1996 saw an "explosion" of lesbians on TV compared to previous years: we were introduced to lesbian twenty-something Rhonda Roth on the new (and short-lived) series Relativity, Paul's sister came out on Mad About You, Roseanne's mom came out on Roseanne, lesbian Officer Abby Sullivan joined NYPD Blue--and Dr. Maggie Doyle became the first lesbian to join the staff of the hit NBC series ER, then in its third season.

Doyle (played by Jorja Fox, currently on CSI) is a new intern in the ER, a vegetarian, street-smart daughter of a cop with a red BMW and no-bullshit attitude. Over the next three seasons, her extreme self-confidence and willingness to challenge authority occasionally get her into trouble at work, but her passion and willingness to help others wins her friends, too. In particular, Doyle and fellow resident John Carter develop a friendly and mutually supportive working relationship, and she also befriends (heterosexual) HIV+ nurse Jeanie Boulet.

Doyle's passion, activism, and willingness to work around the system are established early on. In the first part of the third season, Doyle alerts law enforcement to a pregnant woman who tried to drink her baby to death, and when chastised by Dr. Weaver for doing so, retorts "How about this? If I get to testify against the bitch, I'll do it on my own time."

In another episode, Doyle secretly uses the office pool to buy a bus ticket for an abused woman trying to escape from her husband. She also publicly supports Jeanie's decision to come out as HIV+ to the rest of the hospital staff, and when Jeanie is fired by the hospital in the fourth season, Doyle puts her in touch with a Gay/Lesbian Defense Fund lawyer and urges her to sue the hospital for discrimination.

In true ER fashion, Doyle's sexuality is concealed for the first several episodes, then finally revealed halfway through the season in the February 6, 1997 episode "Whose Appy Now?" when Carter asks her out. She invites him to the shooting range with her instead, and while they're in target practice, she spies her ex-girlfriend Amy (a cop) and mentions to Carter that they just broke up three months ago and that Amy is "jealous as hell."

That is the extent of the conversation about Doyle's sexuality, and this is actually the only time we ever see a girlfriend or ex-girlfriend of Doyle's.

On the surface, Doyle appears to be just one of many lesbian characters on TV without a life, the stereotypical television lesbian-in-name-only that was common on network television up until the last few years: despite remaining on the series for three years, we never see Doyle with a girlfriend, or even hear her talk about one after the target practice scene with Carter.

There are only two other times, in fact, when Doyle's lesbianism is even mentioned--in the beginning of the fourth season when Carter asks Doyle if she's showing favoritism towards the new female intern, to which Doyle just laughs, and then in the fifth season when Doyle comments "guess he thought anything goes with the gay chick" in reference to the sexual harassment she was subjected to by a male doctor, whom she later filed charges against. When asked by another doctor if she thought filing these charges would hurt her career, Doyle just shrugs it off with "self-respect is a bitch."

There were a few other cryptic (and humorous) references to her lesbianism over her three-season run, which established Doyle's quirky personality, such as in this exchange between a group of doctors and nurses in the third season:

Chuney: Malibu Barbie was my favorite, too.
Mark: I was always partial to Ken.
Louise: Ken?
Mark: You don't like Ken?
Louise: Too pretty.
Doyle: I'm with you, Louise. Ken's nothing but trouble.

And another one later in the third season, when Carter tries one more time to ask Doyle out:

Carter : You know, you're great.
Doyle : So are you.
Carter : Seriously...you're great...funny...beautiful, too. I don't suppose you would --
Doyle : Not a chance.
Carter : Cheers.

And finally, in a scene at the end of the third season, Doyle quips to a deranged patient on a biblical rant "No meat, no men--I'm your woman!" as she arrives to help him.

No love life and only three references to her sexuality in three years could render Doyle just more lesbian road kill on the television highway except for one thing: lack of a love life aside, Doyle is one of the most un-stereotypical lesbian characters in TV history.

A woman who isn't interested in sleeping with men, helps another woman escape from her abusive relationship with a man, stands up to the male senior doctor who is harassing her and encourages another doctor to do the same, and encourages her HIV+ colleague to sue when she's discriminated against. A smart, confident feminist vegetarian lesbian who isn't afraid to stand up for herself and others, an educated and accomplished human-rights activist who has a gun collection, a street-smart daughter of a cop who can be alternately tough and compassionate.

In short, Maggie Doyle is institutionalized sexism's worst nightmare.

And unlike many television lesbians who are clearly positioned as "feminine" in order to offset the potential threat of their lesbianism, you never see Doyle in makeup and heels, and the few times she does wear something other than hospital scrubs she is usually in something gender-neutral like jeans and a t-shirt (although this is typical of all of the female characters on ER, it is notable that Doyle isn't treated any differently from the heterosexual women in this regard).

This kind of rich, complicated, and anti-patriarchal character is not standard fare on television, and not surprisingly, there have been few such lesbian characters on network television before or since.

Lesbianism on television is almost always divorced from feminism or from activism of any kind in order to make it as palatable as possible to the general public, since a feminist lesbian is the embodiment of everything American patriarchal culture finds threatening. Therefore, to create such a character on television is extremely risky; to make her a likeable character without compromising her feminist characteristics is a huge challenge.

Because this is so risky, lesbianism on network television is usually presented as just an issue of sexuality, in which television writers labor to reinforce the idea that lesbians are "just like the rest of us" except that they sleep with other women. This applies to almost every lesbian character on television in the last twenty years, but specific examples include the lesbian couple on Friends, Ellen's characters in both of her sitcoms, Rhonda on Relativity and Debbie Buchman on Mad About You, and almost every lesbian in a TV movie including The Truth About Jane and What Makes a Family.

And while this "just like everyone else" descriptor does accurately describe the way many lesbians see themselves in real life, it doesn't necessarily apply to all (or even most) lesbians.

Paradoxically, the persistent use of the "lesbians are just like us" messaging on TV has helped pave the way for more lesbian characters on TV, but it is also slowly eroding the connection between feminism and lesbianism. This of course is exactly the result television networks are hoping for, and the very reason they have propagated it; lesbianism without feminism is the ultimate male fantasy--and serving up male fantasy is what drives television ratings.

And while it may be that for many lesbians, their sexuality is not in fact related to feminism, I'm pretty sure we don't want the television networks making that decision for us.

In this environment, Dr. Maggie Doyle is not only an anomaly on television, but potentially revolutionary. Unfortunately, this revolutionary potential is probably one of the reasons her character was never really fully developed on ER. Doyle was never a primary cast member, but over time she was relegated more and more to the periphery of the storyline, until she finally just didn't come back in the sixth season.

To make her a full cast member would have required devoting more screen time to her personal life and to the lesbian feminist issues she cares about, and while the writers at ER have pushed the envelope in terms of lesbian representation more than once, they are still products of their ratings-ruled environment in which lesbian feminists don't generate huge audience response. And if there's anything more threatening than a lesbian feminist on TV, it's a lesbian feminist in a happy relationship.

There have been other complex, realistic and even feminist lesbian characters on network television (including the current lesbian characters on ER and Buffy), and unlike Doyle, they are actually allowed to have on-screen relationships. But none have embodied quite the same activist spirit as Doyle, the same desire to take on the system; as long as American culture retains its sexist and homophobic roots, this may remain true for awhile to come.

Note: episode details and photos provided by JorjaFox.net; the site also lists TNT's schedule of ER repeats if you want to catch Doyle in action