Soaps to Watch

The other day I was lurking over at Afterellen's brother's site -Afterelton- and I was struck with one glaring difference between the two. Afterelton is covering the goings on of not one, not two, but three soap operas! And I'm not talking about threads in the Forums section. I'm talking right there on the main page with clips, recaps, and even live blogs (for the American one).

Why are they covering these soaps? 'Cause they have actual gay'bi characters. Openly gay/bi characters and not subtexty, wishfulment characters. Queer folks who touch, kiss, have simulated sex , all while involved in the various - and often nefarious - doings of their fictional worlds. While we here at AE are treated to article after wishful article about subtexty subtext on "Gossip Girls," the boys at Afterelton are covering the overt guy-on-guy romps of "Ollian" on "Verboten Liebe." While we get treated to an over-heated piece about the probable de-gaying on a "blink-or-you'll-miss-it" TV re-tread ("Knight Rider"), the boys are grabbing their hankies and working up a righteous snit over the death of one character and his grieving partner: Hollyoaks

I will not pretend to know why the boys give the daytime (nighttime) weepies their due and AE doesn't. I won't even venture a guess as to why we get re-caps of "Army Wives" but yet there has been zero coverage of "Verboten Liebe's" Countess Carla and her many women (the assisant, Hanna, Vanessa, Suzanne - have I forgotten one?); "Hospital Central's" Dr. Maca* and her women: Esther, Vero, that ex who keeps showing up; the cute "oil and water" couple on "Out Of The Blue (which I think has not been renewed, eliminating the eventual break-up storyline). Heck, even New Zealand has gone where Americans dare not tread with "Shortland Street" (and may I just say that Jay in a bikini -woof).

And I don't really know what on earth I stumbled across but judging for the multiple climaxes, I'm guessing that the youtube clip I just saw was from a Latin American show about women in prison.

So, what I want to know is: what soaps (day or night) with actual queer/lesbian/bi female characters are you  watching? What are the shows you think deserve some love on this site? Anybody else think that covering queer storylines is a useful pursuit, despite the genre of the show?

And what the heck is the name of that Latin American "women in prison" show?