Last year, AfterEllen.com's Malinda Lo told us all why we should be watching the acclaimed television show Friday Night Lights. In her blog post, she mentioned plenty of good reasons, and thanks to AE reader Ellen, we recently learned of yet another: last week a popular new (and, for now) minor character came out as a lesbian.

On the football-themed, small town high school drama, Devin (played by Stephanie Hunt) had been presented as a possible love interest for her dorky bandmate, Landry (Jesse Plemons).

Having just been blown off by the school hottie (whom he'd defended from a rapist), Landry took an interest in freshman Devin, the new bass player in his band, Crucifictorious. Devin flirted with Landry and even kissed him, but just before he could ask her out on a proper date, she broke some bad (for him) news:

Devin: Landry, I'm a lesbian.
Landry: (laughs) No, you're not.
Devin: I'm serious. I'm gay. I like girls, not boys. I feel like I need to tell you because you have the wrong idea about us.
Landry: That's important information and, that, I'm really glad to know because I could have sworn the other day that you kissed me back whenever I kissed you.
Devin: I didn't want to be rude, Landry, and I thought I had to make sure I would give it a try. I know now that I really am. So I really should thank you, I guess.
Landry: I'm gonna have to go and let this sink in because I, uh, don't know how to react to this right now.

Ellen told me that when Landry and Devin met up again later, Devin wanted to make sure he was okay with "the secret." Devin was worried that Landry might be upset and tell people in their small town, but he reassured her that she had no need to worry. Then they rocked out together.

This isn't the first time FNL has found a low-key way to introduce a lesbian character. In 2007, we learned that the town mayor is a lesbian, one who asked the football coach's wife to work on her re-election campaign while resting her hand on her partner's knee. Obviously, she was a maverick.

Devin's character is already popular with the critics. A Los Angeles Times blogger raved, "And the straight-to-the-point, musically gifted Devin is the toughest, coolest, smartest new character Friday Night Lights has introduced this season. If it was a mistake not to keep Jean around (she's now on Heroes), then making Devin a regular would instantly right it. The fact that she can play the blues is an added bonus."

Let's hope that Devin will buck recent tv trends by staying gay and not getting her pink slip suspended the moment she gets a girlfriend. … continue reading

Ah, summer: time for swimming, frolicking, eating ice cream, sitting in a dark room and crying because all the good television shows are on hiatus until fall.

Kidding, of course! Summer is a time of great optimism for television addicts. You can catch up on any shows you missed, because last fall's shows will be hitting DVD any day now. You can watch the Television Critics Association's summer press tour, hoping to catch a glimpse of any fall shows that will feature strong, confident, beautiful women in leading rolls. (And maybe if we're lucky, even some lesbian subtext!) You can even take a look at the Television Critics Association's Summer poll and set your TiVo (or order your Netflix queue) accordingly.

According to the Television Critics Association's summer poll, here are the best and worst of shows of 2008:

Best:

1) Lost
2) The Wire
3) 30 Rock
4) The Office
5) Friday Night Lights
6) House
7) Battlestar Galactica
8) Breaking Bad
9) John Adams
10) In Treatments

I definitely agree with the first seven. I haven't seen Breaking Bad or In Treatments. I can say, however, that even as a history nut, watching Laura Linney make out with Paul Giamatti in John Adams is downright yucky. … continue reading

Yesterday, the American Film Institute selected its 10 best films and TV shows of the year. Nobody gets to vote — there are no nominations, no names submitted for anyone's consideration. You might call the lists unilateral. You could also call them surprising.

Here are the top films, in no particular order (er, in alphabetical order):

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
Juno
Knocked Up
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
The Savages
There Will Be Blood

Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Savages:

Atonement didn't make the list because only American films were considered ('cause, uh, it's the American Film Institute). Other current favorites, like Sweeney Todd, just didn't make it. Well, there's no accounting for taste. But isn't it weird to see Knocked Up and Juno on the same list? And right next to each other like that? I guess unplanned pregnancy is the new black. … continue reading

We're more than a month into the Fall TV season — time enough to figure out which shows we don't want to miss and which ones we miss on purpose. Sarah and Lori have been giving their week-by-week reviews of what they're watching in She Made Me Watch This, but if you're like me, you get so caught up in how adorable they are that you totally forget what they're saying. And some readers can't watch the vlogs for various reasons. So here's a slightly different forum for weighing in with your opinions of this season's series — after I weigh in with mine, of course.

Let's start with what was probably the show most anticipated by AfterEllen.com readers: Bionic Woman.

My one-word review: meh. The eye candy factor only goes so far. I just don't care about these characters. Even Katee Sackhoff can't hold my attention for an hour in a boring show. TiVo-worthy? Nope. … continue reading

Responding to requests by readers Bex and FilmGrrl, Lori and I discuss Life (NBC), Pushing Daisies (ABC) and Dirty Sexy Money (ABC), plus Blood Ties, the third-season debut episode of Dante's Cove (here) and the new MTV drama series Kaya, debuting next week, about a teenage girl dealing with the unexpected pressures of fame when she becomes a big pop star. I also throw in a plea for you to watch Friday Night Lights (NBC).

This week’s “Best Lesbian Couple That Isn’t” designation is easily won by Serena and Blair from Gossip Girl (The CW), and Lori rolls out the new "She's Hot" bunny for Blake Lively. I can't say I disagree.

… continue reading

Watch it here now:

Just in time for the fall TV season, GLAAD has released its 12th annual Where We Are on TV report, and the answer is — brace yourselves — we're nowhere.

Or, to put it differently, lesbians and bisexual women do exist on network TV, but we're competing with Lucy Liu for screentime. (We already love you, Bonnie Somerville on Cashmere Mafia.)

Or we're a cartoon (hi, Julie Kavner as Patty Bouvier on The Simpsons) or a mayor with a pretty small audience (keep on keepin' on, Libby Villari on Friday Night Lights.) Otherwise, no, we don't really exist. In case you hadn't noticed. And even though there are way more gay men on TV (waaay!), they're mostly white, which makes them just as misrepresented. Sure, things are better on cable, but must we be ghettoized so relentlessly?

In short, GLAAD has pretty much justified every rant we've ever done here on AferEllen.com. Read the report (and behold their very clear, very sobering graphics) and weep! And then thank GLAAD for getting the word out, because maybe someday someone will listen.

Yesterday at NBC's upfront presentations in New York, the network announced that it would add four new scripted dramas and one comedy to its fall prime-time slate. In sad but not unexpected news for Sarah Paulson fans, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was not included in lineup, and the last six episodes will be air beginning May 24 on NBC. But perhaps the news that Sarah Shahi is part of one of NBC's newest shows, Life, will brighten your day. Here she is as Det. Dani Reese:

Life, which will air on Wednesdays at 10 p.m., is about Det. Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) who returns to work after spending several years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Shahi's character Dani Reese is described as "skeptical" and "demanding," aka typical female cop stuff (not that there's anything wrong with that!). The show also features Robin Weigert (Calamity Jane of Deadwood) as the "hard-hitting" Lt. Karen Davis. … continue reading

by Malinda Lo

Tonight at 8 p.m. on NBC, the last four episodes of Friday Night Lights begin airing, leading up to the season finale on April 11. I recently caught up with the most recent episodes by watching them online, and it reminded me of how much I love this series. Unfortunately, the rest of the viewing public doesn't seem to share my opinion. Ratings have been disappointing for NBC, averaging at just below 7 million viewers per episode. On the other hand, the show has a devoted fan following that is dedicated to urging NBC to renew the series for a second season (NBC will announce whether it's renewed sometime in May), and critics everywhere seem to practically drool over the show.

The perception among many viewers may be that Friday Night Lights is a show about high school football — but that couldn't be further from the truth. Sure, the show is based on the movie of the same name that is about football, and the main characters are all involved with a high school football team, but that's not what the show is about. It's like saying Lost is a show about people stranded on an island. Yeah, that's factually true, but it's about way more than that.

What is Friday Night Lights about? It's about a teenage boy caring for his ailing grandmother; it's about the complexities of race in a Southern town; it's about a girl falling in love for the first time; it's about children coming to terms with their parents' faults. My favorite part of the show is Connie Britton who plays Tami Taylor, high school guidance counselor as well as wife to the high school football coach. She's just brilliant: She's steely, smart, sexy and real. In one memorable scene, she confronts her daughter, Julie (the adorable Aimee Teegarden), about seeing Julie's boyfriend, quarterback Matt Saracen, buying condoms at the drug store. Her love, fear and urge to protect Julie is just heartbreaking, and in my opinion, is some of the finest acting I've seen on television lately.

For me, Friday Night Lights also evokes a lot of memories of my own high school experience. No, I wasn't a cheerleader and didn't love football, though I did make it to a few games. The show is set in the small town of Dillon, Texas, and the landscape of the show (it is all filmed on location outside of Austin) looks a lot like the place where I grew up. There are a lot of empty fields; people drive pickup trucks because they are only a generation removed from working on ranches; religion is part of life, but not necessarily all of it. It is a totally American feeling, and that is something that very few TV shows manage to capture.

The teens on the show are teens: They struggle with maturing into adults in an awkward, genuine way that I haven't seen on television since Freaks and Geeks. And the adults on the show are adults: They struggle with being good parents, with their careers, with their love lives, and they are completely believable. If that's not enough, the show has even included two lesbian characters in a way that was completely unexpected and yet very authentic.

The next four episodes may be the show's last, so if you haven't given the show a look before, I urge you to do so. If you can't watch it online (or don't enjoy watching TV on your computer), Bravo is airing repeat episodes of Friday Night Lights every Friday (one episode beginning at 7 p.m.) and Saturday (three back-to-back episodes beginning at 2 p.m.) through April 13. And if you find that you are as enamored of the show as I am, check out this comprehensive feature on the show at the Chicago Tribune.

Then come on back and tell me what you think of it.