-type storyline. If a revolving wheel of random lesbian kisses is the best the show's writers can come up with every week, it's no wonder their ratings are so bad.