My Top 10 Television Characters: Kayla, Who Has Mommy Issues

In My Top 10 Television Characters, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV characters nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that aren’t lesbian/ bisexual / or queer. Today, TV Team’s Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya shares hers.

I always like to start these lists with a disclaimer that basically on any given day it could look a little different. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, THAT IS ESPECIALLY TRUE FOR THIS LIST. I’m a person, and characters are “people,” and the annoying thing about people is that they contain contradictions, layers, etc. I get different things from different characters at different points of my life. Some of the characters who have been nearest and dearest to my heart for the longest didn’t even make this list! Because to force myself to stick to just 10, I really had to pick some sort of thematic throughline. I could have gone with the characters who I most identify with, in which case there would be a lot of horny weirdos like Elena Alvarez from One Day At A Time or Maya Ishii-Peters from Pen15 or Paris Geller from Gilmore Girls on this list. Instead, I went with a different theme which is, roughly, Mean Moms/Women Who Could Beat Me Up. So with that in mind, let’s delve into the inner workings of my mommy issues-riddled psyche!

10. Cordelia Chase, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel

Like Natalie, I appreciate a complex and satisfying character arc, and Cordelia Chase has one of my favorites, especially by the time Angel comes around. We see Cordelia go from the popular mean girl (hot!) on Buffy to a big-hearted hero on Angel. And when you look at the full breadth of her arc, all the pieces click into place perfectly. Cordelia doesn’t change overnight; rather, she evolves. And that evolution is extremely compelling. Also, she could absolutely shoot me with a crossbow.

9. Betty Draper, Mad Men

Okay, I could pick pretty much any of the women on Mad Men for this list, and a few of my colleagues already picked Peggy Olson who is indeed a brilliant character. But like I said, this list is an homage to mean moms and women who can kick my ass and Betty is pretty much the platonic ideal of the former. Although to merely call her a mean mom strips the character of her inherent complexity and subversiveness. She’s the prototypical 1960s white housewife, and she’s also a Fuck You to it. She doesn’t really like her kids. She is frustratingly aroused by her husband and also resentful of him. Her wants are paradoxical. And that is RELATABLE. As an aside: Have you read this essay? You should read this essay.

8. Bette Porter, The L Word

I co-sign everything Drew wrote about Bette and The L Word in her Top 10 character list. I’ve included a lot of endlessly frustrating characters on this list. Many who make the same mistakes over and over and over. Many who are seen as villains by some. Many who have spurts of self-betterment but also spurts of regression. All of whom have made me feel such a wide range of emotions that it would be impossible to shove them into any one box. Bette Porter angers and delights me in equal measure. I will say that I’m not totally on board with the way she’s characterized in Generation Q, but in the new series, some of her old habits resurface in a way I find believable.

7. Philippa Georgiou, Star Trek: Discovery

I love doppelganger/evil twin/etc. characters from television, and it took me a while to decide which flavor of twinned identities I’d choose for this slot. I could have gone with one of the Orphan Black clones (Alison is my favorite, for the record, although you probably could have guessed that from the title of this list) or with Katherine Petrova from The Vampire Diaries. (Yes, I keep cheating by giving shoutouts to other characters on this list!) But ultimately, I’ve decided to go with Philippa Georgiou, who in the prime universe of Star Trek: Discovery is a great leader and mentor figure to protagonist Michael Burnham and who in the mirror universe is a despotic, violent emperor and adoptive mother to the mirror universe version of Burnham. Let’s just say this one ticks a few boxes for me: doppelganger drama, mommy issues, and Michelle Yeoh throwing punches.

6. Skyler White, Breaking Bad

Only locals are still doing the “show villain vs. actual villain” meme on Twitter anymore, but anyone who calls Skyler White a villain of any kind is a COP in my book. The specific dudebro brand of Breaking Bad fans who hated Skyler White actually reiterate part of why I like this character: She represents something men fear. Walt strips her of her autonomy and makes decisions that put her directly in harm’s way, and she dares to push back, to reclaim her agency in a way that makes Walt feel controlled and belittled. Skyler is no doubt another one of those frustrating characters on this list. Her behaviors are often hypocritical. She’s selfish. She’s judgemental. But those are the kinds of flaws I’m drawn to in storytelling. There are indeed cogent critiques of the character that exist outside the scope of fans’ misogyny, but conversations about a character’s likability usually bore me frankly. I’m drawn to characters who I’m not even rooting for all the time.

5. Patty Hewes, Damages

Okay, okay, we are indeed getting into villain territory now. Yes, I resist labels like that, but there’s no denying the overwhelming ugliness of this ruthless manipulator. In addition to doppelgangers, another very specific TV dynamic I love dearly is a fucked-up relationship between a mentor and mentee (the mommy issues CANNOT BE CONTAINED). Think: Rachel and Quinn on Unreal and Octavia and Indra on The 100. And Patty Hewes and Ellen Parsons on Damages are the extreme version of this particular dynamic. It’s never fully clear if they want to destroy or fuck or become one another. They are perfect adversaries and conspirators, bringing out the utmost worst in one another but also shaping each other. They transcend relationship categories.

4. Victoria Grayson, Revenge

If I’m being honest, Victoria is the least dimensional character on this list, but I love a good soapy character. She manipulates, she murders, she mothers without a hint of warmth. And Victoria is far from flat. Her backstory and complicated relationships with various people in her life all contribute to her intimacy issues and ruthlessness. She’s another ideal “villain”—one who’s smart and diabolical but still human.

3. Luisa Alver, Jane The Virgin

Honestly, half a dozen characters from Jane The Virgin are some of my favorite TV characters of all time which is why, again, I really had to limit myself to at least a nebulous theme without risking a complete meltdown. My top three of this list are all queer as fuck, and that feels right. I watched Jane The Virgin zealously until its end, and Luisa immediately stood out to me as an example of a messy queer character (see also: Leila on The Bisexual) who invokes a whole mess of feelings in me. The show doesn’t always handle Luisa’s relationships and mental health well, but the telenovela conceit of her ongoing toxic relationship with Rose and also some of the more grounded parts of her arc like her struggle with sobriety were captivating parts of this very sprawling series for me. Luisa doesn’t technically fall under the Mean Moms/Women Who Could Beat Me Up umbrella (although I do think she could hire Rose to kill me), but I really do love a character who can harness both drama and comedy at the same time, and my top three here perfectly fit that billing, too.

2. Santana Lopez, Glee

Santana Lopez meant so much to me before I even had the words to articulate how much she meant to me. “Coming out” storylines are far from one-size-fits-all, and they only skim the surface of queer lived experience, but Santana’s was one that shot me through me like lightning. Sorry for this sentence I’m about to write: I identified as a Gleek way before I identified as a lesbian. And my understanding of myself is intricately tied up in this show and many of the others I watched before my twenties when I first started putting together some of the pieces of the puzzle that is my Self. While Santana Lopez isn’t necessarily the starting point of that, my memories of watching her navigate sexuality, desire, and creative expression on that show are absolutely formative for me.

1. Kalinda Sharma, The Good Wife

Archie Panjabi as Kalinda Sharma on the CBS drama THE GOOD WIFE on the CBS Television Network. Photo: Justin Stephens/CBS �¨�© 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc, All Rights Reserved.

I have been writing about Kalinda Sharma for over six years, and I doubt I’ll ever stop. She was the first queer South Asian character on television who I was ever exposed to, and she holds a very special place in my heart to say the least. It’s not even that I necessarily identify with the character: She’s way more confident and aggressive than I’ve ever been. But there are limits to framing representation within the context of relatability. Not all people of the same identities are truly the same—to state the obvious. The differences between myself and Kalinda draw me to her. There’s a wish fulfillment/fantasy element to my obsession with her. I like to imagine myself that bold, that in-control. Actually now that I think about it, all the women on this list have something that I want.

Honorable mommis mentions: Eve Polastri (Killing Eve), Cheryl Blossom (Riverdale), Theo Crain (The Haunting Of Hill House), Dana Scully (The X-Files), Annalise Keating (How To Get Away With Murder), Mellie Grant (Scandal), Celia Hodes (Weeds), Gabrielle Solis (Desperate Housewives), Laura Roslin (Battlestar Galactica), Petra Solano (Jane The Virgin), Adora Crellin (Sharp Objects), Callie Torres (Grey’s Anatomy), Piper Halliwell (Charmed), Sydney Bristow (Alias)

Where to stream gay TV:

89 Queer TV Shows to Stream on Netflix

32 Lesbian, Queer & Bisexual (LGBTQ+) TV Shows Streaming Free on Amazon Prime
62 TV Shows On Hulu with LGBTQ+ Characters

My Top Ten Television Shows: Casey Stepaniuk, Your Friendly Neighborhood Lesbrarian

In My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV shows nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that don’t have lesbian / bisexual / queer woman characters.

Today, your friendly neighborhood lesbrarian, Casey, is setting aside her books to share her feelings about teevee!

Like many others, I struggled at first to settle on what criteria I wanted to use to determine my top ten. Honestly there are shows in my honorable mentions are objectively better TV than some of the ones that made my list. Vida, for example, is such a visually gorgeous show with incredible acting and writing. But it’s one of those shows I deeply admired rather than one I was obsessed with and that was personally important to me. So that’s what I chose to focus on: shows that spoke to me deeply in some way, that I am / was passionate about and consumed by, and that when I thought about them, I felt the urge to revisit them all over again, no matter how many times I’ve already watched them.

10. Sex and the City

I love a good rom-com. So it’s not surprising I developed an early love for <Sex and the City, an ongoing rom-com TV series about four white New York women in the late 90s and early 00s. But the show is also an anti-rom-com. It is about women’s lives, with a focus on romantic and sexual relationships, sure. But it often resists the conventions of the genre by featuring themes like casual sex and failed relationships and focusing on an often unlikable anti-heroine. The show’s open discussions of women’s sexuality were very influential for me.

I first learnt about vibrators, threesomes, oral sex, and so many other sexy things from this show! Sex and the City gets a lot of flack, especially in retrospect. Certainly, the show has its problems, especially in terms of its representation of race and that cringey biphobic episode. But at least some of this flack comes from a place that forgets how, for its time, Sex and the City was radical to take the (sexual and otherwise) lives of single women in their 30s and their friendships with each other seriously. I’ll let Emily Nussbaum explain better than I ever could about how Sex and the City doesn’t deserve its current bad name.

9. Battlestar Galactica

The premise of Battlestar Galactica has always captured my imagination. I love a good enormously high stakes (i.e., potential end of humanity) science fiction novel. I should really seek this genre out in TV more often! Battlestar Galactica does it so well, and with a huge cast of very flawed characters. (Although I wish more of them were not men). If you know anything about my taste in women you won’t be surprised to learn that from the first moment she appeared on screen, I was a huge fan of Katee Sackoff’s Starbuck / Kara Thrace. One of my top five TV crushes for sure. It is disappointing the character isn’t queer, but it is also kind of great to have representation for toppy, tomboy straight women? I was also enthralled with President Roslyn’s character and how she navigated her new power and being a woman leader.

8. One Day at a Time

One Day at a Time is comfort food for my soul. Like The Babysitters Club (see below), it tackles with authenticity and heart a lot of issues that would otherwise veer into tacky “Very Special Episodes.” I find the Alvarez family’s closeness, bickering, and unconditional love for each other irresistible. The representation of Penelope / Lupita’s anxiety and depression was especially important to me, as was Elena’s most adorable baby dyke coming out story and subsequent (or should I say sydsequent) romance with nonbinary Syd. And who could not love abuelita, played by legend Rita Moreno? Sometimes I think about her angrily “slamming” the curtains separating her bedroom from the living room while saying “e-slam” and I laugh out loud.

7. The L Word

Do I think this show is actually good, for the most part? No. Do I deeply love it? Yes. Like many queer women in their mid to late 30s, my coming out coincided with the early seasons of The L Word. It was formative for my sexual identity in ways I don’t think I can even explain. Or I could just use one word: Shane. As unrealistic as The L Word is, in so many ways it was the piece of media that made me realize that life as a queer woman with a queer women’s community was actually possible. The dyke dating drama was entertaining, the fashion was impressive, trying to recognize Vancouver landmarks was fun, but my favorite parts about The L Word have always been the friendships. I just love when all the women are sitting around talking and drinking coffee at the Planet. Okay, and also the sex scenes, the best of which is no contest that one on top of the washing machine with Alice and Tasha.

6. Fleabag

I very much appreciate how Fleabag has understated queer content and a casually bisexual main character (that kiss with Kristin Scott Thomas’s character in season two!). But I almost don’t even care because I love it so much for other reasons. Fleabag has a combination of humor, darkness, and discomfort that I find indelible even as it makes me squirm. The first season is wrapped up in a refreshingly frank take on sex (with men), the second season more so with a sustained romantic and sexual connection with a (I will jump on the bandwagon and add hot) priest. But what really captures me are Fleabag’s complicated relationships with the close women in her life, those who have died and those who are still with her. There’s Boo, the BFF who haunts her. There’s Fleabag’s mother, whose death around which her family is still structured. And then there’s Claire, her sister. I feel very devoted to Claire, perhaps too much considering she is, uh, a fictional character. To me Fleabag and Claire’s relationship is the series’ love story: “The only person I’d run through an airport for is you.”

5. Broad City

I love shows with comedic elements, but comedy as a genre is not usually my thing. Broad City is the gigantic exception. I just find this show genuinely, gut-splittingly hilarious. It can be years since I’ve seen a particular episode, and if something reminds me of a funny scene, I will laugh in remembrance. My favorite aspect other than how it’s so damn funny is that the deep, romantic friendship between Abbi and Ilana is at the show’s heart.

I can appreciate media that represents women who compete with each other and feel like they have to bring each other down in a misogynist world (we do live in a patriarchy after all). But I would much rather watch something like Broad City that features two women who love and support each other. Also shout-out to Ilana’s low-key but always there bisexuality and the amazing queer turn for Abbi late in the series. My partner and I have a hard time choosing TV shows or movies that we are both into; whenever we can’t decide on something, we’re always like, oh, let’s just rewatch some Broad City. It is never a bad decision.

4. Killing Eve

I came to Killing Eve late, only discovering it in early 2020. Where had I been? Thank god for that cold in January that kept me on the couch for a couple days during which I marathoned seasons one and two. I watched the first episode, was immediately obsessed, and in love with Villanelle. Maybe I shouldn’t love Villanelle as much as I do. Hello, stereotype about bisexual women psychopath killers.

But Jodie Comer infuses the role with so much complexity, glee, and intelligence. Comer as Villanelle alone would be enough to earn my devotion, but Killing Eve also features outstanding performances by mother-fucking Sandra Oh and Fiona Shaw? This show is just full of complicated, un/likable, smart, vulnerable, fascinating women, both characters and actresses. I also love the queerness and feminism of Killing Eve which feels at the same time front and center and beautifully blended in. I would gladly be stabbed by either Eve or Villanelle. But preferably kissed.

3. Jane the Virgin

Like Sex and the City, Jane the Virgin is a show self-consciously investigating the romance genre. Jane the Virgin, however, buys into the genre’s promises more wholeheartedly, which I find fascinating and charming. While I love watching the ups and downs of Jane’s romantic life — I’ll out myself as #TeamRafael — what really kept me coming back to this show was the three generations of Villanueva women and their relationships with one another: Jane, her mom, and her abuela. I love those women so much, their complicated family bonds, their fierce love, and their growth together and individually over the show’s seasons. I was also thrilled at the direction that Petra’s character took; she went from a mostly one-dimensional villain to a fully fleshed out vulnerable bisexual woman! One last thing: Rogelio de la Vega is probably my favorite male character on TV of all time.

2. The Babysitter’s Club

Is it weird to know that a show that literally just came out is destined to go down as one of your all-time favorites? As a 90s bookish girl, I was a HUGE BSC fan. I was a Mallory who wanted to be Stacey who had a crush on Kristy. I was cautiously optimistic when the Netflix adaptation was announced, and was so pleasantly surprised about how much I adored it. It is so tender and wholesome, yet it doesn’t ignore the bad stuff that happens in tween girls’ lives. The updates to the show — namely increasing the representation of girls of color and including supporting LGBTQ characters — were so excellently done.

Literally every episode of season one made me cry (in a good way). Despite addressing a lot of “issues,” — parental abandonment, childhood diabetes, rights for trans kids — The Babysitters Club resisted didactic storytelling. It felt simultaneously made to be enjoyed by today’s tweens and self-referentially nostalgic to appeal to fans of the original books like me. I love this show so much that I wrote an article arguing that it is even better than the books, which is basically sacrilege for a book-lover lesbrarian like myself.

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

If this were a completely honest list, it would just be Buffy the Vampire Slayer listed ten times. I often have a hard time starting new shows, because when I feel like watching TV, Buffy is pretty much always what I want. I am never not somewhere in the middle of a Buffy rewatch. The show has comforted me in so many hard times in my life, calmed me in the throes of anxiety, helped me cry when I needed to, and made me laugh when I needed to remember what being happy was.
As a teenager the thing I loved most about Buffy was getting to watch a teen girl beat up guys (demonic or otherwise).

I still love that part, but now I also love its deep and complex characterization; its fun, snappy word-play infused dialogue; its focus on found family; the groundbreaking representation of Willow the lesbian witch; brutally honest, learning to be human Anya who deserved way better than the show gave her; Buffy negotiating how to use her power and be a woman leader; its heart-wrenching portrayal of depression in season 6, and its majestic use of the fantasy genre’s metaphor to address the experiences of young women. I can’t imagine any other show ever replacing Buffy as my favorite show of all time. Also, my unbelievably still ongoing crushes on Faith and Spike (I know, I clearly have a TV crush type) were and still are emblematic of my bisexuality.

Honorable mentions: Derry Girls, Vida, Lip Service, Queer as Folk

Where to stream gay TV:
89 Queer TV Shows to Stream on Netflix

32 Lesbian, Queer & Bisexual (LGBTQ+) TV Shows Streaming Free on Amazon Prime

62 TV Shows On Hulu with LGBTQ+ Characters

My Top 10 Television Characters: Carmen, Who Never Forgets the Women Who Deserved Better

In My Top 10 Television Characters, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV characters nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that aren’t lesbian/ bisexual / or queer. Today, Autostraddle’s Deputy Editor Carmen, shares her Top 10.

Much like when I ranked my Top 10 Television Shows for you, I once again struggled because I couldn’t decide on a fair metric. A lot of my favorite shows and favorite characters overlap (that’s probably not surprising), but still I wanted each list to be able to stand on its own. I toyed with the idea of making a list of my Top 10 Favorite Bossy Femmes, because once you look at my love for Bette Porter, Santana Lopez, Lafayette Reynolds from True Blood… well, it’s not hard to see the archetype trend in play.

What felt most true is that the best way I could measure how much I loved a character was to pick the ones that I kept on loving, even long after their shows stopped doing the same. The characters I felt a need to “show up for” and commit. The ones who kept going, who made a home week-after-week, with little care or recognition, even when they deserved so much more. And that leads us to this list. A vague and cobbled together matrix of: how much I loved these women; how badly they were sidelined by their show; and despite all that, the ways their story touched or impacted my own, carrying them with me in my pocket as I figure out my own way through life.

Is it a coincidence that this list of “women who deserved better” is comprised of women of color — and almost exclusively queer women of color? Given the intertwined histories of sexism, racism, and homophobia in this country, I think not.

10. Anissa Pierce and Grace Choi, Black Lightning

Ok so Anissa and Grace have just barely scraped their way onto this list based fully on their potential.They’ve had more obstacles thrown at them, self-sabatoged by their own writers’ room, than most — inconsistent screen time for Grace, and innumerable, illogical off-screen relationship developments for them both. Every time the actors seem to finally get their way off the ground, the writers’ saddle them even more baggage that no one asked for. Still, despite all of that, Chantal Thuy and Nafessa Williams have found such chemistry and joy together that Thunder Grace remains my favorite supercharged possibility.

There are these unexpected moments, maybe about once or twice a season, where Grace knows Anissa’s french fry order, or Anissa spits some corny lovesick lines in bed, when it is just… right. Somehow Chantal Thuy and Nafessa Williams have found a way to make their relationship feel as lived in and loved as any of Black Lightning’s heterosexual couples, despite getting less than a quarter of the screen time (and that’s being generous). They have IT. Whatever “it” is. Last weekend, a friend and I were texting our superhero movie rankings, as one does, and she said: “My actual blockbuster dream is for superhero teenage girlfriends who talk to each other about their emotions.” They aren’t teenagers, but I think that’s why I haven’t been able to shake Anissa and Grace from my mind lately. They really could be the dream.

9. Kat Edison, The Bold Type

I’m not going to waste my precious little time explaining once again why Kat Edison deserves so much more from The Bold Type. Natalie has already done so, impeccably, multiple times this summer. Instead I want to talk about what I’ve loved.

In between the down swings, Kat Edison has been effervescent. She’s filled with boundless energy and a willingness for self-exploration and improvement. She doesn’t shy away from tough conversations. She’s brave, always leading with her heart first, even when its at her detriment. She loves her community and more importantly, she fights for them. She’s a loyal friend. Kat reminds me to be my best. To never stop growing. What’s more, she’s provided the same lessons to the actress portraying her. Earlier this summer, Aisha Dee risked her career when she publicly spoke up against frankly the anti-Black treatment she has received behind-the-scenes of The Bold Type. She simply said, it was Kat would do. May we all do the same.

8. Nova Bordelon, Queen Sugar

In its first season, Queen Sugar set itself away from the pack when they wrote Rutina Wesley as a pansexual, Black, marijuana growing, social justice oriented, activist and writer. In doing so, they created one of the most intimately familiar portrayals of a queer Black woman that I’ve seen.

Nova Bordelon is the first time on television where I have seen a queer black women character that feels like the queer black women that I know and love in my life. She’s committed to community, not only through her activism — but in her spiritual work and everyday life. She performs healing sessions for her family and neighbors. When a hurricane hits the area, Nova won’t join her family in safety until she and her girlfriend Chantal make sure all the elderly in their neighborhood have food and boarded windows. She sells the marijuana she grows to the young men around her — and includes flyers for the next Black Lives Matter protest with each purchase, reminding them, “You would want someone to march for you”… She’s brave, she’s infinitely proud of her blackness, and she loves from her soul.

I know Nova, from her locks to her back tattoo and flowing dresses, to her hand crafted, larger than life earrings. Unlike some others on this list — with the notable exceptions of Annalise Keating and Olivia Pope, both ranked higher — Nova never hurt for screen time. She’s struggled with writers who never understood what made her so special to begin with, and then not letting her fly.

7. Tasha Williams, The L Word

I fell in love with Tasha first.

When I was, for the first real time, grappling with my queerness. When I was trying to figure out… well… what turned me on. Spiraling out late at night, watching The L Word clips on YouTube with my headphones clasped tight around my ears and my laptop tipped at a 45 degree angle so no one else could see (a lot of you were there, you know what I mean). It was Tasha. Her gravely voice, her husky laugh, those high cheekbones. The way she smiled from beneath her lashes and the strength of her back, always at attention. Her motorcycle and that low bun and the neat severity of her hair part.That time when she blushed and told Alice that she was attracted to “girly girls.” I was a goner.

If you can stretch your mind back, past where we are now, past a time where there are so many Black queer women on television in a single year that we need a spreadsheet to keep track of them, past when Lena Waithe’s Twenties just gave us our first Black butch lead of a series in history, past the repeal of DOMA and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, keep going back further — that’s where you will still find her, alone in a landscape that was pretty much on her own. Just Tasha and, to some extent, Kima from The Wire. Ok. Now imagine being 20, and Black, and first understanding you were gay, and looking for something anything that would tell you what that would mean. Then, and only then, you can begin to understand Tasha Williams.

Still, The L Word squandered her. There’s another version of Tasha where we learn about her internal conflicts over the Iraq War. Where she makes a decisions to leave the service, not in some cheap take on An Officer and a Gentleman where she gathers Alice up in her arms and kisses her breathless on a military base — but because she has a moral reckoning that makes her look at herself cold and hard in the mirror and ask the tough questions.  There’s another version of Tasha where we get to meet her Black friends from Long Beach for more than the occasional bike ride and poker night. Where she goes home for Sunday dinners with Big Mama. A story where she is, finally, her own person.

Sadly, we never got to see it.

6. Mona Vanderwaal, Pretty Little Liars

In the end, Pretty Little Liars became a show that we often try to forget. In its last years, it doubled down on transphobic storytelling decisions and storylines that excused the sexual grooming of teenagers by their grown ass men teachers. They buried quite a few gays, and in particular Black queer women at that. A plot that began as fantastical and full of heart-throbbing twists eventually became dizzying and nauseating, like riding a roller coaster one too many times. (Which, to be fair, it probably was.)

At the same time, when you pick through what’s been left in the wake of its wreckage, some things still shine like gems (or more adequately, shine like the glass in Emily Fields’ hair). Mona Vanderwaal was a teenage girl like few we’ve seen. A bullied nerd who turned the things that made her weakest into her strengths. A diva who masked insecurities with an impenetrable steel trap brain and hyperadrenalized reality — if you know, then you know — that bended the world to her very will. She sneered, she scoffed, she didn’t suffer fools gladly. But really, why should she? If she thought she was better than everyone else, that was only because she was so very clearly better than everyone else. And she would have been more than willing to save them, if only the other Liars would have ever listened to her.

5. Annalise Keating, How to Get Away with Murder

Annalise Keating is the stuff of legends. When describing talented actors, “unrivaled” is a word we probably use too often — but when the only name people even think to compare to yours is Meryl Streep, you know you’re a bad bitch. And Viola Davis is baaaad bitch (said respectfully, of course).

Annalise Keating is the first — and thus far, the only — queer Black woman character to lead her own network drama. In the role, Viola Davis made history, becoming the first — and thus far, the only — Black woman to win an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama. She was complicated and introspective and sometimes, destructive, but in the most delicious ways that you thought about and re-twisted in your mind long after the show closed for the night. Like I said, a legend.

At times How to Get Away with Murder fell victim to its own convoluted plots, hampering Davis’ performance (and likely, any future Emmys for the role).Annalise was also saddled with a cohort of students who never appreciated her, who often resorted to gaslighting her that she was the source of all of their problems. Even though all she ever did was put her career on the line to solve them.

While watching Annalise Keating grapple with, and eventual overcome, her internalized homophobia was a storyline taken with exquisite care that I delighted in — I would have loved to see Annalise find her way to peace a little bit sooner. If only so we could have reveled in it along with her.

4. Olivia Pope, Scandal

Much like Annalise Keating, Olivia Pope was the star of her own show. And like Viola Davis, in this role, Kerry Washington at last shattered a glass celling for Black actresses in Hollywood — this time, by becoming the first Black woman to lead a network drama in over three decades. What made that feat magic was that after Kerry did it, she was far from the only one. She brought so many with her to the table: Taraji P. Henson as Cookie Lyon, Nicole Beharie as Abbie Mills and of course, Viola Davis as Annalise Keating.

Olivia wasn’t just a lead, she was A Boss. She made click-clacking in designer heels and fast-talking an aspirational way of life. So what does it say that this generation-defining character became so closely tied to cleaning up white mess after white mess. Not even to mention that overgrown, over-privileged, whiny baby of a President that she couldn’t seem to quit loving.

Please don’t get me wrong, Olivia Pope was the hero of her own story. I would never disrespect Shonda Rhimes’ or Kerry Washington’s work by saying different. But I — the young Black woman sitting at home watching this powerful lightning rod of a woman become broken by mediocre white men over and over again, having nothing but heartbreak, fabulous knit sweaters, and bottles of wine to call the comfort of her own — I deserved better.

3. Santana Lopez, Glee

From me, the week that we lost Naya:

Santana was too bright, too once-in-a-lifetime, and Naya Rivera worked too hard at her career for far too long, taking bit commercials and one-off guest stars since she was a child, for this not to be her moment. It’s not behind the scenes drama to simply state that there are less opportunities for Black Latina girls in Hollywood. Those are the facts of structural racism. As Santana Lopez, Naya Rivera beat odds, and she changed any previously conceived scripts about whom people would care about in a mainstream teen show — they could care just as much about the Latina lesbian as they would about the white heterosexual leads…. She’s the star.

There really was nothing like Glee. And at its worst, very little was as actively harmful. But as Santana Lopez, Naya Rivera shined a light on the best of us. On set, she out-worked everyone around her. And that’s not me, that’s her own cast mates saying that!

Damn. She deserved the world.

2. Calliope Iphegenia Torres, Grey’s Anatomy

Clocking in at a full decade of time spent with us, Callie Torres is the longest running queer woman character in television history, played by an iconic actor who publicly came out as bisexual a mere months after Callie left our screens, only further solidifying the role as an foundational part of our culture and history. She was one of the first characters to actually say the words “bisexual” on television. When she married her ex-wife Arizona Robbins, over 10 million viewers tuned in. Given these bonafides (Calliope Iphegenia Torres, put some respect on her name!), it might surprise you to see her on this list.

Callie Torres deserved better than her ending from the mainstay series. She deserved better than a bitter, insensitive custody agreement that was so wholly out of her character. She deserved a proper goodbye and not a rushed, tear-filled hug with Arizona at her front door. And more than anything, my God, she deserved more than that “Perfect” effing Penny.

1. Poussey Washington, Orange is the New Black

Look at that smile. Look at that face.

It has been over four years. I’ll never shake my rage.

Poussey Washington Deserved Better Than To Be Their Martyr.

Honorable Mentions: Bette Porter (The L Word/Generation Q), Emma Hernandez (Vida), Eddie Martinez (Vida), Penelope and Elena Alvarez (One Day at a Time), Tyra Collette (Friday Night Lights), Khadijah James (Living Single), Regina Mills (Once Upon a Time), Blanca Evangelista (Pose), CJ Cregg (The West Wing), Tegan Price (How to Get Away with Murder), Moesha Mitchell (Moesha), and Joan Carol Clayton (Girlfriends)

Where to stream gay TV:

89 Queer TV Shows to Stream on Netflix

32 Lesbian, Queer & Bisexual (LGBTQ+) TV Shows Streaming Free on Amazon Prime
62 TV Shows On Hulu with LGBTQ+ Characters

My Top 10 Television Characters: Riese, Who Admires Your Confidence

In My Top 10 Television Characters, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV characters nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that aren’t lesbian / bisexual / or queer. Today, Autostraddle Intern Riese shares her favorite characters.

10. Silly / Idiotic Men, I Guess??? Also Muppets? These Things Seem Similar To Me Somehow

Image description: Six images in a collage. Michael Scott from The Office, Andy Dwyer from Parks and Recreation, Jason Stackhouse from True Blood, Kevin from Shameless, Jason from The Good Place and also Elmo, a red puppet with his mouth open.

As I was thinking through my picks for this project, I realized that a lot of the characters that came to mind — the kinds of characters I would enjoy seeing clips of in a YouTube compilation, for example — are… idiotic men? You know: men who’d probably fall into a manhole or die of scurvy without the smart and patient women in their lives. Underneath their confused exterior lies a heart of gold! For example: Andy Dwyer (Parks and Recreation), Kevin Ball (Shameless), Jason Stackhouse (True Blood), Gary (Veep), pretty much all of The Muppets. Also I sometimes… relate to Michael Scott? I want everyone to like me, I’m not very good at getting people to like me, and also… I am down to clown.

9. Shane McCutcheon, The L Word

Image Description: Shane, a hot lesbian in a muscle tee with a very 2007 haircut, is looking intently at somebody, probably a girl let’s be real. The L Word.

How can I not give a minute to the legendary scrawny smoky-eyed shaggy-haired stylist and lover to the stars who jumpstarted my internal journey towards lesbianism and this very website? Shane gets a bad rap, but while re-watching for To L and Back, I am resolute in my position that she doesn’t deserve it. She can be avoidant or a pushover, but generally speaking she’s upfront about who she is and what she wants. She’s been through a lot of trauma. She’s an incredibly loyal friend. She respects boundaries. I love all these things but most of all, believe it or not, I thought to myself often WOW this woman is hot! I’m impartial to Generation Q Shane, but the original will always have a special place in my heart and low-rise pants.

8. Buffy Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Image Description: Buffy Summers, a slayer of vampires, holds a stake. She’s inside a house that has weird Christmas lights and lamps and signs and stuff.

Faith: “I’m looking at you, and everything you have, and I don’t know, I’m jealous. Then there I am. Everybody’s looking to me, trusting me to lead them and I’ve never felt so alone in my entire life.”
Buffy: “Yeah?”
Faith: “And that’s you, every day. Isn’t it?”

7. Omar Little, The Wire

Image Description: Omar Little sits on a red bench in front of a red brick building, wearing all black. He looks pensive.

Constructing this list was difficult — do I include characters who meant a lot to me for specific personal reasons, or characters who I feel were objectively some of the best constructed in television history? I ended up going mostly with the former, but Omar stood out amongst my candidates for the latter. (The runner-up for my quality character slot: Ruth Fisher from Six Feet Under.) At the time, the idea of a hyper-masculine character involved in the universe of drug dealers in inner-city Baltimore being unapologetically and openly gay was virtually unheard of, and he emerged quickly as one of the show’s most specific and complicated characters. In a story often defined by impulsive, shocking or uncharacteristic choices, Omar disrupted the game and the narrative with a specific ethical code and a philosophical approach to his work. I mean…. “I got the gun, you got the briefcase” — that whole scene was PERFECT. (Also um, everything Natalie said)

6. Tami Taylor, Friday Night Lights

Image Description: Tami Taylor in a teal v-neck at what looks like a team celebration at a bar

I didn’t expect a show about football in small-town Texas to portray maybe the first fully drawn, authentic marriage I’d ever seen on television. Most relationships between men and women are painted with only the broadest of strokes, but Friday Night Lights colored everything in. Is Tammi Taylor a very hot Mommi? Yes. That cannot be denied. But she’s also so ambitious and funny and smart and so diplomatic. She stands her ground while making the right amount of room for yours. She balances a healthy skepticism of football’s centrality to her local culture with support of her husband and the boys he coached. Also, her eldest daughter is insufferable and yet she rises. Feminism!

5. Santana Lopez, Glee

Image Description: Santana on stage in a black dress belting Rumor Has It. The Troubletones (Brittany, Mercedes, random extras) are behind her, wearing black dresses.

I have kept the “5” spot open for hours know as I slowly slip from consciousness into being basically half-asleep. I kept Villanelle here for a while, Emmet Honeycutt spent some time in this area, Poussey, etc. I’m gonna go with our girl. You can read all about it here.

4. Olivia Pope, Scandal

(Photo by Richard Cartwright/ABC via Getty Images) (Image Description: Olivia Pope is wearing a hot white trenchcoat situation and walking past a guarded gate. Everybody else is going through the metal detector BUT NOT OLIVIA. She’s walking quickly with some kind of pass around her neck. She looks very hot and busy.)

Sometimes before business meetings we were nervous about, Alex and I would have a mid-afternoon cocktail while repeating a mantra to ourselves regarding the importance of channeling Olivia Pope. I’m chronically indecisive but Olivia Pope always knew exactly what to do, or knew at least how to give the impression she knew exactly what to do. Olivia Pope had a kind of confidence and power rarely granted to female protagonists but distributed gratuitously amongst the men of television. As Natalie writes so eloquently in her Top Ten, “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely… and Olivia Pope is no exception.”

3. Joe MacMillan, Halt and Catch Fire

Image: Tech entrepreneur Joe MacMillion sits at a desk in front of a large computer, in the 90s. He’s wearing a leather jacket and glasses. The walls are exposed brick, it’s the big loft office space.

Two weeks ago I had Cameron Howe on this list. One week ago it was Donna. And after I finished a recreational re-watch of the entire series, I surprised myself by landing on Joe. He’s charismatic, he’s nimble, he’s brilliant, he’s overbearing, he’s impulsive. Of all the central characters in this universe, he’s got the furthest to climb into what his peers would call “integrity,” but he sure does get there. But I’m also not sure that it was ever lacking, for me. Ultimately despite the slick exterior, he’s relentlessly loyal to the vision above all else. Certainly above himself. It’s not really about the money, although that’s part of it. He wants to live on the cutting edge, he wants to be in the room where it happens and he is uniquely capable of identifying and fostering talent and pushing it in that direction. I think he and Cameron keep coming back to each other because they both love to think really hard forever and they’re both so bright. Everything he does is in service of “the thing that gets you to the thing.” In some ways I think his bisexuality — which he generally had to obscure to succeed at that time — is often what keeps him a little more humble than the typical handsome white cis male smooth talker. Any queer person can relate to that, how it puts you just far enough outside of things to see what people on the inside can’t touch. His scenes with Haley in the final season make me wish I didn’t hate the word “tender.”

2. Ilana Wexler, Broad City

Image Description: Ilana is wearing a hoodie that’s actually a dog hoodie, and also she has little pigtails. She’s at work and is mouthing off to her boss.

I think a theme of this list is that I’m drawn to confidence — overconfidence, even, especially when it veers into the absurd. llana is so fucking hungry and horny and hilarious. She has appetites and believes strongly in her right to satiate them. She’s loud and in love with her best friend and starving for adventure above anything resembling pragmatism. She wears crop-tops and flannels and boy’s underpants and dog hoodies, maintains a full bush, smokes copious amounts of weed, falls hard for every executive-class woman in a power suit, yells at strangers about the patriarchy, is pretty sure everyone else is queer too and has the closest thing to a bisexual bob a curly-haired Ashkenazi Jew could ever hope for.

1. Angela Chase, My So-Called Life

Image Description: Angela Chase, a teenager with red hair in the mid-90s, stares at the camera in a classroom. It’s blurry behind her but you can still recognize ricky and brian’s backs.

I can’t talk about myself about my life about being 13 without talking about when Angela Chase was 15 and it was 1994 and all of our parents had protested actual wars or sometimes even fought in them and we were just kinda-pretty white girls with baby-doll dresses and flannels that swallowed our bones and pretty decent lives and epic endless wells of longing. Just one long longing. I mean I dyed my hair like her. Everything else I needed to be Angela Chase I already had. The crush on a mysterious idiot, the parents fraying at the seams, the relentless over-analysis, the intoxicated/intoxicating best friend. “It’s such a lie that you should do what’s in your heart. If we all did what was in our hearts, the world would grind to a halt.” MY QUEEN

Strongly Considered: Devon (I Love Dick), Villanelle (Killing Eve), Sam Fox (Better Things), Emmett Honeycutt (Queer as Folk), Freckle (The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo), Ruth Fisher (Six Feet Under), Shelli Pfefferman (Transparent), CJ Cregg (The West Wing), Brian Kinney (Queer as Folk), Poussey Washington (Orange is the New Black), Cindy (Orange is the New Black), Tig (One Mississippi), Kermit the Frog (The Muppet Show), Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds), James (The L Word), Leila (The Bisexual), Eric (True Blood)

My Top 10 Television Shows: Bailey, Who’s Really Gay and a Bit British

In My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV shows nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that don’t have lesbian / bisexual / queer woman characters. Today, Bailey shares their feelings!

Who’d have thought this would be the most difficult thing for me to write for Autostraddle? When I started the list I felt so sure but every time I went back to it shows danced around each other fighting for spots 2-10. I was naive to think this list wouldn’t define me but after a tally (you read that right) the results came in. Really gay and quite British. Fuck sake.

10. Vis a Vis

Dramatic, violent and silly, Vis a Vis was a rough ride for Macarena who enters prison a soft and naïve middle-class straight woman. She gets off on the wrong foot with prison tough girl, Zulema. Saray is Zulema’s loyal friend and side kick. Rizo is Saray’s ex-girlfriend and Macarena is the woman Rizo is now about to start courting. It’s a hot mess chock-full of wonderful acting and chemistry that feels like Bad Girls crashed right into Orange Is the New Black.

9. Sugar Rush

Way ahead of it’s time back in 2005, Sugar Rush was set in gloomy-yet-sunny unofficial gay capital Brighton. We follow closeted teenage Kim, who’s sporting a massive lesbian crush on her new best friend Sugar. Pre-The L Word and pre-gay Bailey, I couldn’t ever put my finger on why I loved this show so much (jk jk) but I always appreciated Channel Four for bringing me adolescent drama and punchy scriptwriting.

8. Skins

Seasons three and four (lets ignore Fire) really hit a gay nerve for me. Every week, I’d invite a pal over to my university dorm room to watch the latest instalment of Cook, Effy, Pandora, Thomas, JJ, Katie and fun-sponge Freddie. I was the kid that ran naomily.com, wrote fanfiction and shared icons for people to use on their Livejournals. I’ll never forget the Naomi and Emily fandom; green shoes and buttons, a piggy t-shirt and a real-life Skins party in Bristol’s old Fire Station – it was a whole thing.

7. Being Erica

Erica is 30 when she’s assigned a time-traveling therapist. For every regret or resentment she has, she gets to go back in time and do it differently. What I love about this show, is it covered so many themes throughout four seasons by applying them to Erica’s growth. She learns to set boundaries, speak up for herself, ask for what she wants and take risks. There’s also that one gay episode called “Everything She Wants,” starring Lost Girls’ Anna Silk.

6. Scandal

Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope might have spent almost seven seasons deciding between the president and a U.S. Navy / NSA hunk but what kept me watching were the power suits and “It’s Handled” moments. I never quite decided if OLITZ was OTP, but I for sure know everyone in that damn show was terrible in one way or another. So many secrets and lies! No one was safe.

5. Misfits

This comedy about five characters doing community service, suddenly struck with their own individual superpowers, was a hit from the beginning. However, when I reflect on Misfits, it was really the relationship that evolved between Alisha and Simon I remember so fondly. You would never have thought they would so much as look each other in the eyes deeply, even in a situation such as the paradox written into season three.

4. The Handmaid’s Tale

Samira Wiley’s Moira and Alexis Bledel’s Emily honestly outshine the white woman feminist trying to find her little bubba Hannah in the dystopian society storyline. The Handmaid’s Tale is dark and features so many worrying parallels to today – Atwood herself has said everything that happens in The Handmaid’s Tale has already happened in one way or another already.

3. Sense8

The relationship between Amanita and Nomi was one of the most wholesome; actual relationship goals back in 2015. I found things to love about every character in this show; Sun’s strength for example, Lito’s humour. Sense8 was groundbreaking not only in the ways it was filmed across different countries, but because it was the first TV show I had seen where trans writers wrote a trans role for a trans actress.

2. Euphoria

Every character at this high school is toxic AF and the cast does a great job at portraying that. Addiction, sex, body positivity and grief get hit in the head pretty hard with a nail in Euphoria’s first season and I can’t wait to see what season two brings. Zendaya’s depiction of Rue, along with her best friend/love interest Jules, played by Hunter Schafer, were raw – reminding me so much of the British shows I grew up with (Sugar Rush, Skins, Misfits) and that’s in the beauty of why I love it.

1. E.R.

E.R. was a wild ride. No show has ever truly matched up to it. Abby’s struggle with alcoholism and Sam’s escape from her abusive ex husband were two storylines that hit home. I was far too young to watch this show but I remember sneaking downstairs at night to watch the new episodes through cracks in the door, as my mum chatted on the phone. I remember how after F.R.I.E.N.D.S aired, I quietly watched from the passage as Lucy and Carter were stabbed by a patient. I begged my mum to let me stay up the following year just so I could find out what happened to them. I felt unequivocally invested in these characters from day one in the passage of my childhood home watching their lives unfold.

Shows that almost made the list: America’s Next Top Model, Black Mirror, Buffy, Catfish, Charmed (original), Dead Like Me, How To Get Away With Murder, Lost, Orphan Black, The Walking Dead, Younger.

Where to stream gay TV:
89 Queer TV Shows to Stream on Netflix32 Lesbian, Queer & Bisexual (LGBTQ+) TV Shows Streaming Free on Amazon Prime62 TV Shows On Hulu with LGBTQ+ Characters

My Top 10 Television Characters: Natalie, Who’s a Sucker For a Good Character Arc

In My Top 10 Television Characters, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV characters nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that aren’t lesbian/ bisexual / or queer. Today, the TV Team’s resident bisexual, Natalie, shares her Top 10.

I didn’t realize until after I submitted my television Top 10 last month that they were all united by one common thread — all the shows had ended their runs — and that is a thread that continues here. I suppose I’m drawn to seeing a fully formed story: of being able to judge a show by how it started and finished.

I’m not sure what it says about me — or, more precisely perhaps, what it says about television — that this list isn’t full of characters that feel like representations of me or the people that I’m drawn to in real life. But what’s truest about me is that the thing I love most is incisive writing. I love complicated, well-drawn characters, particularly those that end up in a space that, perhaps, you never could’ve imagined at the outset but that feels wholly authentic to the person we’ve gotten to know.

10. Peggy Olson, Mad Men

There’s a great scene in the third season of Mad Men — one of my favorite moments of the entire series, actually — when Peggy Olson stumbles out of a weed smoke filled room and heads back to her office. She’s brimming with confidence but her secretary, Olive, is worried. Olive’s older… she’s from a generation that didn’t dare dream of the life that Peggy’s achieved — a woman writing copy for Sterling-Cooper, with her own office and secretary — and she’s so invested in seeing Peggy go further.

“Oh, my God. You’re scared,” Peggy tells her, after realizing the source of her secretary’s scorn. She crouches down beside Olive and reassures her, “Don’t worry about me. I am going to get to do everything you want for me.”

The moment underscores the transformation that Peggy’s undergone and the transformation that still awaits… and, of everything that happens on Mad Men, Peggy’s character development is, by far, the most interesting part.

9. Mary Charles “M-Chuck” Calloway, Survivor’s Remorse

There’s something beautifully subversive about Survivor’s Remorse. The show took the stereotypes we traditionally ascribe to basketball players — loud, braggadocious, promiscuous — and gave them to the basketball player’s lesbian sister, Mary Charles (M-Chuck). She’s brash and unapologetic in a way that television rarely allows lesbians to be and I love M-Chuck for it. The brainchild of Mike O’Malley — better known, perhaps, as Burt Hummel — M-Chuck feels like a kindred spirit to Santana Lopez: one a lesbian from Dorcester, the other a lesbian from Lima Heights Adajacent… neither of them willing to take anyone’s shit.

Nothing makes me laugh quite as hard as M-Chuck’s hijinks on Survivor’s Remorse — her trip to church still makes me break out in riotous laughter, no matter how many times I’ve seen it — but, in season three, the show goes beyond the hilarity and deepens M-Chuck’s character in a really profound way. I’ll always wish that this show had gone on for a few more seasons, at least, to see the person M-Chuck grew into… but even still, M-Chuck’s character arc was surprising and gratifying.

8. Petra Solano, Jane the Virgin

From last December:

When we met Jane Gloriana Villanueva the first time, her passions included her family, God, grilled cheese sandwiches and writing…. and then, 99 episodes later, when we say goodbye to Jane Gloriana Villanueva for the last time, her passions included her family, God, grilled cheese sandwiches, writing and Rafael Solano. Things have happened, lives have shifted, but, essentially, the Jane that we meet at the beginning of Jane the Virgin and the Jane that we meet at the end aren’t that different from each other. Petra Solano though? The Petra Solano that ends JTV, with her girlfriend clinging to her side and her twin daughters smiling brightly nearby? She couldn’t be any more different that the Petra Solano we first met.

As I mentioned back in August, Petra is who she is in Season One because her mother made her that way. Magda taught her the way of the grift and that all relationships, including the one between mother and child, were transactional.

“I’ve had to lie my whole life and manipulate, and cheat, just to survive my crazy mother, and my psychotic sister, and my violent ex-husband. And, yes, those things made me who I am,” Petra admits to Jane “JR” Ramos early in Season Five. “But I can tell you this: I have changed a lot…and I’m going to change more.”

The impetus behind all that change? The other Jane. It wasn’t until she fell in with the Villanuevas that Petra had a model for what healthy relationships — between friends, between mother and child, between family — look like. Once she develops trust in those relationships, she’s able to believe in real love… and that’s when she finds JR.

Sorry, Rose, but the character development that turned an ice queen to a warm and loving mother and girlfriend might be the greatest love story Jane the Virgin ever told.

7. Olivia Pope, Scandal

Everyone knows that aphorism, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” but the rest of the quote, which is often forgotten, is “great men are almost always bad men.” We’ve seen that great men be bad on television more often than I can count, Scandal proved to us that the same could be true of great women too.

Olivia Pope is a bad person but she doesn’t start out that way. When Olivia’s right-hand man, Harrison, extends a job offer to Quinn in the show’s first episode, he makes that clear: “We all get paid crap salaries because we’re the good guys…[This is] the best job you’ll ever have. You’ll change lives, slay dragons, love the hunt more than you ever dreamed because Olivia Pope is as amazing as they say.” The Olivia Pope we meet in the first season is good but she — because she is a woman, because she is a black woman — has to be great.

But the closer Olivia Pope draws to greatness, the more her view of what defines it changes. Can you truly be great if your work is subject to the whims and messes of the world’s most powerful people? Olivia’s descent is fueled by the belief that it is not. True greatness can only be achieved with power and Olivia clamors for that until it’s hers. But power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely… and Olivia Pope is no exception… and that descent into absolute corruption makes Scandal worth watching.

6. Emma Hernandez, VIDA

Vida‘s series finale is filled with moments that you couldn’t have imagined when Lyn and Emma Hernandez first return to their Boyle Heights neighborhood to say goodbye to their mother. I remain in awe of how much character development Tanya Saracho packed into so few episodes and am remiss that she wasn’t afforded more.

For me, the moment that strikes the deepest happens when Emma walks into her father’s church to confront him over his claim against the building. The fact that Emma’s there at all — in her father’s church, in East LA, at all — seems improbable but when called to defend what’s hers, Emma blows past her boundaries and fights for the bar she finally recognizes as her legacy. Her father defends his actions as a reaction against the hedonism he’d witness there…”the perverted spirit of homosexuality that [Emma’s] mother left,” he says.

“Oh, not just my mother, Victor…Your daughter, la hija del pastor, is a queer,” Emma announces to the entire church. “Que soy marimacha. Que soy marimacha.”

It’s such a profound moment but one that almost gets lost in the chaos that follows. Emma came back to Boyle Heights certain of who she was, though still intensely private about it — even Eddy doesn’t know until the show’s final season — but she still carries the shame her mother heaped on her. It feels like every step we’ve taken with Emma… from when she sees Cruz again to the confrontation by Cruz’s friends at the Vaquero wedding to hook-up with Baco to her relationship with Nico… has led us to this moment where Emma can proclaim her queerness (and, by extension, defend the queerness on display at the bar) unapologetically. Finally, she understands that the shame is not hers, it is theirs.

“You are your mother’s daughter,” Victor spits, after Emma threatens to expose his abusive history.

“Yes, I am,” Emma answers…almost proudly.

5. Kalinda Sharma, The Good Wife

Sometime before The Good Wife‘s story begins, Leela Tahiri puts on her armor — leather jackets and knee-high boots, most often — and becomes Kalinda Sharma. With that, the truth becomes more malleable, relationships become transactional and the only allegiance Kalinda has is to herself. The mistakes of her tumultuous marriage — whatever they were, I never quite understood what went on there — won’t be repeated so Kalinda Sharma tries to make herself impenetrable.

It doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work in the moments when Kalinda bends over backwards to secure Alicia’s spot at Lockhart-Gardner or when she commits a felony to get Cary out of prison or when she breaks down after identifying her best friend’s lifeless body. She’s never as impenetrable as she wants to be. She cares, despite herself.

I hate the way Kalinda’s arc on The Good Wife ended — I’m not sure that I’ll ever forgive Robert and Michelle King for squandering Archie Panjabi’s talents — but, nonetheless, it gave the show the highest of its highs. Watching Kalinda become the person she never wanted to be is the best part of The Good Wife.

4. Jesse Pinkman, Breaking Bad

Jesse Pinkman wasn’t supposed to live past the first season of Breaking Bad. He was the drop-out and small-time drug cook/dealer who was going to introduce Walter White to the drug trade and then, in the season finale, he’d be a casualty to Walt’s increasing sociopathy. But the writers’ strike curtailed the production of the show’s first season and, in the interim, the show’s creator reconsidered. Jesse would live onto be Breaking Bad‘s most compelling character and the antithesis to the monster Walter White becomes.

There is always good in Jesse — deep down, inside, he’s still that kid who wants so desperately for his parents to love him — and that’s what separates him from Walt, in my book. Walt feigns indifference until it becomes actual indifference but Jesse carries the weight of all the horror Heisenberg wrought. Twice, Jesse’s called on to kill someone else: the first time, he flinches, nearly getting himself killed, and the second time, the tears in his eyes threaten to spill onto his cheeks. The bad swirls around him but the good in Jesse is always right there… in his effort to save an abuse child from his meth head parents, in his love for Jane, in his persistent fight for Andrea and Brock… and you never feel like he’s irredeemable.

3. Gustavo “Gus” Fring, Breaking Bad

Gus Fring is, perhaps, the exception to my “good character arc” rule: he maintains his impenetrable facade throughout his run on Breaking Bad. Still, though, he’s utterly compelling, particularly with how he slips from pure sophistication in one moment, to absolute villainy in another, in the blink of an eye… like in “Box Cutter” where he changes from mild mannered businessman to unrepentant murderer and back, without saying a word.

Breaking Bad hints that there’s more to Gustavo Fring — that he wasn’t always this impenetrable force — but the only time you get to see that is in his pursuit of revenge for the death of his one-time partner, Victor. His thirst for vengeance and, particularly, his need to torture Hector Salamanca, contradict Gus’ usual risk-adverse nature. Those deviations are what ultimately leads to his downfall.

2. Annalise Keating, How to Get Away With Murder

In her final closing argument, Annalise Keating takes off the mask that she’s been wearing from the moment we met her. Over the years, the mask has slipped, revealing in short bursts how Anna Mae Harkness became Annalise Keating, but it’s not until the finale that she makes it plain for everyone. She admits to the awful things she’s done and the path that brought her there: the racial taunts she faced as a child, the sexual abuse she survived at 11, the internalized homophobia that kept her from committing to her first love, the loss of her son, the murder of her husband, the alcoholism, the depression, the grief.

“Who I am is a 53-year-old woman from Memphis, Tennessee, named Anna Mae Harkness,” she admits. “I’m ambitious, black, bisexual, angry, sad, strong, sensitive, scared, fierce, talented, exhausted.”

It’s hard imaging the Annalise we meet in Season One revealing these truths about herself; death might have been preferable. But in between all the OMFG moments that made HTGAWM the rollercoaster ride that it was, Annalise Keating grew… and became a better version of herself… and with Viola Davis steering the portrayal, it was enthralling to watch.

1. Omar Little, The Wire

Midway through The Wire‘s second season, Omar Little is called the stand as the prosecution’s star witness in the murder trial of Marquis “Bird” Hilton. It’s one of the best scenes in the entire series…. one that, if you’d been ambivalent about Omar until then, cements you as a lifelong fan. It showcases the thing I love most about Omar: the rich duality of his character.

Omar strolls into the courtroom looking clean: fresh braid, crisp, new black and red outfit with a matching Hawaiian Warriors varsity jacket and — per the prosecutor’s instructions — a haphazardly worn tie. He taunts his rivals as he makes his way to the stand, unafraid to let them know that he’s behind their downfall. He gets on the stand and, for the most part, tells the absolute truth. He’s candid and charming, in a way that completely disarms the jury. He’s an unrepentant gangster who accepts his role in the game — in stark contrast to the defense attorney who justifies his complicity — but he’s restrained by a moral code.

The only thing? Omar’s entire reason for being in court that day is a lie. He’s testifying to a murder her never saw, not for a sweetheart deal from the prosecutor but to avenge the death of his boyfriend, Brandon, who died viciously at Bird’s hands. But none of it matters, really, because by the time he steps off the stand, everyone in the courtroom believes the most honest guy in the room is a gangster who spends his days robbing ‘hoods.

Honorable Mentions: Amy Gardner, The West Wing; Arabella Essiedu, I May Destroy You; Blanca Evangelista, Pose; CJ Cregg, The West Wing; Jessica Pearson, Suits; Penelope Alvarez, One Day at a Time and Tegan Price, HTGAWM.

Where to stream gay TV:
89 Queer TV Shows to Stream on Netflix

32 Lesbian, Queer & Bisexual (LGBTQ+) TV Shows Streaming Free on Amazon Prime

62 TV Shows On Hulu with LGBTQ+ Characters

My Top Ten Television Shows: Christina Tucker, Who Loves Hangout Comedies and White Women Going Off

In My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV shows nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that don’t have lesbian / bisexual / queer woman characters. Today, Christina Tucker, who loves a hangout comedy and white women going off, shares her feelings.

When I started to put this list together, I thought that I would have to deliver a disclaimer up top, believing that my favorite TV shows change all the time. Surely, I thought, if someone asked me next week, I would pick entirely different shows. I am a growing person, I contain multitudes. When I finished, I was forced to reckon with the fact that is is not true at all. The order might move around a bit, but for the most part, these are the shows I find myself returning to, again and again. On second thought? Of course they haven’t changed, I’m a Taurus.

10. The Morning Show

If you were tempted to close this tab after seeing this — I get that, I really do. I might even deserve it. I started a very dedicated and possibly bonkers Twitter campaign for this show because I love to watch white women behaving badly. In that way, it is like the writers of The Morning Show reached directly into my brain. Did I start my campaign as a bit, possibly because I was bored and possibly because Jennifer Aniston is now 50 and thus my type? Did the bit get out of hand? Who can say! Yet the more I revisit the show (a regular amount, I promise) the more I have come to genuinely appreciate it. Somehow, it managed to create a surprisingly honest depiction of a woman who has to grapple with losing the power she has managed to hold onto for decades, and in doing so, forces her to face the ways she is complicit in holding up the status quo. The show does not hide the lengths rich, white, cis women will go in order to retain a tenuous hold on power, and manages to demonstrate how much easier it is to remain in line with the dominant culture, even if it has a cost.

I must add that The Morning Show uses Jennifer Aniston brilliantly. Not only as an actress, but as Jennifer Aniston — her personal life, her star power, the fact that she has been a fixture of American media for decades. She brings a delicious meta-textual context to the role simply by being in it, and that is the kind of TV I do like. Like when she furiously dresses down a man in the street who thinks he knows her just because she is on his TV all the time. Or the look on her face as she listens to her PR team run down the list of disaster scenarios that could come from announcing a divorce. Also, she sings a four minute long Sondheim duet with Billy Crudup that feels like an out of body experience. Thank you for your time!

9.Living Single

Watching Living Single is like taking the perfect bath, one of the ones where you actually fit in the tub and there are candles everywhere and the good bubbles and maybe even a glass of wine. I can put any episode on at any time and I can guarantee that I will feel loved and seen and held and that at least three of Erika Alexander’s line readings will leave me breathless with laughter. I will swoon at Synclaire and Overton and try to not to be too jealous about the fact that Khadijah straight up owns a magazine. (?????? mods????) I don’t even want to bring up the other show that it is forever compared to, because they are not even the same stratosphere when it comes to quality sitcoms. Max and Kyle have one of the best friends to lovers relationships in TV history, that is just fact! Carmen has already written beautifully about Living Single for this series, so I will leave it here: It is a perfect sitcom; I have zero notes.

8. The Good Fight

While many of my fine colleagues have written about The Good Wife — a show I deeply love — I am here to say that The Good Fight is incredible, and the perfect show for the times we are living in. It takes a while for it to find the right tone, but when it gets there, it is an absolute joy to watch. I mean, the premise is basically “Christine Baranski loses a bunch of money and ends up as a diversity hire at a Black law firm.” Who can look me in the eye and tell me they don’t want to see that!?

There are wonderful jokes (“America Goes Poddy” is a perfectly tongue in cheek reference to Pod Save America), surprisingly nuanced thinking about complicated issues, and simply the greatest TV show credits. The cast includes Delroy Lindo, Cush Jumbo, Audra McDonald, and features recurring guests like Bernadette Peters, Andrea Martin, Judith Light and Michael Sheen! There is a song about Roy Cohn that I still get stuck in my head! I have always loved procedurals, and this take on the comforting structure that I am used to is such a delight to watch. Also, this is a real moment from the show, not something I dreamt in a fugue state. God, this show slaps.

7. Pushing Daisies

Speaking of zany procedurals! The first time I watched Pushing Daisies, I had just had an infected wisdom tooth removed. I was recovering in my parent’s basement, absolutely out of my mind on painkillers, reclining on a nest I built out of a blow up mattress and couch cushions. The two seasons of this private investigator slash romantic comedy gem sped past in a delightful haze. After I healed, I wasn’t sure if I had hallucinated this witty, sexy and brightly colored show — so I went back and re-watched. I was delighted to find that it was not a dream, but a fully realized, entirely winning show. Lee Pace is perfectly pitched as a sad, handsome pie maker with a gift to bring things back to life — a gift that comes with a number of complications. Anna Friel is an underrated member of the manic pixie dream girl cannon, and a spunky side-kick slash love interest. Chi McBride is the ideal curmudgeonly private investigator, and any show that knows it should dedicate full on musical numbers to Kristin Chenoweth is a show that I am fated to love forever. It’s tragic that the show only lasted for two seasons, but sometimes the best things in life just aren’t meant to last.

6. New Girl

After a brief detour to the land of the procedural, I happily return to the hangout comedy genre with New Girl. This is the best friendship sitcom of the mid-aughts, featuring two of my favorite TV couples of all time: Nick and Jess and Schmidt and Cece. I can’t tell you how many times I have watched this show, and almost every minute of it holds up — yes even the early episodes where Schmidt’s douchebaggery was dialed up a touch too high. It makes his growth over the seasons even more satisfying! I should note here that I am a Schmidt Sun with a Rising Cece and a Winston moon, so it is possible I am biased when it comes to Schmidt. The jokes in this show always make me laugh, the romance always makes me giddy, and watching a group of five dummies push each other to be better and want more for themselves is the kind of television I return to again and again. New Girl also wins the “Best Use of Beloved Character Actors as Parents” award, an award that I just made up but should be included in the Emmys as soon as possible. Anyone up for True American?

5. Grey’s Anatomy

I am a sucker for a perfect pilot episode. I love an episode that immediately sets the tone and point of view of the show, one that allows you to find new things every time you watch. It’s probably hard to remember the first season of Grey’s given that the show is currently barreling into its seventeenth season, but trust me, it is perfect. There are so many reasons I love Grey’s: Callie Torres, Addison Adrianne Forbes Montgomery-Shepherd, the music, Bailey, The Chief, “it’s a beautiful day to save lives,” the sparkle pager, Mark Sloan — I could go on. But the reason I come back to Grey’s again and again is because of Meredith and Cristina. I have watched what some might call “a lot” of TV and this is one of my favorite portrayals of friendship. Meredith and Cristina click right away, but they are wary — of each other, of their own feelings, of trusting another person. But at the end of the day, they understand each other. It’s not until the second season that Cristina begrudgingly tells Meredith: “You’re my person,” a line that is so simply written, so flawlessly delivered that it instantly became iconic. It takes time for them to build their friendship, but it is the strongest relationship either of them have.

Everything about their ten years of on screen friendship is wonderful — dancing out their feelings to Tegan and Sara, pushing each other to be better in surgery, Derek walking into his bedroom to find Cristina there and knowing them well enough to walk away or lie down and go to sleep without comment. They have realistic fights about their marriages and their careers and what they want out of life, but they always come back to each other. When Cristina leaves, she tells Meredith: “He is very dreamy, but he is not the sun. You are.” May we all have a friendship like that.

4. Fleabag

When the first season of Fleabag ended, I said to myself “Well, that was perfect, no need for anymore of that.” I mean, how often do people create a perfect, self contained first season of television and then a second one that is just as good? Funnily enough, Phoebe Waller Bridge didn’t either, because she managed to create a perfect first season and an even better second season. When I say Fleabag is one of my favorite TV shows, I do technically mean both seasons, but it is the second season that stays with me.

I watched it all in one night, vacillating from helpless laughter (Olivia Coleman’s line readings!!!) to shocked surprise (“Where did you just go?”) and when it was over I sent profanity littered texts about it to one of my best friends, then watched the entire season again. This one almost feels self explanatory, I mean, look at that jumpsuit — how could it not be on my list? I don’t know that any show I have ever watched has more efficiently punched a hole in my heart and then had the absolute nerve to play “This Feeling” afterwards. Thinking about it right now makes me feel weepy! I love it!

3. 30 Rock

People often tell me that I am funny. I appreciate that, but I always wonder if they realize how many of my jokes are straight up 30 Rock quotes. Would you like to know why I forgot to do a task? “Cooking a French Bread Pizza and Forgot.” If you tell me something that crappy that happened to you? I’m gonna tell you that it is just like “the movie Hard to Watch based on the novel Stone Cold Bummer by Manipulate.” Anytime I have a problem? Look, “I know it’s gay, but it’s my gay problem and I am handling it!”

I could go on, but I think my point has been made. This show hit me at the exact right time in my life and is precisely dialed into my comedic sensibilities. It knows exactly how to use every actor and personality in the cast, and it knows what to do with every guest star. Has there been a better use of Brian Williams then his iconic appearances as himself but the living worst? I submit there has not. Dot Com is my hero, Jenna’s rage stroke induced nosebleeds are incredible, Elaine Strich’s performance was a gift, and most importantly? I will never, ever go with a hippie to a second location.

2. ER

ER was the first show I got permission to stay up past my bedtime to watch. I discovered it during the lazy summers of the early aughts, when TNT had their (iconic) block of “Primetime in the Daytime” programming. Every weekday, I would race home after a morning of swim practice just in time to spend two glorious hours at Country General Hospital. ER is a little bit of everything I love: hints of procedural, rooted in friendship and good mentorship, and you better believe the white ladies on this show had their fair share of dramatics! Before it graced our Hulu screens, I spent way too much money on [number redacted] of seasons, and I was thrilled that that it held up, even twenty five years later. This is another entry in my personal perfect pilots list! Everything is dialed up to 11 — this is an emergency room! — the hallways are crammed with people and medical equipment and you are whipped along for the ride.

ER has one of the most iconic casts of all time. It is wild to watch George Clooney on the small screen, it can barely handle the force of his charisma. Julianna Margulies has a face like the sun; she is given such a dark arc from the start of the show and she absolutely crushes it. John Cater and Peter Benton have such a sweet friendship, I could not believe how hard I cried when Eriq La Salle left the show. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Kerry Weaver’s coming out was the first I saw on TV, and even though I didn’t have the language for it then, it was one of the first things I wanted to revisit after I came out. Also? Maura Tierney. Double also? Alex Kingston.

1. The West Wing

Here it is, the winner of Christina’s Perfect TV Pilot! Also the winner of the coveted “TV Pilot Christina Has Mostly Memorized!” and the slightly less well known “This Show is Flawed, but so am I, Here is My Heart” award! No matter how many times I watch it, the first episode of The West Wing thrills me, from the classic Sorkin dialogue to the often mocked and replicated walk and talks, to the incredible introduction of Jed Bartlett.

I know every single criticism of TWW and agree with most of them! Still, it is the show I can always put on, it is the ultimate comfort TV. I had an annoying day last week and I put on “Galileo.” If I have a really bad day, I’ll put on “18th and Potomac” and follow it up with “Two Cathedrals.” Sometimes I crave specific moments, like CJ telling Danny she likes Goldfish, “the cheese things you have at a party,” not actual goldfish, or Abby exasperatedly telling Jed the answer to his crossword: “END, you idiot, Bitter END,” or Jed giving Charlie his family’s knife for Thanksgiving. My (seemingly) eternal love of The West Wing is the most I have ever identified with the phrase the heart wants what it wants, which is perhaps a worrying fact to have committed to the page. My feelings about the show’s politics has shifted over the years, I have only gotten more progressive and less tolerant of the both sides discourse, and the concept of good white people nobly doing the right thing is less enticing than ever. The more I stopped expecting The West Wing to provide my personal political roadmap, the more I am able to love it for what it is: a damn good TV show. The longest break I have ever taken from it was after the 2016 election — turns out nothing is infallible. The mix of humor and hope, the ruminations on what complex choices do to your morals, and the absolutely incredible acting — it just works. It’s my favorite TV show, flaws and all. What’s next?

Shows that almost made the list: Sex and The City, Jane the Virgin, Happy Endings, Glee, Judging Amy, Law and Order, Friday Night Lights, The L-Word, Madam Secretary and probably three million others!

Where to stream gay TV:
89 Queer TV Shows to Stream on Netflix32 Lesbian, Queer & Bisexual (LGBTQ+) TV Shows Streaming Free on Amazon Prime62 TV Shows On Hulu with LGBTQ+ Characters

My Top 10 Television Characters: Drew Gregory, Who Is a Capricorn

In My Top 10 Television Characters, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV characters nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that aren’t lesbian / bisexual / or queer. Today, writer Drew Gregory reveals that she is in fact a Capricorn.

10. Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini, Freaks and Geeks)

I’m officially against the whole born in the wrong body trans narrative. But when I was in 9th grade I really did feel like Lindsay Weir trapped in Sam Weir’s body. Growing up I was what adults would call a “good kid.” I studied hard, I followed the rules, I tried to be kind to others. But as I entered adolescence I found myself doubting the “good” I was told and felt drawn to those with more radical politics or just ways of existing — people I now know to be queer. I saw so much of myself in Lindsay’s struggle to defy expectations but still be true to her values, the desire to hang with the cool people while wondering if they’re even cool at all. I may have looked like Sam, but my big sister wasn’t Lindsay. I was my own Lindsay. I protected myself. I even bought a similar jacket.

9. Nomi Marks (Jamie Clayton, Sense8)

I don’t have a lot in common in with Nomi Marks. But we are both trans and we are both gay and she feels like an actual human person and I do too. I could talk about how she’s a cool hacker spiritually connected to people around the world. I could talk about how she’s tender and caring towards everyone she meets. I could talk about how she fights back against the oppression she faces. But all of those reasons would be lies. Nomi Marks is on this list because she is a trans lesbian. No, because she is the trans lesbian. And I saw her on screen the year before I came out. And then I saw her on screen the month after I came out. And that was everything. It is everything. Sometimes it’s that simple.

8. Angel Evangelista (Indya Moore, Pose)

The cis obsession with trans death is an obsession with survival. Mainstream audiences love a suicide, a murder, a self-mutilation. They love to watch us cry. There is only an interest in our pain. And their message is clear: if we survive, then we are lucky. We can ask for nothing more, because we’ve already asked for so much. Fuck that. Angel Evangelista is a Black trans sex worker who is a well of endless want. She has dreams for the balls, dreams for her career, dreams for love. But the brilliance of Pose — and Indya Moore’s performance — is the fulfillment of these dreams isn’t presented in fantasy. Or, rather, there is a balance between fantasy and reality.

Angel doubts herself. She has moments where she internalizes the message not to ask for too much. She struggles. But with the support of her mother Blanca (more on her later) she thrives. Pose is on different level of trans representation than anything else on TV. It’s a reminder on screen and in its existence that trans people should never put a cap on our dreams. And I hope Indya Moore fulfills all of their own. They deserve everything.

7. Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh, Killing Eve)

Everyone wants to talk about Villanelle! And, yes, I am charmed by the hot murderer in impeccably fitted clothes as much as the next queer. But what I love most about Killing Eve is seeing Villanelle through Eve’s eyes. I love Eve’s complicated love. I love falling into Eve’s point of view and riding that roller coaster of lust and admiration and utter horror. It’s why season three’s choice to decenter Eve led to such a middling set of episodes. First of all, why would you ever decenter Sandra Oh?? Second, the shift in point of view removes the thrill of the series. It’s like bisexual Breaking Bad. It’s fun to watch a moral spiral. But while some people are sick and want to support their family, other people are just a sucker for a woman in a blazer. You can decide if I’m joking. Wait did I mention Sandra Oh’s hair?? Sandra Oh’s hair.

6. Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend)

As a trans woman and a lifelong cinephile, I’ve spent most of my life scurrying into the corners of my brain that confuse real life with fiction. If I’m just a character in a story then life hits just a little bit easier. I think one could call this dissociating? Rebecca Bunch finds her own escape in narrativizing, specifically in the form of elaborate genre-spanning musical numbers. It’s how she convinces herself that it’s okay to do wrong and it’s how she corrects herself when the reality of that wrong-doing crashes through.

I’m not sure if I’d like Rebecca if I knew her in real life. I’m not sure I could forgive all the things she’s done. But what a treat to spend time in her interiority and to watch her grow and be better and then be worse and then better again and then worse again and then better. I don’t approve of everything Rebecca does, but I understand mental illness manifesting as an obsession with love. I’ve felt that simmering want to be cared for the way everyone deserves. I’ve experienced the struggle of trying to heal under the relentlessness of patriarchy. And I’ll forever be grateful to Rachel Bloom and Rebecca Bunch for providing a soundtrack of theatre kid enthusiasm for some of my most challenging years.

5. Maeve Wiley (Emma Mackey, Sex Education)

There’s a moment in the second season of Sex Education when Maeve Wiley is chastising her mother. After abandoning Maeve in the midst of struggles with addiction, her mother has returned claiming to be better — a baby half-sister for Maeve in tow. Trust is already tenuous and now she’s neglected to share that she’s out of work. She apologizes to Maeve, she pleads for forgiveness, she insists she’s still sober. “I believe you,” Maeve says. She stands up and adds, “Lie to me one more time and you’re out.” She softens these words with a gentle kiss on her mother’s cheek. What Maeve is doing is parenting. It’s tender and it’s painful and it shouldn’t be Maeve’s job.

Bad girl with a heart of gold is something of a trope, but it’s also something of a reality. Being a bitch, being cynical, being an outsider are all fairly tempting defense mechanisms against the harshness of the world — especially for an adolescent. But they have nothing to do with intelligence or kindness. Maeve has so much to offer and she deserves so much more than she’s received. I love watching her learn that both of these things are true. I love watching how quickly she softens when she’s given the love she should have always been given. The gay trans experience is growing up an Otis who wants to date a Maeve before realizing you’re actually a Maeve who wants to date an Ola. Take that as an unofficial pitch for season three.

4. Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men)

Fiction likes to frame those who reach beyond expectations as brave. To be the first, to defy oppression, to succeed with improbable success takes courage. But these words — bravery, courage — have always struck me as dehumanizing. If a man wants something it’s because he wants it. If a woman wants the same thing it’s because she has guts. Did Peggy Olson have guts? I suppose. But across seven seasons Peggy’s evolution from meek secretary to confident writer felt less like a choice and more like an inevitability. She’s not trying to be the only woman writer at Sterling Cooper. She’s just trying to be a writer.

It’s impossible for me to think about Mad Men outside of the context of show creator Matthew Weiner’s abuse. It’s impossible to watch Peggy stand up to the men around her and not wonder how many of those lines were written by the women on staff as veiled responses to Weiner himself. It’s impossible not to wonder who Peggy might’ve been outside of patriarchy and it’s impossible not to wonder what television shows we could’ve watched from Emmy-winner Kater Gordon if she hadn’t been fired after season three and left the industry altogether. There’s no separating the art from the artist, the character from society both past and present. Peggy Olson exists as a Frankenstein’s monster of feminism and patriarchy, possibility and despair, fantasy and the harshest reality. She is a product of her times.

3. Bette Porter (Jennifer Beals, The L Word)

Some people think Bette Porter is a hot and powerful dream dyke who can melt your heart proselytizing about art or yelling about politics. Other people think Bette Porter is a hot and manipulative nightmare dyke who’s controlling and selfish and has never met a woman she wouldn’t cheat on. I say, why choose?

My relationship with The L Word is complicated. I question its influence as the community’s reigning holy text while continuing to rewatch, discuss, and recommend it to any baby queer I meet. There remains a power to this shared cultural experience in a world where shared cultural experiences still remain largely straight and male. It was kept from me for years and certainly was never made with someone like me in mind and yet I can’t resist its charm — and that includes Bette Porter. She is, for better or worse, everything I find attractive. Yes, the confidence. Yes, the suits. Yes, Jennifer Beals. But IF I’M BEING HONEST the moments that really get me are when she experiences Stendhal syndrome in Peggy Peabody’s hotel room. And when she testifies to Senate committee. All I want is a power lesbian who gets overly emotional about art and can verbally destroy a senator. Is that so much to ask?

2. Blanca Evangelista (Mj Rodriguez, Pose)

I loved Frank Capra movies as a kid. I even quoted Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in my college essay about fighting for queer acceptance at my high school. Lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for. In the second episode of Pose, Blanca Evangelista is at a gay bar. The mostly white, all cis, all male gays don’t want her there. Blanca asks to speak to the manager. “Why do you always have to pick fights you can’t win,” her sometimes friend, former house sister Lulu asks. “Because these are the ones worth fighting,” Blanca replies. She will spend the rest of the episode returning to the bar, getting harassed, and ultimately getting arrested. Blanca is naïve. She believes that she can create change through sheer will power. She believes that she can create a better world for herself and her children.

As the years passed, I became too politically aware for the Frank Capra movies I used to love. Too wise to see Jimmy Stewart’s everyman as anything other than a liberal fantasy. But Blanca is a reminder that there’s nothing wise about cynicism. She’s a reminder that wanting better for yourself and your community and your world is not naïve but necessary. Mj Rodriguez has created a character unlike any other. She gives her a vulnerability and a tenderness that makes her fierce power all the stronger. Her voice is breathtaking, her words even moreso. Blanca is the mother everybody deserves. She is the Mother of the Year. Of every year. She gives me the strength to keep fighting for lost causes. And Angel might make fun of her “clockable” style, but with her sporty crop tops and light wash jeans I think she’s a fashion icon.

1. Emma Hernandez (Mishel Prada, Vida)

I don’t know what to say except that I understand Emma Hernandez. I understand her need for autonomy. I understand her desire to do right by her family. I understand her attempts at control. I understand her walls. I understand her trauma. I understand her vulnerability. I understand her mistakes. I understand how she loves. I understand how she wants. I understand how she disappoints and how she’s disappointed. I understand her as a sister. And a daughter. I understand her trying.

If you’ve read this far I think it’s pretty clear that I love a highly competent femme with a lot of personal problems. Maybe I’m projecting. No, I’m definitely projecting. I’m a Capricorn. I like to be in control. I’ve convinced myself that to be successful is to be loved, that every emotion can be solved like a puzzle, every conflict resolved with skill. It’s an exhausting way to live. But I’m working on it. And I find comfort in characters who are also working on it — especially when that work is incomplete. And when I think of every single character in the history of television (!) the one I find the most comfort in is Emma. Tanya Saracho created a special character in a special show and Mishel Prada realized her with an endless well of complexity. She’s not the kind of character we usually think of as a character. She’s much too grounded for that. But throughout Vida‘s three seasons, Emma was fierce and guarded and funny and mean and hot and devastating and heartbreaking and terrible and wonderful and hateful and loving and hateful and loving. She changed so much while changing not at all. That’s how people grow. That’s how I’m trying to grow.

Honorable mentions: Tasha Jefferson (Orange is the New Black), Nicky Nichols (Orange is the New Black), Santana Lopez (Glee), Shea (Transparent), Villanelle (Killing Eve), Candy Ferocity (Pose), Elektra Abundance (Pose), Fleabag (Fleabag), Alice Pieszecki (The L Word), Donna Pinciotti (That 70s Show), Charley Bordelon (Queen Sugar), Nova Bordelon (Queen Sugar), Claire Fisher (Six Feet Under), Elena Alvarez (One Day at a Time), Topanga Lawrence (Boy Meets World)

Favorite character in the history of web series: Freckle (The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo)

Men? Oh men! Yeah I like a few of them: Eric Effiong (Sex Education), Ralph Angel Bordelon (Queen Sugar), Micah West (Queen Sugar), David Fisher (Six Feet Under), Chidi Anagonye (The Good Place), The Guy (High Maintenance), Rogelio De La Vega (Jane the Virgin), Pray Tell (Pose), every main character on Looking except Kevin and especially Richie

Where to stream gay TV:
89 Queer TV Shows to Stream on Netflix

62 TV Shows On Hulu with LGBTQ+ Characters

The Santana Lopez Moments That Changed Our Lives — And The World

Our TV Team has spent the last two weeks reliving some of our favorite moments from Naya Rivera’s world-changing work on Glee. As we did, of course, we shared with each other over and over how her portrayal of Santana Lopez also changed our worlds. And so we decided to grieve her passing the only way we really know how: by watching and writing about television. We thought maybe you’d like to join us. Below are each of our favorite Santana Lopez moments. Some of them are shared by many of us, and probably by you too. We’d love to read your favorite memories in the comments.

Episode 209: “Special Education”

“Well sometimes I go out by myself, and I look across the water. And I think of all the things, what you’re doing, and in my head I paint a picture.”

Written by Valerie Anne

I came out as a lesbian around the time Glee started, but as Glee went on and I loved it more and more (until I didn’t, but that’s beside the point), I also came out as a huge and utter nerd. Loving Glee, a show that was decidedly out of the ordinary and something that a lot of people in my life looked down on, was considered weird and nerdy and after years of trying to blend in, Glee made me ready to stand out. I loved Buffy growing up, but I quickly learned that not everyone was into cheesy sci-fi, and “nerd” wasn’t exactly a badge of honor in the 90s/early 2000s, so I only mentioned Buffy to people who mentioned it to me first.

But Glee encouraged me to let me freak flag fly, and so I did. It was the beginning of a long journey to accepting my nerdiness, to embracing my inner geek, to being passionate about what I love, even if not everyone in my life will understand or even support it. And Santana! Naya was captivating and talented and impossible to ignore, even before her character had a name. Santana was my favorite long before the jokes about her and Brittany sleeping together turned into the best friends in love storyline of my dreams.

So in Season 2, when I heard those opening notes of a song I knew so well, when Santana Lopez herself sang my name right there on my TV screen, it felt like a gift just for me. A “thank you” for being an unapologetic champion of this weird, wacky show. I remember exactly where I was, exactly how it felt that night. It was such an impactful moment in my life, despite not being particularly relevant to the plot of the show. It was just such a joyful, fun performance.

And clearly it wasn’t only a favorite of mine, because Santana brought it back for another energetic take on it in their 100th episode to get Brittany back into dancing. And Naya brought that same joy, that same energy, to the Glee Live tour and I got to be in the very same room with her while she sang that song, and it’s a memory I’ll likely never forget. So thank you, Naya. For your joy, for your talent, for teaching me how to be unapologetic about the things I love. Even though I never knew you personally, you will always be part of my life. Part of me.

Episode 215: “Sexy”

“Please say you love me back. Please.”

Written by Carmen

“He’s just a stupid boy.”

It shot right into my heart like a lightning bolt. We’re almost ten years later and I’ll never forget her cadence as she says it, the hurt that flashes across her face. The pain I had as I realized how many times I had repeated that same line to my closest friends, the ones I had always been in love with, the ones I would have been terrified to admit that were true if asked.

There was always a “stupid boy” and he never treated her the same way I would. He never remembered her birthday, or noticed how much work it took to get her hair just like that over her shoulder. He didn’t remember her favorite ice cream order or her little sister’s name. I never understood why, why any girl would choose “a stupid boy.” Until, like Santana, I did.

Written by Valerie Anne

Santana’s entire story arc mirrored mine in so many ways. I was coming out around the same time she was, I was falling in love and having my heart broken right around then, too. When Santana finally confesses her feelings to Brittany, right there in front of their lockers, and Brittany chooses Artie over her and Santana, her heart in her hands, where it’s never been before, exclaims, “He’s just a stupid boy!” I felt that. The way she delivered it, the hurt and desperation in her eyes. Naya absolutely slayed that scene and it has stuck with me ever since. The fierce, confident, swaggering Santana having this quiet moment where her voice is actually quivering a little was so impactful. The nervous, darting looks. The small breath-hold moment of hope, and her heart shattering before our very eyes. Because the thing is, being brave and speaking the truth doesn’t always go the way you plan. Coming out isn’t always rainbows and parades. And Naya really got to the heart of that pain in a way not many actors had done yet.

Written by Riese

I’ve written a few words already on the coming out scene that resonated with me more than anything before or since. Perhaps you’ve read them, even. It remains poignantly jarring in its specificity and its place in the great cannon of Television Coming Out Scenes. Glee never shied away from making radical changes in characters or basic show universe elements without an explanation or any apparent logic, but they brought Santana’s actual written history on the show — and she wasn’t originally written as gay — to bear on her present. In doing so, they revealed a rarely-discussed but entirely valid coming out narrative.

And it worked. It fit. Actively pursuing and seducing a series of strapping young men throughout high school is not incongruous with eventually realizing you’re gay! When you look back you see that those pursuits were always part of a game, a trick, a strategy, a story, a status grab. They were something to do. A way to stir shit up, often with Brittany by her side. They were never about the kind of love she feels for Brittany, or even how she felt about Dani. Her relationships with men sometimes become more misandric than romantic in retrospect.

I remember early in my coming-out-to-myself period I was hooking up with a girl in relative secrecy for reasons irrelevant right now, but it was strange to me how easily I kept the secret and kept wanting to do it. I wanted it for itself. With boys, it was about doing it but also about what doing it said about me and what I said about it. They were trees falling in a forest and with nobody around to hear them, my desire often faded. People don’t always evolve, sometimes they just change. And that’s a true story, too.

“‘Cause I’ve built my life around you…”

Written by Carmen

What’s magnificent, absolutely stunning and awe-worthy, about “Landslide” is that when I listen to the song all these years later — I am genuinely surprised how much of the song is actually Gwyneth Paltrow? Santana’s soft “uh-oh” doesn’t come in until the first chorus, but she’s all I ever hear. Her quiet — almost embarrassed because it’s so vulnerable and what will it all mean — glances to Brittany from behind Holly’s shoulders are all I see. Her hair pulled to one side. Her off white blouse. The way she’s afraid to look up off the floor and into the choir room.

The tight clasped hug that comes after, holding on to her best friend for dear life because everything around them is changing and they are each other’s only certainty.

Anyway, a fun fact about me is that very faaaar into my messy baby gay years, when I was always running from someone’s bed to someone else’s bed and heartbreak to heartbreak, Dixie Chick’s “Landslide” came on at my favorite coffee shop while I was in line to order a hibiscus iced tea and vanilla iced latte. I turned on my heels and ran out of there with a quickness, rather than risk the barista seeing me cry in public.

Episode 218: “Born This Way”

“The only straight I am is straight up bitch.”

Written by Carmen

We spend a lot of time talking about Santana Lopez’s musical numbers, and I suppose for a show like Glee that’s pretty par for the course — but there’s nothing that made Santana more alive than Naya Rivera’s impeccable comic timing. Cast members and press alike have often fawned over the years that she could learn those iconic monologues the morning of shooting and never flub a line once during taping. She was a professional and her memory was a steel trap. Of all those famous tirades and one-liners, none warms my heart like “The only straight I am, is straight up Bitch.”

I mean sure, she was blackmailing Karofsky at the time, but hey coming out — and the self-loathing that often comes with it — is messy business. I’m forever grateful that Glee didn’t sidestep that. Lesbians don’t have to be “saintly” to be fawned over on primetime television in homes across America. We can be the bitch. Scratch that, we can be the Boss Bitch. Santana taught us well.

Written by Heather

It’s important to me that Santana Lopez was a bitch. It’s important because, before Santana Lopez, basically every character we considered “positive” lesbian representation was: a) white, and b) nice. Palatable. Gentle. Sweet. Non-threatening to the characters inside the show or outside in the audience. The kind of lesbians who would allow straight people to wrap themselves up in the cozy fantasy that gay people are just like them.

And Santana was not that. She was truth to power, unafraid of confrontation, destruction when absolutely necessary. She was unapologetic ambition and talent. She never shrank back in the face of adversity or bullying or toxic masculinity or misused authority. She was mean sometimes, maybe even a lot of times, and she understood later that, yes, it was coming from a place of fear and insecurity because she was closeted. And while coming to terms with her sexuality and feelings for Brittany certainly softened her — and always and especially with Brittany herself — it never weakened her resolve or ability to deliver a devastating verbal barb with the precision of an assassin.

We humanize terrible white men in our society in large part because white men are often the only people we humanize in our stories. That Santana contained multitudes, and that not all of those multitudes were nice, changed everything about what “positive” representation really meant on TV.

Episode 219: “Rumors”

“I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Written by Carmen

What Naya Rivera did to transform Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird” is nothing short of magic. And yes, we talk about Naya Rivera’s voice + magic a lot in the same sentence — which is not our fault, because it’s simply the truth and we cannot be held accountable for that — but specifically what I mean is this: In a single three-minute cover, Naya Rivera turned a nearly 40 year old song into an instant lesbian classic.

Less than six months after the “Rumors” episode of Glee aired, my cousin got married. Gay marriage had only recently become legalized in New York State, and DOMA had yet to be struck down nationwide. It’s so hard to talk about Glee without talking about the rapidly changing world for gay rights that was also happening around it. As my cousin walked down the aisle in her handsome white tuxedo to meet her wife, my mother sang “Songbird,” their song of choice. When I hear it now of course I only hear Naya, but I also remember my silver bridesmaid dress with the sweetheart neckline and my rust orange fall flowers bouquet. I remember crying as I watched someone I love walk down the aisle to marry the woman of her dreams.

It was then as it is now, “I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before…”

Written by Heather

It’s hard to pick a favorite Santana solo, but I think it’s gotta be “Songbird,” for me, both for Santna’s story arc and for Naya Rivera’s performance. I’ve listened to it about a gazillion times over the last many years, and it always gets me in my guts, but I forget what a punch it really is to my heart’s face to watch the scene. The transcendent vulnerability, more than we’ve ever seen from Santana. After her intense internal struggle, the softness and confidence in her face when she says she knows it’s right. The pleading of her posture when she sings I love you, I love you, I love you. Santana leaves it all at Brittany’s feet in that choir room, and so did Naya.

Episode 220: “Prom Queen”

“Can’t I just have one night where I’m queen?”

Written by Drew

As many of you know, I didn’t watch Glee until earlier this year. So I’m going to leave the obviously iconic, emotional, perfect moments to the people who have lived with this show, this character, and Naya’s singular performance for years. But there are some smaller moments that I think are really worth remembering. Glee is very concerned with this idea of “the underdog.” And Rachel Berry and Kurt Hummel are the show’s most prominent underdogs. Santana, the bitchy cheerleader, certainly didn’t originate as anything like an underdog and even as her character developed and she came out, she still was rarely written as such. But media’s idea of an underdog is skewed by 80s teen movies written by cis straight white men. Santana was harsh and mean and strong because she felt like she had to be. She didn’t have the space to be a victim like Rachel.

There’s a brief moment after Kurt is elected prom queen as a cruel joke that Santana rushes out of the room crying. The writers probably just wanted an excuse to create a three way parallel of hurt feelings between Kurt, Quinn, and Santana, but Naya’s performance justifies and deepens every word. “How could my running mate win and I didn’t? I mean, just because I hate everybody doesn’t mean they have to hate me too,” she cries. “I’m gonna be an outsider my whole life. Can’t I just have one night where I’m queen? Where I’m accepted?”

I love Santana’s relationship with Brittany because obviously Brittana 4 Ever, but I also love how Santana is able to be vulnerable with Brittany in a way she wouldn’t be with anyone else. She’s able to admit something embarrassing like her desire to just fit in, and, maybe more significantly, her knowledge that even with her cheerleader beauty she really does not. “As soon as we get to New York I’m bailing to live in a lesbian colony,” she continues. “Or Tribeca.” Just like that she can go from breaking your heart to making you laugh. She gave so much to this character even when the writers were preoccupied with the other more obvious underdogs.

Episode 306: “Mash Off”

“Don’t forget me, I beg.”

Written by Carmen

In my mind, there is no question that the “Rumor Has It/ Someone Like You” mash up is the greatest performance in the show’s history. The choreography, costumes, lighting, Amber Riley’s and Naya Rivera’s vocals — everyone came together and did what they had to do. It’s the single most thrilling three minutes the Glee ever produced.

But what makes it iconic for me are the story choices that Naya Rivera makes. First there’s the pause. You know the one. Right after Mercedes sings the first lines of “Rumor Has It,” the theatre goes dark and the beat drops out. Then Mercedes looks at Santana from the corner of her eye, as if to say “Girl can you do this?” And Santana gives the smallest nod before the microphone picks up a sigh. That’s when you knew — this was going to the next level.

Later, Santana cuts through the dancers and bellows, “Don’t Forget Me! I Beg!” As the camera cuts in tight. The entire rest of the verse Naya Rivera performs as a monologue in song. She looks to Brittany, she remembers their “dreams that came true” and then the “rumors have it” that ruined them all. Santana’s terrified that the rumors floating around McKinley are about to ruin Santana’s life, but maybe having Brittany will have made it all worth it.

Written by Valerie Anne

This song was easily one of the top three best performances on the entire run of Glee. It was beautifully choreographed, perfectly sung, but also the layered acting was absolutely stunning. So often on Glee they’d shoehorn a storyline to fit a song they wanted to do, or stretch a song to fit a plot, but with this mashup, it didn’t actually matter what the words were saying or whether or not they had anything to do with the plot of the episode. Everything you needed to know, every emotion you needed to feel, was emanating from Santana with crystal clearness. Punctuated with a slap to the face that reverberates through time and I can still hear to this very day, this entire scene had every ounce of Naya Rivera’s talents on full display.

Written by Riese

There are quantifiably positive assets to this mash-up: the song suits Mercedes and Santana vocally, it’s got good choreography, it’s a well-orchestrated mash-up the dresses are cute. But there’s a deeper level too: Santana singing and dancing like a person who’s just been told something terrible is about to happen but she’s not sure what that something will be and for now the show must go on. That “something” is really bad; not for its severity but because of its unfamiliarity. It’s like the difference between a hurricane and an alien invasion. The first is horrible but predictable. You’ve seen hurricanes on the news, in movies, read about them in school. The second could be anything. Santana shatters your heart to pieces here. On the surface, the lyrics themselves aren’t really even specifically relevant to her situation, but in a way they are — on a general level these are words that express a desire to control the uncontrollable, a concern that what you want could slip from your grasp so quickly. That pause in the beginning — Glee never pauses. It’s just so fucking manic, this show. But it actually lets silence tell its own story for a minute. “Don’t forget me,” she belts, after a moment of uncertainty. We won’t.

Written by Heather

Is this not generally understood to be the greatest song Glee ever recorded? If it’s not, well, I don’t even know. I can’t hear this song without thinking of the dozens of slow-mo gif sets circulating on Tumblr of Brittany and Santana circling each other, and I also can’t hear it without breaking out in chills all over my body, from my toes to my brain. Amber Riley and Naya Rivera’s voices together are raw power. The Troubletones deserved their own spin-off. They were my favorite grouping Glee ever did. And Finn deserved the slap in the face Santana jumped off the stage and gave him at the end of the performance.

Episode 307: “I Kissed a Girl”

This is my least favorite episode of Glee. It’s not actually the worst obviously but to follow up the remarkable “Mash Up” with an episode called “I Kissed a Girl” that turned out to be this felt cruel. Kurt’s coming out was a wish fulfillment fantasy for cis white gay men everywhere, but Santana is forced to suffer. And maybe that would’ve been more tolerable if the episode centered her feelings instead of… Finn’s. Okay! So why am I talking about this? Because even when Glee was at its worst, Santana always seemed to be the voice of reason. I don’t know how! Did the writers think she was being bitchy when really she was just speaking the truth? Did Naya adlib? I don’t know. But it was always such a relief.

Finn for some reason decides that it’s “Lady Music” week as if having a bunch of men ruin songs by women is an apology for outing a lesbian. Kurt and Blaine start by singing a cloying duet of P¡nk’s “Perfect.” Everybody is smiling and clapping and even Santana has a grin on her face. She seems to be condoning this in the face of all logic. But then… well, I’ll let her speak for herself: “Thank you, guys. Thank you, Finn, especially. You know with all the horrible crap I’ve been through in my life… now I get to add that.” Her little applause after is just perfect. Santana. Lopez.

Written by Carmen

This is it. This is it. The scene that gave me the final push I needed to come out of the closet.

For me there is a before, and an after. I’d never heard anyone describe how hard it is quite like this, how violent it feels to yourself, once you know who you are but you’re terrified of saying it in the world: “I’ve tried so hard to push this feeling away, and keep it locked inside, but every day just feels like a war. And I walk around so mad at the world, but I’m really just fighting with myself. And I don’t wanna fight anymore, I’m just too tired. I have to just be me.”

Every day just feels like a war. By that point I had felt that way for years. And like Santana, I was so tired. I’ve often described that while watching this scene I wept, which is true. I used to think it was out of recognition, but now I know it was relief. It was resolution. It was ordering my steps.

I came out to my mother about a month after Santana came out to her abuela. To be honest, I don’t know if I would’ve done it if it hadn’t been for the smallest detail, sort of blurred in the background, almost off frame — there’s not a single recap that I’ve ever read that includes it, but there’s a Dominican flag on Abuelita’s refrigerator. She serves Santana arroz morro with either lechón or bistec to eat. Those aren’t generic Latinx details. Here is Santana, this Caribeña teenager, coming out to her abuela. Here’s Naya Rivera, this Black Puerto Rican actress who fought so hard against the producers for Santana’s coming out in the first place. If Santana Lopez, this small mouthy teenager could be brave enough to stop the war inside her — then maybe, just maybe, then I could be brave enough, too.

Episode 311: “Michael”

“I don’t know why, baby.”

Written by Valerie Anne

“Smooth Criminal”

In my opinion, this scene/song is one of the most underrated of the Glee canon. I don’t think people don’t like it as much as they never think about it or talk about it, but it was one of my favorite covers they did. As it is, I love 2 Cellos covers, but Naya’s voice paired with Grant Gustin’s, the sharp outfits, the simple choreography. It’s one of the least flashy numbers, but one of the best. Just two cellos, two actors, and a bunch of chairs in an empty room. But their voices fill it right up. Santana’s wail of, “I don’t know,” toward the end of the song reverberates around my ribcage every time I hear it. Not to mention that the whole setup for the number is Santana defending Blaine. Because Sanatana will cut anyone down with her vicious, vicious words no matter how much she loves them, but someone outside her found family attacks one of hers? You better believe they’ll regret it. (Also during this entire number she had a tape recorder taped to her “underboob,” a word that only Naya could have delivered in such a way that it’s not just part of our lexicon.)

Episode 317: “Dance With Somebody”

“With somebody who loves me.”

Written by Riese

“I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)”

This is our SONG. By “our” I mean my friends and I but probably you and your friends too. When it comes on you scream and you jump and you dance like a kid to this timeless and utterly perfect pop song. Sometimes you hear it on the loudspeakers at Home Goods and feel like complaining to the manager for inappropriate context, but when it’s on in your car or at a party or a club it’s exhilarating and obviously very topical.

I think it’s safe to say at this point that we all know Whitney Houston had at least one relationship with a woman but was made to suppress and obscure her sexuality, maybe even to herself, by an unforgivably racist and homophobic industry. It’s safe to say that she died too young, and too sad. When Santana and Brittany take her song and flip the pronouns and wear the slinky tube dresses and wrap their curled hair in big bows and it rains glitter and are surrounded by cheerleaders, one of whom has a very alternative lifestyle haircut, and they want to dance with each other? And they GET to dance with each other? I hope she would’ve found it exhilarating. I did.

Episode 414: “I Do”

“Maybe that’s why we love each other so much. And slap each other.”

Written by Heather

I know it’s controversial — and, look, Brittana forever obviously — but Quinn and Santana’s hook-up in season four made so much sense to me. In real life, that absolutely would have happened. Quinn fresh from Jodie Foster’s clambake in college, Santana nursing her heartbreak over Brittany, two ends of the same bitch-goddess spectrum, one curious and one lonely. The whole thing is played perfectly. They’re so familiar with each other, the same interests and the same enemies. Of course they have fake IDs. Of course Santana clocks Quinn’s flirting the second she starts it. Of course they drink and dance and whisper secrets into each other’s ears and fall into bed with each other. This whole episode is legit queer culture. Including the fact that it’s a two-time thing.

Episode 502: “Tina in the Sky with Diamonds”

Here comes the sun.

Written by Drew

The writers largely failed Santana in the later seasons, but her brief romance with Demi Lovato’s Dani was the exception. After a few instances of Santana being cute and flustered in front of her new diner coworker, they end up with a night shift together. They’re getting off work just as the sun is coming up, because this is a Beatles-themed episode and someone needed to sing “Here Comes the Sun.” And also because it’s really adorable and romantic. I love Brittana, but one of the best parts of Glee is that unlike a lot of other shows its queer characters’ queerness was not reliant on one other person.

We saw that throughout Kurt and Santana’s extended coming outs and we could’ve seen it more if Santana was given space to date and be her own character in the backhalf of the show. But we did get this number and it’s just so beautiful. I don’t have anything smart to say. I just think it’s really sweet and romantic and Naya is so vulnerable and pretty and her voice is so lovely. I’ve found myself revisiting this clip more than any other this past week. It’s pure joy and when I think of Naya Rivera as Santana Lopez what I feel is joy.

“I like yeast in my bagel, but not in my muffin!”

Written by Heather

We talk about how Naya Rivera could deliver one of those relentless Glee monologues like no one else (true) and that the power and beauty of her voice is uncontested (also true) — but Naya made Santana the funniest character on that show, hands-down. Some of it was mean-funny and her delivery there was always effortless. “A baby? With whose vagina?” is a personal favorite. But nothing is as eternally hilarious to me — maybe on TV ever — as Santana’s Yeast-I-Stat commercial. It’s so fucking ridiculous. The easter colored suburban mom clothes, the giant swing, the stock footage feeling of it all. Just the bonkers way Santana runs leaps through that field like a gazelle, and then that Olympic twirly ribbon in the woods(????). Mostly, though, the dialogue. It’s layers upon layers of ridiculousness, but brilliantly so. Naya as Santana as a happy lady with a yeast infection, inside a commercial, inside a phone she’s holding to proudly share her triumph with Rachel. The way she shoves that bagel in her mouth! Also, honestly, Santana would still be getting royalties off that thing. I loved seeing Santana succeed. I loved seeing her happy. I’ll always remember Naya happy.

Episode 509: “Frenemies”

“Nobody — no, nobody — is gonna rain on my parade.”

Written by Carmen

It’s the tiny blue dress. We can all be honest here, if a picture is worth a thousand words then that dress is worth a million dollars. It’s the dress that sells the song before Santana even opens her mouth. And whew, does she sell this song. Within the Glee canon, “Don’t Rain on My Parade” is iconically Rachel Berry’s. I don’t think it takes anything away from Lea Michele or her star character to say the truth: Rachel Berry was designed, from the first line of the pilot episode, to be the sun around which Glee revolved. As Santana Lopez, Naya Rivera was expected to be a “featured extra” — some hot bitch to snide behind Quinn Fabray.

But Santana was too bright, too once-in-a-lifetime, and Naya Rivera worked too hard at her career for far too long, taking bit commercials and one-off guest stars since she was a child, for this not to be her moment. It’s not behind the scenes drama to simply state that there are less opportunities for Black Latina girls in Hollywood, those are the facts of structural racism. As Santana Lopez, Naya Rivera beat odds, and she changed any previously conceived scripts about who people would care about in a mainstream teen dramedy — they could care just as much about the Latina lesbian as they would about the white heterosexual leads.

Those are all the things I think about when I watch Santana strut down the theatre’s aisle singing (gasp!) Rachel’s song, There’s a moment, right at the end, right after “One gunshot and BAM! Hey Mister Arnstein, here I am!” — she raises both hands to the orchestra and she smiles into the audience. She nearly breaks her face in two because she knows, she really knows, that she did it. She’s finally the star.

My Top 10 Television Characters: Heather Hogan, Who Loves a Tough Exterior and a Gooey Marshmallow Center

In My Top 10 Television Characters, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV characters nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that aren’t lesbian / bisexual / or queer. Today, TV Team Editor Heather Hogan shares her feelings about women with a tough exterior and a gooey marshmallow center.

10. Peggy Olson, Mad Men

People are always surprised when I say that Mad Men is one of my favorite TV shows, but it’s because there’s a part of me that wishes every single TV series was this really slow character study with occasional bonkers plot twists, like the time Peggy stabbed her fiancé Abe with a makeshift spear. Peggy, actually, is the thing that makes Mad Men one of my favorites. Her growth over the course of seven seasons is astronomical, more than we get to see from most TV characters ever, and especially from women TV characters. I especially love that Peggy isn’t really a good guy. Sometimes she’s even kind of a jackass. But also she’s driven and brilliant and unapologetic and absolutely ridiculous. She produces some of the funniest and most iconic moments on the show — the octopus porn, sunglasses inside, and swagger in the photo above, just for one example — and in the end, she really does have it all.

9. Dorothy Zbornak, The Golden Girls

In so many ways, The Golden Girls raised me and my sister, which is wild because when I rewatch it now — which I do every time I’m scrolling through channels and it’s on — I can’t believe my grandparents and parents didn’t intervene and turn it off! My sister has the sharpest wit of anyone I’ve ever met, and I think she learned it from Dorothy, who, to this day, has some of the best one-liners ever committed to film. In the ’80s in rural Georgia where I was learning that women should be meek and subservient, Dorthy Zbornak was independent and acerbic and not sorry for being the smartest person in the room. She was also the first TV character I ever saw with a lesbian friend, and she accepted and loved her, even though she didn’t reciprocate her feelings.

8. Nadiya Hussain, Great British Bake-Off

Okay, I know Nadiya Hussain isn’t exactly a TV character, but her arc on series six of Great British Bake Off could not have been plotted better if it was a film about a hero pastry chef. And anyway, I feel pretty confident Kayla’s going to put a Bravo reality star on her list and I won’t be alone. Nadiya came into the GBBO tent with big dreams, warm banter, serious skills, and a smile as bright as the sun. She slowly built her confidence after a slow start on technical challenges, kept impressing the pants off the judges and making Mel and Sue burst into fits of giggles, and was in some kind of baking zone in the finale. She cried when she won and said she’d never doubt herself again, and Mary Berry cried too.

That her season of triumph happened against the backdrop of the racist, xenophobic Brexit campaign in the UK and Donald Trump’s racist, xenophobic presidential campaign in the US made it even sweeter and more poignant. Since winning GBBO, Nadiya has taken the culinary world by storm and become a fierce advocate for mental health in the process. She’s changed my life as much as my favorite fictional TV characters.

7. Tippi the Bird, Pretty Little Liars

I have such a complicated relationship with Pretty Little Liars. I’ve easily written more about this show than everything else in my career combined, which is probably why I also feel more let down by it than most teevee I’ve covered. Pretty Little Liars dropped the ball hard, and with its eyes wide open in the end, but for the first several seasons it was an unhinged, hilarious, brilliant, community-building, patriarchy-busting, heckin’ fascinating ride that I never wanted to end. Tippi the Bird was the best of the series. Named after classic Hitchcock, a truly BANANAPANTS plot point/twist, and when the writers realized how much fans — especially our gay #BooRadleyVanCullen crew — loved this damn parrot, they kept bringing back the jokes and dialogue about it. Tippi whistles a phone number as a clue. She keeps saying, “Hey, board shorts!” in her dead owner’s voice. To this day, I drop “Well, it ain’t Tippi the Bird” into conversation. It’s one of my fondest memories of a series that brought some of my best friends who became my chosen family into my life.

6. Garnet, Steven Universe

Garnet was one of my favorite TV characters before Steven Universe revealed that she’s a lesbian gem fusion of Ruby and Sapphire, but that sealed the deal and cemented her place atop my list forever. Garnet is fierce and quick-witted (are you sensing a pattern) and no-nonsense and also completely tender and literally made of love. Garnet actually describes herself best on her wedding day, fighting her arch-nemesis: “I am the will of two gems to care for each other, to protect each other from any threat, no matter how vast or how cruel.” No matter how overwhelmed I get, Garnet has the ability to infuse me with hope and strength. Just another thing me and Steven have in common.

5. Lois Lane, Lois & Clark

Lois Lane made me gay. Okay that’s not exactly true. I was very gay the day I was born onto the earth. But Lois Lane appeared on my TV — and then later in ABC’s promo materials, wrapped up like this in Superman’s cape — when I was a young teenager with hormones that were going berserk with lesbianism in a way I didn’t understand. When I played pretend growing up, which was all the time, I was either a superhero, a professional athlete from a movie, or Marty McFly.

Part of it was that there weren’t women on TV doing what I loved to do, which was fight imaginary bad guys and save the day, win imaginary World Series, and time travel. The other part of it was when I imagined myself as any of those guys, my built-in imaginary companion was a woman. I actually related a lot to Lois and Clark’s Clark Kent (not Dean Cain). I was a well-meaning, hard-working goof with a good heart and a secret identity. I was also in love with Lois Lane. But! This Lois Lane made me face down the greatest gay conundrum for the first time: I also wanted to be her. She was just so much. Aggressive, determined, resourceful, successful, unafraid, and perpetually not sorry no matter how much trouble her mouth or her curiosity got her into. I’d never seen that on TV before.

Also, this photo is still the sexiest thing I’ve ever laid eyes upon.

4. Elena Alvarez, One Day at a Time

When our TV Team talks about One Day at a Time, which we do a lot, one thing we consistently marvel at is how safe and relaxed we feel when we watch the show. None of us are ever afraid of it punching down on us, a rare feeling for any series and especially a comedy with a leading lesbian character. But! Elena is both in on and the subject of so many of the shows best jokes. The way the other characters clown on her, though, is full of so much genuine love and affection that it feels like being goofed at by your best friends.

I love how proud she is to be gay, and Latinx, and an activist, and a nerd. I love that she stands up for what she thinks is right always and that her idealism hasn’t yet been bruised. I love how outraged she gets. I love how silly she is, especially with her sydnificant other. I love that she represents the generation that will survive this presidential administration and bring their brilliance and tenacity and anger to bear on the future they’ll build into a shape we’ve never even seen before. There’s a part of me that wishes Elena had been around when I was a teenager, but a bigger part of me that knows she’s meant for this moment, right now.

3. Anne Lister, Gentleman Jack

For most of my life I was scared of the word I think best describes me — dyke. I love it now. I love the way it sounds when I say it out loud and the way most people shrink back from it. I love that the people who don’t shrink back from it, who proclaim it the way I do, are my dearest companions. Gentleman Jack‘s Anne Lister is a dyke. It’s the way she dresses and walks and wields that walking stick, the way she makes other women feel, at dinner and in the drawing room and in bed. It’s her antagonism toward all men. It’s her posture. It’s her gait. It’s the way she gesticulates. Anne Lister was a complicated woman. A revolutionary in so many ways, but backwards-thinking in many others, especially in terms of class and capitalism. I’m so relieved Gentleman Jack didn’t brush over that and make her some kind of one-note hero. I’m also relieved I can stop projecting myself onto Fitzwilliam Darcy, or at least that I can split my time projecting onto him and Anne.

2. Santana Lopez, Glee

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it as long as I live: No TV character besides Ellen DeGeneres had as big an impact on our culture and our politics as Santana Lopez. She arrived on-screen at a time when the gay rights movement needed one huge push to gain marriage equality and reverse Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and to achieve those goals we needed a majority of Americans to support gay people. Santana, on primetime on Fox, was an enormous part of manifesting that reality.

But it’s essential to understand that Santana also changed things on a micro level. When Naya Rivera passed away, the outpouring of love and grief for her from the LGBTQ+ community contained a zillion similar messages: “I once was this sad, scared, lonely, confused person. And then Santana Lopez happened. And now I am this proud, resilient, open, authentic, brave person you see today.” She changed our literal lives. That would be enough. That would be more than enough. But she also endlessly entertained us. She made us laugh and dance and cry and swoon and sing and sing some more. I don’t know who I would be without her. I really don’t.

1. Annalise Keating, How to Get Away With Murder

As always, when I talk about Annalise Keating, I want to tell you first and foremost to read Natalie.

And then secondly I want to tell you that I still cannot believe Viola Davis — Viola Davis! — played a bisexual character on primetime network TV. It feels like a fever dream, even after the show has ended. There’s never been a moment when Viola Davis has been on-screen that I’ve been able to look away (except for when it was pre-planned, like when she’s in a movie like Widows where she’s squashing heads). She delights me, she devastates me, she enchants me.

I don’t think I have ever longed for a character’s freedom and happiness the way I did for Annalise Keating’s, and not just because it warms my actual bones when Viola Davis smiles. A Black queer woman from the Bible belt who had to hold the entire world together, and could and did, despite her own trauma and the incompetence and selfishness of people around her, and who empowered and protected those she loved the most, and hurt them too, and was forgiven and who learned to forgive herself. A woman who didn’t believe she deserved happiness or contentment or love, but who found it anyway. (Because she did deserve those things.) A woman who feared her gayness, despite her general lack of fear about anything, and learned to embrace it.

There has truly never, ever been a character like Annalise Keating on TV, and we’ve scarcely seen an actor of Viola Davis’ caliber playing someone queer. I know how lucky I am to have witnessed it and I will treasure it forever.

Honorable mentions: Scorpia, Catra, and Adora (She-Ra), Janet (The Good Place), M-Chuck (Survivor’s Remorse), The Dog Who Ate Dan’s Heart (One Tree Hill), Shaw (Person of Interest), Helen Stewart (Bad Girls), Rosa Diaz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Alex Danvers (Supergirl).

Where to stream gay TV:
89 Queer TV Shows to Stream on Netflix

32 Lesbian, Queer & Bisexual (LGBTQ+) TV Shows Streaming Free on Amazon Prime

62 TV Shows On Hulu with LGBTQ+ Characters

My Top 10 Television Shows: Carmen Phillips, Who Has Always Been Rooting For Everybody Black

In My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV shows nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that don’t have lesbian / bisexual / queer woman characters. 

Today, Deputy Editor Carmen Phillips shares feelings about her favorite shows of all time.

I love television — a lot. By which I mean, a lot.

If we’re being honest, and I think we should because we’re only human after all, I wanted to impress you with my choices. I wanted to pick the definitive BEST television I’ve ever seen (especially because we’ve had so few chances to write about straight and/or cis gay men’s television on Autostraddle, you know? So, I wanted to flex a bit). I gave that up and decided I wanted to tell you my guilty pleasures, the stories that I know are awful but I gobble like sugar sweet candy and never complain — because what’s television, if not fun? Ultimately, I did neither of these things.

In the “shows that almost made the list” section at the bottom of this Top 10, you will find a mix of the shows I consider objectively to be The Best^TM and the shows that are my most saccharine pleasures (some are a bit of both!). But for the actual Top 10 you’re about to read below, I simply picked the TV shows that I’ve watched most often. These are the ones I’ve repeated over the years, worn out my streaming queue, and can recite entire scenes from memory without looking up from my keyboard.

It’s an abstract measure of what’s truly my “favorite” — but, oh well, life’s random. At least this gets us to good cross section. OK! Thanks for reading the disclaimer and here we go!

10. Glee

This show makes my Top 10 for one reason and one reason only: Naya Rivera’s performance as Santana Lopez.

A few years ago, here’s what I had to say:

“The only straight I am is STRAIGHT-UP BITCH” is one of the most empowering lines uttered by a queer woman on television. Santana bristled, but she loved. She really loved. She loved without being forced to be soft. That’s something that we don’t often see in “bitchy” television characters, especially in those written by men.

 Santana was allowed to rage. When she was in the closet, she took all the hate she was feeling about herself and she spewed it out. Maybe that sounds off-putting in retrospect, but let me tell you — back then it was cathartic. Kurt, Glee’s other resident gay, was a sympathetic queer character. He had a bit of a snarky sense of humor, but when he got bullied, he cried, and the audience cried with him. When he came out, his father loved him and hugged him and then we got to cry some more. His storyline was hopeful and optimistic. I don’t want to take anything away from Kurt or his importance in television history. But here’s the thing about Santana — she was the bully. She wasn’t a saintly gay. She found it hard to love herself, so in turn she made it hard to love her. She told her abuela that she had to come out because every day felt like a war. She was tired of fighting with herself. I wept. So many of us know what it feels like to tear yourself in two from the inside out, to put up armor and hope that no one will notice. My armor was a smile, Santana’s was an insult. And bless her for it.

Thank you Naya.

9. Grey’s Anatomy

When I talk about Grey’s Anatomy, here’s usually the first thing I say: There’s no version of my coming out story that doesn’t also involve Sara Ramirez as Callie Torres. That’s still true — but also there’s no way to talk about my humor, or the ways I’ve learned to cope through the worst of my depression, or the entire decade of my 20s, without also talking about Grey’s Anatomy. I’ve watched it so many times on a loop that it’s actually embedded itself into my DNA. I wouldn’t still be here if I hadn’t had Grey’s — with it’s drawn out monologues and needlessly complicated sexcapades — glowing that soft, quiet hummm into my darkest corners.

8. Friday Night Lights

Maybe you’ve heard of this thing? It’s called “Texas Forever.”

I’ve never been to Texas, and I’ve only ever sat through about three complete football games in my life, but also I’ve got to tell you, Friday Night Lights is some of the finest television ever written. It’s about football, but only as much it’s also about learning strength of character and how to love or what it even means to grow up. It’s about finding and building community. To be honest, when I think of Friday Night Lights, I barely even consider it a television show. Its scripts are so meticulously plotted, with characters who leave as their high school years wane and graduate, but core themes that hold steady throughout — it feels more like a long-form novel about a small Texas town. Ironically, that’s something a lot of pretentious critics say about The Wire, a show that couldn’t be further away from Friday Night Lights in terms of subject or tone if it tried. Still, I think the same adage applies here.

(Many write ups of FNL point to its earlier seasons as a highlight, but I’ve always been partial to a baby-faced Michael B. Jordan’s years in Seasons Four and Five. Those seasons also co-star a young Jurnee Smollet-Bell, whom you’ll see a repeat performance from on this list in exactly one second… )

7. Underground

Yes, I realize that I did an explainer defining the rules of this Top 10 list — namely that no matter how great or masterful, no show that I’ve ever only seen once could make the cut — but rules are made to broken and if there’s ever been a need for an exception, this is it.

Underground only lasted for two short and criminally undervalued seasons on WGN (you can currently find them streaming on Hulu). Its legacy got cut short because period dramas are expensive and WGN wanted out of the original programming business, but if you’ve ever trusted my opinion any piece of television criticism, you’ll make it your business to seek it out.

It’s true that I’ve only seen Underground once, but that’s for a very good reason. The highest praise I can give is this: I hate, and I mean genuinely loathe, fictional stories about slavery. It’s my steadfast belief that there are so many better ways to spend my one beautiful precious Black life than being re-traumatized by watching my people be abused, raped, and in chains.  And yet — Underground is triumphant. It’s determined, and considered, and hopeful without ever once losing track of the violence, torture, or purposeful cruelty that enslaved Black Americans were subjected to. In Season Two, Aisha Hind’s Harriet Tubman has the honor of what I still consider to be the single greatest hour of performance put forth by a Black woman on television. Jurnee Smollet-Bell’s protagonist is a heroine of epic portions — fierce, loyal to her family, relentlessly brave. If you loved Amirah Vann’s Tegan Price in How To Get Away with Murder, you are wholly unprepared for her breakout role in this series. Autostraddle favorite Jasika Nicole is also prominently featured.

Like so many others, I’ve spent a lot of time this summer thinking about Black stories and media consumption. Underground is what happens when you purposefully decenter whiteness in our history and the stories we tell ourselves about it. You should watch it.

6. Noah’s Arc

Patrik Ian Polk’s Noah’s Arc is only rivaled by The L Word (hold one second on that!) when it comes to television shows that fundamentally shaped by baby gayhood as a queer Black woman. Those who know know, but Noah’s Arc was truly FOR US, BY US television — it didn’t have fancy Showtime backing, the sets and costumes were sometimes a little budget tight, but the love behind and in front of the camera was always sincere and overflowing.

When similarly placed (and much more mainstream) shows, like Queer as Folk and The L Word, were busy associating gayness with whiteness in our media, Noah’s Arc was the 1^st place I saw ball culture, or learned about Black prides, or literally saw ANY gay Black couple love each other EVER. I was wrecked when Noah was beaten horribly in a hate crime. When Ricky briefly gave up his fuckboi ways and fell in love with Wilson Cruz’s Junito? I swooned hard. Alex’s everything is a Forever Mood. The first gay wedding that made me cry? 100% that was Wade and Noah in the spin-off movie Noah’s Arc: Jumping the Broom (and yes, I went out of my way to see the film opening night, thank you very much). Noah’s Arc was a window. More than that — a mirror. A mirror that I could be fully black, fully queer, at the same time.

If you’ve never seen Noah’s Arc, the first nine episodes are currently available online. The feature film Jumping the Broom is available as well. Earlier this summer, the cast and creator filmed a special Coronavirus and Black Lives Matter themed reunion episode that’s since been released on YouTube — and no less than four people I love sent me the original press announcement within an hour of its release. I’m just here to give Darryl Stephens and Patrik Ian Polk all of their flowers.

5. The L Word // The L Word: Generation Q

Ah yes, who realized that we’d arrive here eventually? The L Word portion of the list! The thing is, looking back over my television watching life, I’m genuinely surprised how many times I have re-watched The L Word!!

I mean, OK, I’m a queer TV/Film critic and also a senior editor on a lesbian website, so this probably doesn’t surprise many of you — but it surprised me. Even more than that, I’m genuinely surprised at how much I enjoy watching it? The L Word has very rightly been held to tough criticism over the last ten years. The original is famously bathed in whiteness and never did right by Tasha or for that matter, a single trans character. The reboot still has yet to cast a dark skinned Black woman or literally any woman who’s not a sample size. But even with all of that, I still genuinely fucking love both of these shows.

The L Word has often caused hurt, but damn does it get back up and try again. It always seems to find a way — a conversation between friends who use nothing but their eyes, the way that queer women pile on top of each other to say hello and drink wine out of mugs, working up the courage to ask that hot neighbor next door out on a first date, all of it — to remind me that it’s still home.

Plus, every time Bette Porter says “Fuck.” My heart.

4. Orange is the New Black

Speaking of shows that have caused hurt, may I welcome you to Orange is the New Black?

Listen I don’t know what to tell you, I once loved this show with passion and absolute fire, and then I was left betrayed and brokenhearted by a writers’ room and showrunner who had no interest in telling stories that respected Black and Brown women as opposed to actively traumatizing them. Somehow along the way, I found myself back to… well, I can’t say I’ve ever forgiven this show, Jenji Kohan burned that bridge long ago, but I did come back around to appreciating it.

Here’s the kindest, truest thing I can say about Orange is the New Black: Almost everything about how we tell women’s stories in the last decade, queer women’s stories, stories about trans women and women of color, all of it — it all changed because of this one single show. Perhaps Orange is the New Black’s greatest gift and curse will be that it lived long enough to watch its metaphorical TV children outgrow it.

I’ll never watch another Jenji Kohan show for as long as I live, but this cast was magic. I’ll always be grateful for the women of Litchfield and the summers they stayed my life.

3. Pose

It is sincerely dumbfounding how good one television show can be. At this point I feel as if I’ve written so much about Pose that I might as well be blue in the face. But you know what? Here goes one more:

With skill and artistry, Steven Canals and Janet Mock have tapped into a purity and resiliency and love that beats raw at the center of so many queer chosen families for Black and Brown trans and queer folks. Then, they splashed it in our full splendor across our screens, immortalizing us the same way white cis people have been able to see themselves for years.

I can go on. I could talk about how I’d never seen a Black Puerto Rican femme who’s the mother of her queer chosen family who reminded me so much of myself until I saw Mj Rodriguez’s Blanca Evangelista (down to her arroz con gandules served straight from the caldero). Or how I’ve held Angelica Ross’ performance as Candy in my heart for two years. I could talk about how Billy Porter is shattering glass ceilings on the awards circuit, and how rampant transphobia simultaneously keeps Pose from collecting all the little gold statues it rightly deserves.

In the opening of Pose, Elektra wonders what category to walk. Blanca responds: ROYALTY. Pose is so much more than luxurious ballroom runways; it knows we’re fucking rich. It knows that small family dinners surrounded by the people who really see you are worth more than gold. It knows even in the specter of death, queer folks don’t falter. We hold on to each other harder and stronger — and that fortitude is worth an entire crown of jewels. We’ve earned our diamonds because we withstood the pressure.

2. Living Single

When Autostraddle first designed this Top 10 series, there were two shows that I never doubted for a second would be the last two standing. And honestly, the two are so closely tied in my mind that I couldn’t figure out how to rank them separately. In the spirit of democracy (ha!) I did a impartial straw poll of my three oldest friends and my mom — another show won (barely), but more on that in a bit.

It may be a sitcom, but I take Living Single very seriously. I take it seriously that this Black television show, on what was once the last place ranked FOX broadcast network, centered on the friendships of four Black women, became the entire blueprint for a better known white juggernaut that many would later say defined the decade. I’d argue those critics who flaunt Friends as being definitive are plainly and factually wrong; there isn’t a thing Friends did that Living Single didn’t do first and with essentially 1/8^th the budget. Tattoo it on my skin. I stand by it.

I’ve watched Living Single front-to-back every year, every single year, since 1993 when I was in 2^nd grade. That summer I basically had a Queen Latifah themed birthday party. As a present, of my mom’s friends got me Queen’s Black Reign album on cassette tape! The unedited “adult” version, so you just knew I was big time!

Living Single is on Hulu, if you’ve never seen it or want to catch up. It’s always funny in the way you want “classic” sitcoms to be, and it leads with its heart. After watching for 30 minutes, you can’t help but feel a little more settled about the world. (Also there’s a lesbian themed special episode in Season Three — 3×22 “Woman to Woman” — that, just like the rest of the show, pokes fun without laughing at you and ultimately lands exactly where you want to be.) The most important thing to know, that I will take no debate over, is that Max and Kyle are second greatest Black love story on television.

Want to know the first?

1. A Different World

Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert forever.

Debbie Allen’s magnum opus was so ahead of its time 30 years ago, and it gets better with age. Do you want to know who was frank, honest conversations about consent and the responsibility of men not to rape all the way back in 1989? That would be A Different World. Who was talking about growing HIV/AIDS rates in Black communities when the President of the United States could barely choke out the virus’ name? Oh that would also be A Different World, back in 1991. What about racist hate crimes on college campuses? 1992 — and you already know the deal. Debbie found time to dedicate entire episodes to Black history icons like Lena Horne or Alvin Alley, not to mention creating graciously realistic goals for Black hair care while living in a college dorm.

But what makes A Different World absolutely iconic is not its myriad of “Very Special Episodes” in that late 80s way — it’s that it is legitimately funny and feels “lived in” in the way you feel once you’ve settled in on a college campus. As a viewer, it’s so easy to  genuinely believe these characters are best friends trying to figure out young adulthood and life. It’s a true work of large ensemble and in that light, there are very few other sitcoms like it. Most focus on a central cast of four or five — A Different World tapped out somewhere around nine!! With so many characters to keep track of, the show becomes an ideal masterclass in the tight 22 minute, three-act script. It’s also a surprisingly gripping slow burn romantic comedy (and here I am in 2020, still looking for a nerdy lil’ butch Dwayne Wayne with flip-up glasses to call my own).

There’s a reason that you can still buy Hillman college sweatshirts online 33 years after the show’s debut, a reason why Lena Waithe named her company “Hillman Grad Productions” — it’s because Debbie Allen took us to school. May we continue to be her legacy.

(A Different World is available on Amazon Prime, but if you’ve never seen the show you should start at Season Two and just thank me later.)

Shows that almost made the list: Vida, One Day at a Time, The Wire, The Sopranos, The Crown, Jane the Virgin, The West Wing, How to Get Away with Murder, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Big Little Lies, Sex and the City, This Is Us, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gilmore Girls, Oz

11 Newish TV Shows With New Lesbian and Bisexual Characters

When we did our Spring 2020 TV Preview approximately 85 years ago, we were prepared for some of what was to come — but not all of it. In addition to triumphant new seasons of beloved shows like Vida, Killing Eve and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, this spring saw new lesbian, bisexual and queer female characters popping up like popcorn inside a popcorn bag inside a microwave oven! There are so many new queer TV shows for you to feast your eyes upon if you have not already done so.

1. Mrs. America – fx on Hulu

full series available to stream now // read Heather’s review of the first two episodes

Photo: Sabrina Lantos/FX

If you asked yourself how a fictionalized history of the second-wave feminist movement could possibly not involve some gay characters, you should be pleased to hear that yes indeed it does! We meet black lesbian feminist Margaret Sloan-Hunter (Bria Henderson) early on in the series as she copes with persistent sidelining of women of color amongst white feminists. Episode five introduces Jules, a lesbian photographer played by my beloved Roberta Colindrez, who strikes up an affair with activist/author Brenda Feigen (Ari Graynor) whose marriage to her husband has been elevated by the movement as a feminist ideal. Yet another cadre of lesbians emerge in episode eight as a feminist lesbian couple fight for their inclusion in The Feminist Agenda in a story focused on the National Women’s Conference. Also, Sarah Paulson and Cate Blanchett are in it.

2. Run – HBO

entire series available to stream now

Two heterosexual humans follow up on a decades-old promise to each other and end up on the run from all kinds of things in this dark romance. Eventually, they cross paths with lesbian taxidermist Laurel Halliday (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and Babe Cloud (Tamara Podemski), a local policewoman who is also GAY.

3. Never Have I Ever – Netflix

entire series available to stream now // read Himani’s review

Your mileage may very on this coming-of-age comedy is centered on Devi Vishwakumar, a Tamil Indian-American teenager growing up in Sherman Oaks grappling with her father’s recent death and her burning desire to be cool. (Believe it or not, I related!) She’s got two best friends, and one of them is named Fabiola, and she’s Afro-Latinx and also SHE’S GAY. (However, be warned that the first episode of Mindy Kaling’s otherwise delightful series kicks off with some truly unforgivable material around Devi’s temporary disability and subsequent use of a wheelchair.)

4. Hollywood – Netflix

available to stream now // read Carmen, Drew and Riese’s conversation about Hollywood

Reviews of Janet Mock and Ryan Murphy’s revisionist Hollywood fantasy/history series are mixed and mostly negative, but some of us kinda liked it? Queen Latifah shows up as bisexual actress Hattie McDaniel, the first Black woman to win an Oscar, and the famously sexually adventurous Tallulah Bankhead drops in for witty quips and threesomes. Bisexual actress Anna May Wong plays a minor role in the story but her sexuality is never addressed.

5. Betty – HBO

premiered may 1 for a 6-episode season // read Drew’s review of Betty

“Girls skateboarding is cool and watching girls skateboarding is fun,” says Drew in her review of Betty, a new show from HBO that follows a group of badass girls skating in a boys world in New York City, with “dreamy cinematography,” loose wit and an intoxicating energy, filled with queers and/or tomboys and/or both.

6. Hightown – Starz

premiered June 7th, finale airs July 5 // read Kayla’s review of Hightown

Jackie Quiñones is “a proud dyke, an addict, a fucked-up fish cop (okay, National Marine Fisheries Service agent), a hard partier who blacks out on the regular,” writes Kayla of this new drama on Starz, starring Monica Raymund, who she also describes as “an emotionally unavailable top with control issues” and “exactly the kind of messy queer character I’m drawn to.” Set in class-stratified Provincetown with a focus on the opioid crisis and its casualties, Hightown delivers a twisty plot surrounding an episode one murder and our favorite thing of all: a lesbian lead character.

7. Homecoming Season Two – Amazon Prime

full series available to stream now // read Natalie’s review of Homecoming

Season One, based on a Gimlet podcast, starred Julia Roberts as a caseworker for veterans at a live-in transition center for veterans sponsored by a giant corporation with some sinister secret intentions. It’s a watch-in-one-night binge: eerie, intense, winding and worth it. Season Two opens with a new protagonist, played by Janelle Monáe, waking up in a rowboat in the middle of a river. I can’t really tell you anything more than that without spoiling the plot, but rest assured that her character is as GAY as the day is long and so is another character!

8. Snowpiercer – TNT

premiered may 17, finale airs july 19

The entire world froze seven years ago and the only souls left living on this planet are in a high-speed train that goes in circles forever, sharply divided by class. So far we know that Zarah Ferami (Sheila Vand) is bisexual; a “Third Class” passenger in a poly relationship with a personal investment in a murder investigation. The series, based on Bong Joon-ho’s 2013 South Korean-Czech film and the 1982 French graphic novel that inspired the film, was stuck in development for ages and was in the process of shooting Season Two (which also features queer actress Rowan Blanchard) when COVID shut down production.

9. Defending Jacob – Apple+

Entire series available to stream now on Apple TV

I predicted in the Spring TV preview that Cherry Jones’ character looked incredibly gay in the trailer for this slow-moving meditation on a family who finds their teenage son accused of murdering his classmate. So when she mentioned her “wife” in oh, episode seven, I sang a song to my dog that went like this: “I was right, I was right, I was right she is so gay!” However, her gayness has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the plot of this program!

10. Dead To Me Season Two – Netflix

full series available to stream now // read Valerie’s review of Dead to Me

So this is not technically a new show, but it is a new season of a show, which counts, but fitting “season” into the headline of this post was really gonna push it over the edge. InSeason Two of “Dead to Me” Is Flirting With You Via Natalie Morales, Valerie sings the praises of this dark comedy series from lesbian showrunner Liz Feldman about the friendship between two women who meet in a support group after Jen (Christina Applegate)’s husband dies in a car accident. Judy (Linda Cardellini) ends up moving in with Jen and becoming a second Mom to her kids as they get wound up in some pretty sketchy and f*cked up shit! In Season Two, it turns out that Judy is queer when she starts up a thing with a chef played by bisexual actress Natalie Morales. THEY’RE GAY and it’s GREAT.

11. Unorthodox – Netflix

entire series available to stream now

This German-American drama tells the story of Esty, a 19-year-old Hasidic Jewish woman who flees her ulta-Orthodox Williamsburg community for Berlin, in search of a secular life free of the beliefs and constraints of her home life. She’s also in search of her estranged mother, who left her family and moved to Berlin some years earlier because she is, you guessed it, a lesbian! She’s not a main character, but what we learn of her struggle and her relationship is resonant and an experience we rarely see reflected on television.

Looking for more lesbian TV shows you can watch right now? Here you go:

• 86 TV Shows with Lesbian and Bisexual Characters Streaming on Netflix
• 43 TV Shows with Lesbian and Bisexual Characters Streaming on Hulu
• 41 Queer TV Shows with Lesbian and Bisexual Characters Streaming on Amazon Prime

My Top 10 Television Shows: Heather Hogan, Lover of Love and Laughing

In My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV shows nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that don’t have lesbian / bisexual / queer woman characters. 

Today TV Team Editor and Senior Writer Heather Hogan shares feelings about her favorite shows of all time.

10. How to Get Away With Murder

How to Get Away With Murder isn’t the kind of show I usually watch. Even fictional murder freaks me out; I can’t stay invested in procedurals; and non-linear plots on broadcast TV lose me as soon as the episodes take a break. But How to Get Away With Murder was anchored and elevated by the one and only Viola Davis, a generational talent and my all-time favorite actor, playing a Black bisexual character on primetime, and there was no way I was going to miss that. Natalie’s words are the ones that belong here; I hope you read and cherish them as much as I did.

9. Steven Universe

Korra and Asami crawled so that PB and Marceline could walk so that Ruby and Sapphire could run so that Catra and Adora could fly — but it’s important to note the huge chasm between walking and running. It feels like only Rebecca Sugar could have bridge that gap. And boy did she ever. Steven Universe was a masterwork of queer storytelling, exploring everything from gender to gender presentation to commitment to grief to depression to trauma, and everything in between.

8. Orphan Black

There will literally never be another Orphan Black, one of the greatest feminist series and sci-fi shows of all time, and the fact that Tatiana Maslany doesn’t have a dozen trophies to show for it is a crime.

7. Jane the Virgin

It never stopped surprising and delighting me, especially in the end with Petra and JR, which turned out to be one of my favorite TV romances ever. Jane the Virgin made me laugh and cry, in good ways, combined, more than another other show I’ve ever watched.

6. Skins

This series transformed everything about my life: my understanding of myself, my writing, my career, and, well — I met my wife when she tweeted at me about my recaps in 2010. I waffled on including this because Skins Fire is the greatest abomination of my professional life, but look at these faaaaces.

5. Derry Girls

As a child of the ’90s, Derry Girls tickles my nostalgia — and it also tickles me to my core. I have never laughed as long or hard or loud as I do when I watch this series, even if I’ve already seen the episode ten times.

4. One Day at a Time

One Day at a Time is the reason I fell in love with TV when I was a little kid. It reminds me of the shows I grew up on and cherished because they showed me families (found ones, too) that didn’t often remind me of my own — Family Ties, 227, The Facts of Life, The Golden Girls, A Different World — and taught me things and brought me belonging I wasn’t learning or having in real life. And also made me laugh and lot and forget my worries for half an hour at a time. I honestly cannot imagine what seeing Elena as a child would have done for me. It would have changed everything.

3. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

It’s epic sci-fi and fantasy on par with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, series-long masterful character development, heroes in all shapes and sizes and backgrounds and genders and races, and a queer love story that saves the literal world.

2. Gentleman Jack

What else can I say: “Declarations of love and promises and pleas not to be hurt, a camera on a crane sweeping the Yorkshire landscape, rings! Fingers intertwined! A wedding! There has never been a show like Gentleman Jack on TV. The messiness and the misandry and the ascendent lesbian happiness.”

1. The Wire

When Natalie and President Obama agree on something, who’s going to argue with it? There are very few shows that have stayed with me like The Wire; the first time I watched it, I was expecting to be at least a little underwhelmed because, like Natalie said, so many TV critics choose it as their all-time favorite show. But nope! It exceeded the hype in every way. It is a masterpiece of storytelling and Omar Little is one of the greatest TV characters in pop culture history.

My Top 10 Television Shows: Valerie Anne, Superqueero Head Girl

In My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV shows nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that don’t have lesbian / bisexual / queer woman characters. 

Today, writer, TV recapper, and resident sci-fi nerd Valerie Anne shares feelings about her favorite shows of all time, most of which, turns out, are sci-fi.

I hate declaring my favorite thing! My go-to answer is, “It depends!” Once for an Autostraddle roundtable we were supposed to write about our favorite TV ship and everyone got cute little graphics made of their choice and my little heart was instead filled with the words, “I won’t pick and you can’t make me.” In a perfect world I could make you a list that’s broken down: My Top 10 Favorite Shows from my Childhood, My Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows, My Top 10 Comedy Shows, My Top 10 Shows I Started and Finished in Quarantine So Far, etc. But alas, here we are. So I just went with the ones that came to me fastest and loudest, and while there are some on here that I imagine will always be true, I could write this list once a year and it would be different every time.

Also, some things I learned about myself while making this list: 1. I have a lot of all-time favorite characters that appear on shows I don’t consider my favorite shows and thus they are missing from this list. And 2. So many shows that were my favorite for a few seasons broke my heart so hard I couldn’t bear to include them. (Though on the flip side there were shows that let me down but I love them hard anyway.)

Okay enough with the caveats, off we go.

10. Supergirl

To be perfectly honest, Supergirl almost didn’t make this list after this most recent season. But the thing is, nothing will ever take away the joy and hope it gave me when it first started. The first two seasons of this show are nearly perfect. I’ll never forget how excited I was to have a superhero that reminded me of… well, of me. Kara was hopeful and open and a team player and so different than her grumpy male counterparts in the DCTV universe and she truly was a breath of fresh air. And just when I thought the show couldn’t get any better, Alex Danvers came out. She has one of my favorite coming out arcs on all of television, and her and her current girlfriend Kelly were often the best parts of the most recent season. I still, perhaps foolishly, believe this show can get back to what makes it great, so I put it here on this list with hope in my heart.

9. The Vampire Diaries/ The Originals/ Legacies

Why yes, here I am, cheating already. IN MY DEFENSE, these shows all take place in the same universe. There are character crossovers galore. Epic lore and three-dimensional characters and taking the idea of ‘endgame’ and flipping it on its head. And so many queer witches! And a queer werewolf! I wrote about the good, the bad, and the queer history of this universe so I won’t bore you with the details here but my friend and I devoured all 8 bajillion episodes of this universe last summer and it was such a fun world to be immersed in.

8. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Ever since my brother, who is four years younger than me, was little, I’ve found comfort in the escapism of shows technically made for children. I watched shows on Nickelodeon during my summer breaks from college, my friend and I threw a watch party for the Disney movie Descendants 3 just last year. And while I also very much enjoy the made-for-adults cartoons like Bob’s Burgers, Bojack Horseman, and Tuca & Bertie, I also find the pureness of shows like She-Ra and Steven Universe healing. They’re the type of shows I wish I had when I was younger, and so watching Adora and Catra fight with and for each other on this queer show made by queer folks as a queer adult? My inner queer child is soothed. Plus the whole show is about the power of friendship and smashing the patriarchy and what’s not to like about that?

7. The Haunting of Hill House

I’ve loved the horror genre for as long as I can remember. I read every Goosebumps book as soon as it came out, I watched Are You Afraid of the Dark every Saturday night. So now that I’m in my 30s, I feel like I’ve seen it all. It’s very easy to do horror poorly, and oh so many people do. And for folks who just want a jump scare now and then, that’s fine, but I like history and lore and STORY. Plus also enough spooks to get my adrenaline pumping. Haunting of Hill House gave me just that. It was beautifully done, from the CGI to the practical effects to the directing and acting. And just brilliantly written. Then they gave us the Theo Crain cherry on top. The spooky lesbian empath of my dreams.

6. South of Nowhere

I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, I haven’t rewatched South of Nowhere since I first saw it over a decade ago, so I can’t tell you with any kind of certainty that it holds up. I don’t even remember if it was an on-paper good show. But it was so important to me. Spencer Carlin is a big reason I came out when I did. Ashley is the tough outer shell, squishy insides type of character I love. Spencer’s mom had the reaction I was scared my mother would have, and then went on a journey to acceptance I allowed myself to hope my mother would go on. It was a teen drama like all the other teen dramas I had watched and loved before, but this time the main character was in love with another girl instead of the quarterback of the football team or the town bad boy (or both).

5. Legends of Tomorrow

People talk about “jumping the shark” like it’s a bad thing, and for shows that are typically nowhere near the “water”, it can be alarming when they do it. But Legends of Tomorrow took a whole herd of sharks, saddled them, gave them silly names, and hitched them to their time machine. And it’s beautiful. They’re already time-traveling vigilantes, why not have FUN. Their world defies the logic of our world, so why wouldn’t their show defy the logic of the genre? The show puts characters first, and then plays MadLibs to figure out what will be happening around them while they learn and grow and bond. Plus, Sara Lance, from her first episode in Arrow to her most recent Legends moment, has had one of the most epic character growth arcs of all time. A fully realized bisexual character who refuses to die no matter how many times they kill her, and who had a long-term girlfriend, then a few flings, then another long-term girlfriend. She is nobody’s trope and I love her. PLUS, she’s not anywhere near the only three-dimensional queer character on the show. There’s her lesbian clone girlfriend, her pretty pansexual shape-shifting pal, her bisexual wizard boy ex and his queer assistant who has a crush on anyone even a little in charge of him. And if you get into secondary characters, the list just goes on and on. It’s just a fun queer time and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

4. One Day at a Time

Two words: Elena Alvarez. I know I already talked about retroactively healing the wounds of my younger selves so I won’t go on too much about it but Elena feels like how I would be if I were a teenager in 2020 instead of in the early 2000s. There are a lot of similarities between my family and hers, but also so many differences, and I love seeing myself reflected in her and also learning from her. The show balances humor and heart with great skill. I never thought any 30-minute comedy would ever live up to Parks & Rec in my book, but this show soared right into my top sitcom spot swiftly and easily.

3. Orphan Black

Orphan Black was an amazing show, with an amazing story and a unique feel to it, but that’s not why it’s so high on this list. I mean yes, the brilliant acting job by Tatiana Maslany, the writing that elevated women and told the story about how different we all are even when we’re genetically identical, the Gays, it was all PART of the reason it’s so high on this list. But the thing is, Orphan Black changed my life. Writing recaps for it changed the trajectory of my career, Tatiana Maslany was my first (email) interview, Orphan Black was the first show to send me physical screeners and press kits in the mail with letters calling me a journalist, my first red carpet interviews, my first cast-and-crew-attended press party. It was the first hashtag I invented that took off (hey #clonesbians), the first fan meetups I organized. I met some of my best friends through this show, so it will always be part of my DNA. Pun very much intended.

2. Wynonna Earp

Similar to Orphan Black, Wynonna Earp changed my life. I met even MORE of my best friends through this show, and have had even more amazing opportunities because of it. I couldn’t even begin to describe all the ways this show has changed me. The sci-fi is wacky but the characters and their relationships are so real. Wynonna is that tough on the outside soft on the inside gal I mentioned earlier. Waverly is that optimism-is-harder-than-it-looks type, like what drew me to Kara Danvers. Nicole isn’t just Waverly’s girlfriend, she’s her own person. Plus their world is full of such complicated women like Rosita and Kate and Mercedes. The show is funny and smart and full of found family feels, which I suppose is how it led me to my smart, funny found family.

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I was 11 years old when I started watching Buffy. 11-years-old when I saw this teenage girl kick everyone’s ass. The show was dark and gritty but funny and sweet and I couldn’t get enough. The fast-paced quips made their way into my lexicon, and haven’t left. To the point where sometimes I make Buffy references and don’t even realize I’m doing it. Buffy is the first way I started to explore my sexuality, though I didn’t recognize it as such. At the time it was just acting out f/f romantic storylines in AOL RP chatrooms as Buffy characters. You know, for the luls. I watched Buffy with my dad, and watching him watch Willow and Tara the same way he watched any other pairing on the show planted a seed of hope I would cling to later. (And in fact, when I did come out to him, he said, “Yeah, I know. I watched Buffy with you. I remember how you reacted to Faith.”) The kids in the Scooby Gang were my friends when I felt like I had none, my familiar faces to visit when I was off in New York City alone for college, and the show that taught me that even when everything sucks and feels impossible, you can still be brave and live.

Shows that almost made the list: Jane the Virgin, Pretty Little Liars, Nancy Drew, Glee, Shameless, Fleabag, Warehouse 13, Marvel’s Runaways, Impulse, OH GODS SO MANY MORE

My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows: Natalie, the TV Team’s Resident Bisexual

In My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV shows nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that don’t have lesbian / bisexual / queer woman characters. 

Today, writer and TV critic Natalie shares her top 10 favorites TV shows of all times and tries to convince you to watch.

10. Pitch

It’s been three years since FOX cancelled Pitch and, let me tell you, I’m still not over it. The series, about the first woman to play Major League Baseball, only lasted a season but it made in indelible impression. Kylie Bunbury stars as 23-year-old Ginny Baker who steps into the Padres bullpen mid-season. Like Friday Night Lights, Pitch is a show about sports that’s not entirely about sports; it’s about the challenges of being the first in a space. You get all the emotion of Dan Fogelman’s other 2016 series, This is Us but without the excessive sentimentality.

I loved Pitch from the outset: Bunbury is imminently watchable as Ginny Baker and Mark-Paul Gosselaar charms as gruff Padres catcher, Mike Lawson. But the show resonates with me most because it’s an opportunity to see someone from where I’m from — Ginny’s from a small town in Eastern North Carolina and we almost share an alma mater — thrive on the global stage. I still cling to the hope that one day, Pitch will get a second season but, for now, you can watch the show’s lone season on Hulu.

9. The Good Wife

“I’m not gay, I’m flexible,” Kalinda Sharma tells Alicia Florrick one night over drinks. For anyone else, that answer might feel like a cop-out, but for Kalinda Sharma it fits. As the badass private investigator at Lockhart Gardner, Kalinda constantly makes herself just malleable enough to accomplish whatever she wants or needs in the moment. She is terribly enigmatic — as evidenced by the fact that it took her two years to respond to Alicia’s question about her sexuality — but she draws you in all the while. I love how Kalinda Sharma upends so many of the stereotypes that often constrain South Asian women on television. Sufficed to say, I watch The Good Wife for Kalinda Sharma… and when she left (and given how she left), my attention went with her.

8. Luther

Before there was Villanelle, there was Alice Morgan.

Debuting back in 2010, Luther follows the travails of Detective John Luther who, in his first case, post-suspension, has to solve the murders of Douglas and Laura Morgan. His suspect? Their daughter, Alice. While Luther’s questioning exposes Alice as a “malignant narcissist,” there’s no evidence linking her to the crime — Alice is too smart for that, frankly — and he’s forced to let her go. But that’s only the beginning of their relationship… which becomes just as alluring as it is toxic.

Especially in the show’s first series, watching Luther is like watching two fighters in their prime: both Idris Elba and Ruth Wilson deliver outstanding performances. As Alice, Wilson is magnetic: drawing you in and making you cheer for her even though she’s obviously a psychopath. She’s on my Mount Rushmore of TV Villains.

7. Jane the Virgin

From my contribution to last summer’s Jane the Virgin roundtable:

I watch a lot of television – you know, for work – and when I’m watching any ensemble show, I have a tendency to gravitate to a few characters while growing to loathe a few others. I’ll devour storylines featuring the characters I care about, especially the queer ones, while begrudgingly sitting through the storylines featuring characters I don’t. That’s been the case for nearly every other show I’ve ever watched, except for Jane the Virgin.

I cared about damn near every character on this show. I wanted love for Petra and Alba. I was invested in Xiomara’s health just as much as I hoped for Luisa to hold onto her sobriety. I wanted Jane’s career to flourish and for Rogelio to find success on the American small screen. And while I had my preference for who would win Jane’s heart, I wanted happiness for both Michael and Rafael. There wasn’t a character I truly loathed – well, besides Petra’s mom, but that was kind of the point – and I never once found myself wanting to fast-forward through anyone else’s storylines. It’s such a rare and incredible feat.

6. Friday Night Lights

I never really bought into the football culture of the Southern town I grew up in but I was fully sold on life in Dillon, Texas. It’s a show about becoming the best versions of ourselves, led by these two incredible educators. I love it so, so much. Clear eyes, full hearts…

5. How to Get Away With Murder

I’ve written enough about my love for How to Get Away With Murder and Annalise Keating that I won’t belabor the point too much here… except to echo our Senior Editor Carmen Phillips who, directly following HTGAWM’s finale, dubbed her: “THEE most important black queer woman character we’ve ever had on television, bar none.”

4. The Sopranos

It’s hard to imagine many of my favorite shows existing if not for The Sopranos. The crime drama rewrote the rules about what stories could be told on the small screen and, in doing so, changed the whole entire game. Sopranos creator David Chase took advantage of the archetypes we’d already seen in the Godfather trilogy and Goodfellas and gave them more depth that would’ve ever been possible in film.

3. The West Wing

There’s no show on this list that I’ve watched more often than The West Wing. Rarely a day goes by when I don’t find myself quoting the show in some way. It served as a salve during the worst of the George W. Bush presidency… a reminder that competent governance was still possible. During the Obama years, it was a shortcut: a way for me to explain difficult political issues. Need to understand the debate over Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Watch “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet.” The debate over school vouchers or the DC City Governance? Try “Full Disclosure.” Now, it’s an escape: a place where I can laugh at Joey Lucas’ first meeting with Josh Lyman, CJ Cregg’s performance of “The Jackal” or Big Block of Cheese Day.

2. Breaking Bad

As evidenced by numerous entries on this list, I love a good villain… and there is no greater villain ever on television than Gustavo “Gus” Fring on Breaking Bad.

The model that Walter White showcased in Breaking Bad‘s first few seasons — the drug dealer who hid in plain sight — to some success, Gus Fring perfected. He was a model citizen: a slight, bespectacled man whose legitimate businesses, most notably Los Pollos Hermanos chicken franchise, fund his philanthropic efforts. He’s even a booster for the Drug Enforcement Agency. But beneath his dashing suits lies the heart of a ruthless drug kingpin, controlling drug distribution across the entire Southwest. He slips from pure sophistication to absolute villiany in the blink of an eye and it is a sight to behold. Gus Fring seems impenetrable and unflappable until he’s not… and even that makes for one of Breaking Bad’s greatest moments.

1. The Wire

At this point, it feels almost cliché to have The Wire atop my list. It feels too obvious. I mean, once the President of the United States has called it his favorite show and agrees that Omar Little is the greatest character ever to exist on television… it feels like you’re not offering any insightful commentary, you’re just stating facts. Fire is hot, water is wet and The Wire is the greatest television show of all time. Facts on facts on facts.

Shows that almost made the list: The Chicago Code, Life, One Day at a Time, Psych, Survivor’s Remorse, Terriers, Vida and Watchmen

My Top 10 Television Shows: Drew Gregory

In My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV shows nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that don’t have lesbian / bisexual / queer woman characters. 

Today, writer and TV/film critic Drew Gregory shares feelings about her favorite shows of all time.

10. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

I’m a Jewish girl with mental illness who is obsessed with love and musicals. What else needs to be said? Across four seasons, Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna created a show brimming with ambition, intelligence, and delight. Songs like “You Stupid Bitch,” “Ping Pong Girl,” “A Diagnosis,” “Maybe She’s Not Such a Heinous Bitch,” and so many more range from emotional to hilarious, always deepening the story like any good musical — while doing things a movie musical never could. A reprise just feels different when it’s four years in the making.

9. High Maintenance

More like a collection of short stories than a collection of short films, Katja Blichfeld and Ben Sinclair’s portrait of New York switches genre as often as plot. Some episodes are horror movies, some love stories, many grounded in the magic of everyday reality, and some even from the point of view of a dog or a lighter. And yet despite all the different lives explored, High Maintenance really came alive when Blichfeld and Sinclair let their own relationship seep into the narrative. It was a vulnerable choice that continues to deepen the show in unexpected ways.

8. Fleabag

This show is very personal to me, which makes its gargantuan success feel somewhat strange. But the truth is I think it’s personal to a lot of people because writer/creator/star Phoebe Waller-Bridge created something special. I don’t actually have much in common with any of the characters and yet it feels like she tore ventricles from my heart, scooped out a corner of my brain, and splattered it all on screen. Years after Hot Priest discourse is long forgotten, the show’s little moments will continue to comfort me.

7. Six Feet Under

The first time the “describe yourself with three characters” meme floated around Twitter, I half-jokingly, very seriously posted the three Six Feet Under siblings. David’s attempts at control and role as caretaker; Nate’s endless, dissatisfied wandering; and, of course, Claire’s angst, bite, and desire to create. How lucky for me to feel connections to characters that happen to inhabit one of the most formally accomplished, well-written masterworks of the medium. If this list was best instead of favorite, I’d have a hard time putting anything else at number one.

6. Looking

Every Looking episode name begins with the title: “Looking for the Future,” “Looking in the Mirror,” “Looking for Home.” If you come into this show wanting a representation of contemporary gay life, you’ll be disappointed by its narrow focus. But that was never creator Andrew Haigh’s ambitions, nor should every queer show require those ambitions. This is a show about, well, looking. It’s a show about searching. It’s the best show I’ve ever seen about dating. It’s sometimes cringey, often hilarious, and regularly heartbreaking. It’s buzzing with the beautiful dissatisfaction of life.

5. The L Word

There is The L Word the show and there is The L Word the cultural touchstone. I love both. I get more pleasure discussing The L Word than I do any other work of art. Maybe it’s because it felt forbidden for so long, or maybe there’s just something special about how many people in our community have watched and loved and hated and agonized over it. But I also think it’s worth emphasizing that The L Word is also just a remarkable work of television. It’s certainly not perfect, but I think the artistry of work made by women and queer people is often erased, and it’s important to acknowledge the show’s ambitious formal achievements alongside its representational milestones. And I will defend the theme song until I die.

4. Vida

I loved Tanya Saracho because she wrote on Looking, but wow when I decided to watch a show on Starz for the first time I did not know what I was getting into. I feel like I’ve spent the last three years with a side job as a Vida missionary. It’s just so good and I need everyone to watch it. This is a show about family and community and grief and gentrification and reckoning with the past and the future. It’s a show made with an entirely Latinx writers room and a majority queer and female crew. It’s proof that making a show right is also how you make it best. Special shoutout to Carmen Cabana’s cinematography, the hottest cast on television, and the best sex scenes I’ve ever seen in anything. God I wish it wasn’t canceled, but I’ll forever cherish these three seasons.

3. The Bisexual

When people ask me what kind of work I make/want to make, I say I want to tell stories about queer fuck ups who are trying their best. Because queer people are people! And “good” representation means seeing the scope of that humanity on screen. Desiree Akhavan’s work epitomizes these goals to me. She’s not concerned with respectability politics. She just wants to capture the intricacies of the queer lives she observes. She’s so funny, and talented, and, yes, hot, and The Bisexual is her crowning achievement in a young career already filled with many. This show gives me permission to be the person I am and the artist I want to become.

2. The Leftovers

As a former Lost superfan, I was very suspicious of Damon Lindelof’s follow-up. How could I trust another show with an ensemble cast and a plot full of mysteries after the last one turned out to be such a disaster? Well, I couldn’t. And in a sense that’s the entire point of The Leftovers. It’s not a show about answers, but about how answers don’t exist. It’s a show that’s as messy as it is ambitious and as baffling as it is remarkable. Its first season isn’t even that great, and this is a show that only ran for three. And, yet, in its own way it’s a miracle. It began in 2014 when I was in the process of having a personal political awakening and ended in 2017 after the entire country seemed to be doing the same. We live in a really bad world that’s filled with pain and grief and uncertainty. But it’s also filled with humanity and beauty and possibility. It’s hard to reckon with the existential crisis of existence, but this show tries, and the attempt is glorious. As the theme song says: let the mystery be.

1. Transparent

No other show could be my number one. No other show has reflected my present and shaped my future like this one. If you put every other show on this list in a blender, you’d end up with Jill Soloway’s messy masterpiece. I think a theme on this list has been my interest in narratives of searching and questioning and confusion, and there’s something very Jewish and very queer about that. It’s possible to make a perfect movie, but for any show that runs for more than a few years perfection is far more elusive. But television can do something more important than perfection. We can grow with TV. We can start a show as a straight cis boy who doesn’t care about religion and end a show as a gay trans woman who feels close to her Judaism. I grew with this show. I grew because of this show. It’s a part of me.

Shows that almost made the list: Jane the Virgin, Pose, Sex Education, Top of the Lake, Atlanta, Enlightened, Glee, I Love Dick, Mad Men, United States of Tara, BoJack Horseman, Sense8

My Top 10 Television Shows: Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

In My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV shows nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that don’t have lesbian / bisexual / queer woman characters. 

Today, writer and TV critic Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya shares feelings about her favorite shows of all time.

First, a disclaimer. I’m betting that most of us who are participating in this series are probably going to write something along the lines of “fuck lists.” My colleagues will probably be less vulgar about it than that, but seriously! Fuck lists! And yet, here I am, making a list. And writing a disclaimer about said list because making lists that have definitive-sounding titles really does stress me out.

So know this: This list is not fixed. Because I am not fixed. This list is true for me in this specific moment in time. Ask me again in a month, a year, a few years, and I will come up with a slightly or even wildly different list. My relationship to different works of art is in constant flux. One thing that does unite every show on this list as it stands is that each of them came into my life at the exact right time and also all influence my own writing in some way. Over the course of writing this, I switched out four different shows in the tenth position.

Anyway, I’m gonna cut myself off now because I’m starting to sound like a dramatic bitch about… a list of television shows. Here we go!

10. Battlestar Galactica

I just really love space? And heavy-handed but still effective allegory? Also, this show pulls off one of my favorite twists of all time.

9. Tie: Riverdale/Elite

Gonna hit you with a double dose of teen soap here. These shows check a lot of boxes for me: hot teens ✓ with hot parents ✓ doing murders ✓ and making dumb decisions ✓ and also there are gays ✓. Elite is vastly underrated in comparison to the beloved but also perplexing Riverdale, but it’s a campy fun prep school thriller that pretty much never loses steam over the course of three seasons despite constantly mixing in new characters and twists. I love the chaos of both.

8. Parks and Recreation

It was harder for me to pick which 30-minute sitcoms to include on here — not because I don’t have a lot that I love — but because a lot of the ones I was inclined to pick sort of satisfy the same things for me? Anyway, Parks is a forever comfort show for me.

7. Real Housewives Of New York

I would be a full-on LIAR if I did not include at least one reality show on my list because, while I am a late-in-life reality fan, as with many of my interests, once I was in I was ALL THE WAY IN BABY. Real Housewives Of New York has a lot of the same stuff I appreciate in scripted drama/comedy: friendship breakups, intense borderline toxic codependent friendships, friendship makeups, and women being openly HORNY (which is coincidentally also an anagram for the show’s abbreviation).

6. Alias

I love action, and I love wigs/costumes, and this show has those things in spades. Yes, the mythology gets absolutely bonkers as the show goes on, but the first season remains top-tier, and the show’s willingness to blow up its own narrative over and over is something I think about a lot when I feel stuck in my own writing and wanna try something WILD. Alias taught me all about ambitious plotting, even when it didn’t always succeed.

5. Sharp Objects

Here is a show I literally have watched over and over and over, and I don’t know exactly what that says about me. I am just so awed by the writing, acting, and direction of this entire series. From the characters to the setting to the pain and trauma it depicts, everything is just immediately immersive and compelling. Sometimes I just rewatch the first few minutes of the series, which do so much to establish place, tone, etc. without dialogue. As a sidenote, I think Gillian Flynn has given us some of the best female characters of all time.

4. Jane The Virgin

The perfect mix of drama, humor, romance, a touch of fantasy… Jane has the range. I fell hard for this show and loved it all the way to the end. Every storyline always does so much at once, and the performances are multidimensional, too.

3. Veronica Mars

Seasons one and two of this show are absolutely perfect. I love noir; I love teen shows; I love a really bold but complicated female protagonist. I just realized in the course of writing this that this is the only show on the list that I’ve only seen once. Not for any particular reason! It just really is one of those things I wish I could experience for the first time all over again.

2. The Good Wife

As far as procedurals go, this is the one I return to over and over again. It exists in that space I love that sort of blurs low-brow and high-brow. It’s legal-drama camp! Kalinda Sharma is one of the most important TV characters to me personally, even though the show ultimately bungled her arc.

1. Buffy The Vampire Slayer

I came to Buffy a little late. Like it was already on Netflix late. And sometimes that makes me feel insecure about how much I love it, which I know is stupid because WHO CARES. Even if I didn’t grow up watching the show, it did come to me at the exact right time in my life (right around when I started dating a woman for the first time—in secret), and it still ended up being extremely formative of the new me that was starting to emerge around college. It’s sometimes hard to explain it exactly, but this show made me feel…like me. Another side note: I’m surprised more fantasy/supernatural/sci-fi shows didn’t end up on this list, because those have always been the shows that resonate on a deep level for me. But again, this list isn’t fixed because neither am I!!!!!

Shows that almost made the list: Vida, Glee, Star Trek: TNG, Pen15, Friday Night Lights, Bojack Horseman, Damages, Dare Me, The Vampire Diaries, The L Word, Revenge, 30 Rock, Community, The Good Place, Charmed, The X-Files, Agent Carter

My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows: Riese, Editor-in-Chief

In My Top 10 Favorite Television Shows, various members of Autostraddle’s TV Team will be telling you about the TV shows nearest and dearest to our hearts, EVEN the ones that don’t have lesbian / bisexual / queer woman characters. 

Today, we kick off with CEO Riese sharing her feelings about her favorite shows of all time, which, with one exception, are all ensemble dramas / dramedies!

10. Orange is the New Black

Within five minutes of the first episode, the protagonist was making out, naked, with a woman in a shower. This was UNPRECEDENTED. Then it turned out she wasn’t even the only queer character? And it had this incredibly diverse cast of women, women of all ages and races and sizes, many with theatrical chops? AND it cast a black trans woman to play a black trans woman? AND it addressed an issue that I’ve been pretty passionate about for 15 or so years — our fucked up criminal justice system and prison-industrial complex, which started many conversations around mass incarceration and injustice. People had an inroad. Poussey’s death was one of the most devastating and poorly handled TV character deaths in queer television history. But damn, it’s hard to find another show with a cast this incredible, or any I binged immediately, every year, even when I thought I’d fallen out of love with it. I love and care for these characters with deranged passion.

9. Tie: Beverly Hills 90210 / The L Word

I couldn’t include one of these without the other, and I couldn’t include neither, so here we are: two shows that are so deeply engrained in the fabric of my being that I do not know if I would’ve turned out to be the same type of human had I not watched the entirety of both, rapt and obsessive until the very end.

8. Transparent

The queerest Jewiest show ever, Transparent rolled right in to the intersections of all my favorite things about television. I think I’ve written about Transparent already like 500 times on this website, right?

7. Friday Night Lights

My total disinterest in football as a sport didn’t matter. Friday Night Lights existed in a fully inhabited world of characters who displayed the full breadth of their humanity. This show made me feel good and hopeful in a way that wasn’t cheap, it was undeniably grounded in realism with a nuanced understanding of race and class. Furthermore, Tami Taylor is perfect, and the Taylors’ marriage is aspirational for us all.

6. The West Wing

I don’t know if I could ever watch this show again; not now. Maybe it would feel like a wax museum or a fantasyland. I barely registered its existence — a political drama didn’t appeal to me, not really — until George W. Bush won his second term and my roommate started a marathon with the Season One DVDs and I sat down because it was my living room too and a whole world opened up to me. And I think we saw a little Jed in Obama, didn’t we?

5. Shameless

Perhaps one of the most satisfying experiences for a queer television watcher is when a show you’re watching not for work but simply because you adore it, introduces a queer female character… and then another… and then more… and then even more! Shameless has been criminally uneven, especially in recent years. It’s made unforgivable and frustrating choices. But Shameless‘ characters are so richly drawn, the scenarios they concoct and encounter are so wacky and unpredictable and beneath it all is unmistakable heart. They’ve also managed to incorporate a relatively benign attitude towards queer sexuality as just another element of life that is ultimately small potatoes when your focus is more squarely upon having enough potatoes to eat for dinner.

4. Halt and Catch Fire

I started watching this show ’cause a reader told me a lesbian showed up eventually but by the time I got there it didn’t matter — I was all in. I was there for the powerful women in tech, ’80s/’90s nostalgia, damn fine writing, stories that bounce in unexpected directions, driven by big concepts that rarely get such a compelling dramatic treatment on contemporary television. It’s about ideas, about a team of wicked smart humans who turn hazy visions of a connected future into a tightly coded reality, knowing always that somebody else out there might be riding the same melt and could beat them to beta. It’s about the thought experiments behind the big-deal ideas we now take for granted, from the internet itself to online retail, search engines, layman-accessible chat rooms, internet security and web directories. I learned so much and it looked so good and my only complaint is that it was over too soon, that nobody watched it.

3. The Office

Nothing makes me laugh like this show, nothing!!!!! I love it so much!!! Pam and Jim forever!!!

2. My So-Called Life

I can’t talk about myself about my life about being 13 without talking about when Angela Chase was 15 and the phone appointments I had with all my best friends after every episode, the letters I wrote to ABC asking them not to cancel it, the MTV marathons I taped. We got just one season and I watched it over and over and over and over, more than The L Word, even. I got an internship at nerve.com by submitting an essay called “Why Shane is the New Jordan Catalano.” Angela was me, Rayanne was always my new best friend, Sharon was always my old one, and Jordan was always my crush. Go, now, go…. 

1. Six Feet Under

Dying in Six Feet Under didn’t mean your character arc was over, not by a long shot. Ghosts were everywhere — they talked to you, chided you, consumed you. Because that’s how death really feels, you know? Sure they’re gone, technically. But if being alive means always being somewhere, then being dead means sometimes being nowhere and sometimes being everywhere. Six Feet Under recognizes that grief is so many things: all-consuming and inevitably partial, devastating and hilarious. I love that the story begins with a family losing their father, and every consequential action is heavier because of it, that happiness and revelation and beauty happens despite it, which makes those beautiful moments “burn a little brighter,” as Claire’s druggie boyfriend would say. The Fishers were smart and interesting and complicated, all of them — even Ruth, who was, along with Shelly Pfefferman, a very rare example of an older woman character who is treated like a full human, still discovering who she is and what she wants. Women over 50 on TV never get to do that. they’re always a done deal. So many quotes from Six Feet Under remain in my back pocket forever — about death, sure, but about relationships and mental illness, too. The moments I remember most vividly from the show aren’t even the ones about death, but the ones about other things altogether, like pain and relationships and sexuality. But knowing those words and ideas came from people who’d felt pain like the pain I’ve felt made them, somehow, better.

Shows that almost made the list: The Leftovers, High Maintenance,The Wire, Skins, Broad City, Veep, Wentwoth, Dawson’s Creek, Queer as Folk, The Handmaid’s Tale, G.L.O.W., Killing Eve, The Brady Bunch, Battlestar Galactica

15 Spring 2020 TV Shows With LGBTQ+ Women Characters To Anticipate or Enjoy or Whatever You Need Right Now

Spring has sprung although the relevance of spring’s sprungance has decreased in recent weeks. But one thing has remained the same: the beating, thrumming, existential siren song emanating from your television or computer, offering you escape or reflection through engaging in televised entertainment.

We’d normally be doing our Spring TV Preview right now, but my friends — it is a bleak little batch of shows right now! So let’s talk about some shows you may’ve missed in March as well as what we’re anticipating for April, May and June.

March Releases (Already Airing):

Little Fires Everywhere: Limited Series (Hulu) – March

Adapted from the best-selling novel by Celeste Ng and headed up by bisexual showrunner Liz Tigelaar, this Hulu limited series set in 1997 (with all the pitch-perfect cultural references you’d expect) makes a few significant and important deviations from its source material in order to tell an even more complicated story about class, race and sexuality. One very welcome adjustment? It’s gayer.

Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker (Netflix) – March

watch trailer

Octavia Spencer plays Madam C.J. Walker, the first woman and the first black person to become a self-made millionaire in America when she debuted a best-selling line of hair and beauty products for Black women. Her daughter, A’Lelia — played by Tiffany Haddish — was a vivid presence in The Harlem Renaissance, throwing lavish parties attended by princesses and dykes from Europe and Russia, New York socialites and the well-known intellectuals and writers of the Harlem Renaissance. The series commits to A’Lelia’s own bisexuality, as well.

Feel Good: Season One (Netflix) – March

read our review

Mae Martin is VERY cute and funny in this delightful little series in which she plays Mae, a recovering cocaine addict and stand-up comic who falls for a straight girl.

Motherland: Fort Salem (Freeform / Hulu) – March

watch the trailer

This alternate history suggests a world within the witches were not all killed by the Salem Witch Trials, but rather rose up and took over the U.S. government. Some of the new recruits training at the exclusively all-girls compound are — you guessed it! — gay!

April:

Siren: Season Three (The CW) – April 3

watch the trailer

If you’re into environmentalism, polyamory, and murder mermaids, Siren is the show for you. It’s unlike most other shows on television, and is calling out the dangers of overfishing and pollution and humans disrupting the natural balance of the ocean, while also having the three main characters (Ben, Maddie, and Rin) in a genuine throuple; just a man, a woman, and a little mermaid. We are shown humanity and relationship/social constructs challenged by this newcomer, and it’s fun to watch her break down everyone’s expectations while also breaking a few necks as necessary. (-Valerie)

Killing Eve: Season Three (BBC America/AMC) – April 12

watch the trailer

(Photo/s: BBC America)

Killing Eve showrunner and lead writer Suzanne Heathcoate says we’ll get to see elements of Villanelle’s character we’ve never seen before in Season Three “and begin to understand who she is as a person.” Eve has obviously survived after what seemed to be her murder by Villanelle but is “forever changed.” “It’s really about seeing her now, this new version of herself, and her acceptance of herself,” says Heathcote, “which is very exciting and really takes her into new places.”

Baptiste: Season One (PBS) –  April 12

watch the trailer

After debuting in the UK on the BBC last year, Baptiste comes to the states on PBS in this spinoff of The Missing. Julien Baptiste is helping the Dutch police investigate the disappearance of s sex worker in Amsterdam. He also meets Kim Vogel, a trans cafe owner and sex worker organizer who is played by trans actress Talisa Garcia.

In The Dark: Season Two (The CW): April 16

watch the trailer

In the Dark is about a blind woman, Murphy, who was a bit of a selfish asshole until someone she cared about was murdered, and then she joined forces with her lesbian roommate, Jess, and her on-again, off-again boyfriend to try to solve the mystery. The show made some…questionable choices regarding representation on all fronts – blindness, lesbianism, bisexuality – but Murphy and Jess are a sort of irresistible Slytherin/Hufflepuff friendship and maybe, just maybe, they’ll make some better choices in Season 2. (-Valerie)

We’re Here: Season One (HBO) – April 23

watch the trailer

Drag queens Bob the Drag Queen, Eureka O’Hara and Shangela Laquifa Wadley explore gay life in the U.S., “serving change one small town at a time” by recruiting residents to participate in a one-night only drag performance. The trailer suggests that LGBTQ people, including women and non-binary folks, will be part of the program. The New York Times writes, “The transformee’s personal stories of discrimination, loneliness and empowerment are genuinely moving, and the producers don’t shy away from exploring the complexity of being queer in America.”

Defending Jacob: Limited Series (Apple+) – April 24

watch the trailer

A young couple is forced to reckon with very dramatic situations when their son is accused of MURDER. I’m not sure if there’s any gay in this, but it looks really good and also Cherry Jones plays his lawyer and like, her character is gay right? I feel like that’s the rule but as I am reminded so often these days….. I don’t make the rules…..

Vida: Season Three (Starz) – April 26

watch the trailer

Unfortunately for all of us Vida superfans, Vida‘s third season will be its last but it looks like they’re going out with a bang — with a lot of drag, old family secrets, lesbian drama, girl-on-girl action and increasing conflicts with neighborhood activists.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels: Season One (Showtime): April 26

watch the trailer

Natalie Dormer as Magda in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS “Santa Muerte”, Photo Credit: Justin Lubin/SHOWTIME.

City of Angels is set in 1938 Los Angeles, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, centered on a murder investigation within a time and place “deeply infused with Mexican-American folklore and social tension.” The deity Santa Muerte, who is often seen as a protector of LGBT communities in Mexico, is central to the story. The showrunners say, “it’s set in 1938, but it’s about 2020. It’s about the dangers of demagoguery, it’s about the demonization of the other, it’s about nationalist fervor, it’s about people being terrified, it’s about new transportation, new technologies, the constant threat of war, it’s about people being at this moment in history and not being able to see what the next ten years is going to be and they’re terrified.” Will there be anything queer in it that is relevant to our interests? I’m truly not sure! But here it is on your radar just in case!

May

Betty: Season One (HBO) – May 1

watch the trailer

This high-energy and very funny six-episode spinoff of the 2018 film “Skate Kitchen” already looks gayer than the film and will follow a group of women navigating New York’s male-dominated skater culture. Skate Kitchen filmmaker Crystal Moselle created the show with Brooklyn 99 writer Lesley Arfin.

Hollywood: Limited Series (Netflix) – May 1

Set in 1940s Tinseltown, this seven-episode limited series from Ryan Murphy mixes fictional characters with actual legends and a cast that includes Holland Taylor, Laura Harrier, Samara Weaving, Maude Apatow and Mira Sorvino. Michelle Krusiec is set to play bisexual actress Anna Mae Wong, considered Hollywood’s first Chinese-American movie star. Janet Mock is serving as Executive Producer, Writer and Director, describing the series as an “aspirational tale of what ifs” where “a band of outsiders are given a chance to tell their own story.”

Billions: Season Five (Showtime) – May 3

watch the trailer

We’re not actually aware of any LGBTQ+ women characters in this show, but we wanted to mention it anyhow because it has a very important non-binary character! Non-binary character Taylor Mason is forced back to Axe Capital in Season Five, where they must fight to protect their employees and their assets. The series had to halt production due to COVID, so only part of the fifth season will air this spring, the rest is TBD.

Hightown: Season One (Starz) – May 17

watch the trailer

Monica Raymund’s Jackie Quiñones is a hard-drinking and womanizing Provincetown townie who gets pulled into a drug-related murder investigation when she finds a body on the beach — another victim of Cape Cod’s opioid epidemic. This “funny, exciting, sexy crime drama” also sees Jackie on her own journey towards sobriety. We are VERY stoked for a queer woman of color lead played by a queer actress!

Snowpiercer: Season One (TNT) – May 17

watch the trailer

NewNowNext seems to think this show will have “a lot more sexual fluidity” than we saw in the film (directed by Parasite‘s Bong Joon-ho), and at around 2:04 in the trailer that perpetual dream of ours appears to be coming true. Set in a frigid, post-apocalyptic future aboard a constantly moving train, Snowpiercer sees class differences play out amongst 1,001 cars that are home to the remainder of Earth’s population.

What Are Your Five TV Shows To Get To Know You?

People have been sharing their personal “Five TV Shows to Get to Know Me” on Twitter, and it led to Autostraddle’s TV Team taking a good hard look within ourselves to come up with our own smattering of shows that best embody who we are at our core. Because we are a group of professional television lovers, definitive lists are our enemies!!!!!! What is meant to be a simple tweet format is, for us, a challenge a bit like dissecting our own hearts! Yes, our relationships with television are perfectly fine and healthy THANKS.

Anyway, after some introspection, we each have come up with our list of five shows that people should watch if they want to know us — and I mean really KNOW us. Reminder: These are not necessarily the five television shows that we think are the best of all time or even necessarily our five favorite shows of all time. They are the shows that are, in some way, indicative of Who We Are. With that in mind, we’d love to hear yours in the comments!

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Glee: I used to be a musical theater kid, and once a musical theater kid, always a musical theater kid — sorry!

The Vampire Diaries: This show has a lot of heightened emotions in it, and baby, I’m all over the place emotionally.

The Real Housewives Of New York: I like older women and juicy drama, and yes I absolutely am a Gemini with mommy issues! Also I love my friends fiercely, and ultimATELY? All the Real Housewives shows are about friendship.

The Good Wife: I am intense, extremely passionate about the things I care about, and love to drink red wine while wearing a power blazer.

Riverdale: I’m a lover of mysteries like Betty Cooper (and also have anxiety like her), a daddy’s girl like Veronica Lodge (SORRY), a writer like Jughead Jones, a spooky lesbian like Cheryl Blossom, and… ok, I’m nothing like Archie Andrews.

I’m realizing now that all of my answers basically scream CAMP and AESTHETICS, and you know what? Accurate.

Natalie

How to Get Away With Murder: Annalise and I are pretty much the same person, minus all the murder stuff.

Pitch: Ginny Baker and I are from the same ‘hood and we would share an alma mater, if she hadn’t got drafted into the Major Leagues.

Pose: Family first, forever and always.

The West Wing: I’m a political nerd, obvs.

The Young and the Restless: A TV watching legacy shared by generations of Duggins.

Valerie Anne

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: I started Buffy when I was 11 and that show shaped my sense of humor and my literal syntax. I still to this day will make up words on the spot if I can’t find one to suit my needs quickly enough.

Wynonna Earp: Wynonna uses the same syntax and humor but this leading lady has a little sister I relate to more than Dawn. I see more of who I am and who I want to be in Waverly Earp than I have in any character in a very long time.

Dickinson: The most dramatic corners of my brain have never been represented more accurately than Hailee Steinfeld’s Emily Dickinson. From the flop-on-the-bed-over-things-that-don’t-matter type of dramatic to the I-think-about-death-an-awful-lot dramatic, it’s all there in one smart, hilarious package.

Supergirl: I tried to argue to put “The Arrowverse” as my answer so I could loop Legends of Tomorrow in here for my sillier side, but instead it’s Supergirl, because when it’s at its best Kara perfectly encapsulates what it’s like to be an optimist in the face of a world full of reasons to be a pessimist, and Alex Danvers is the fiercely loyal disaster lesbian I can only hope to be.

Haunting of Hill House: I’m surprised as anyone that Orphan Black wasn’t my last choice, but when it comes down to it, Haunting adds the dark and twisty and emotional layer that would be necessary for painting a complete picture of myself with only five shows. It has great storytelling, a lesbian empath, and a constant, quiet undertone that could burst into screams or tears at any time without warning.

Drew Gregory

The Bisexual: I almost picked The L Word, but Desiree Akhavan’s brand of queer fuck-up-ery is much more similar to my own.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Mental illness, Judaism, obsessed with love. Also. Musicals!

Transparent: Transness, Judaism, bad with love. Also. Musicals!

High Maintenance: Believe it or not I’m actually much more interested in other people than myself. And like this show, I’m very aware that while I’m going about my life everyone else is going about theirs.

Sex Education: If I was asked to describe myself in five words those words could be: “Every Sex Education character combined.”

Carmen

Living Single: Friendship and sisterhood! Oh, and when I was eight-years-old, I had a Queen Latifah themed birthday party. I’m that kind of homo!

A Different World: Damn I love black people and Damn I love books, so surely this isn’t a surprise. In my heart, I’m still a Whitley just looking for my Dwayne Wayne. (Except if you know the show at all, I’m actually a Freddie. Never mind.)

Glee: Yes, I was a high school theatre geek. And yes I hate myself probably as much as you do for including this show on the list.

The L Word: TECHNICALLY I wanted to call this the L Word-verse and include Generation Q, but it was decided that was breaking the rules, so I kept it to the mothership. I obviously write about queer women on TV for a living so The L Word is life. BUT ALSO now that I’ve seen Natalie’s list, I really wish I had gone with Pose. Maybe just pretend this says Pose. Thanks!!

One Day at a Time: I’ve written about this plenty of times. I’m a queer Latina nerd, formerly of Catholic high school uniform fame, who was raised by my single mom. I am Elena Alvarez, and in my heart, she is me.

Riese

My So-Called Life: I’m Angela Chase and everybody I’ve ever loved is either my Rayanne, my Jordan, my Sharon or my Brian.

The Office: This is the attitude I like to take into the workplace

The L Word: This is the way that we live because for my job I’ve watched every episode of this show over and over and over until this show BECAME me, and now it is bigger than me, and I have no choice but to succumb to its wiles, just like all the girls do with Shane.

Six Feet Under: Smart people talking about death — a typical day in my DMs or this brilliant, insightful, challenging, weird television show about a family for whom death is always, always there. And you can do anything with it! Be serious or not, sing and dance or scream.

Sex and the City: (Sorry but this is what I watched, what I wanted to be? on some level? when I was in college. sometimes I’d watch it when I was sad and think, “I’ll be there some day!”)

Heather

Gentleman Jack: I’ve just never met someone who embodies my own soft butch mentality as much as this depiction of Anne Lister, tromping around with her masculine gait and ties and hats, making men fear her and women adore her, holding the entire world together with her own hands and sheer willpower, tender and fierce and oh so resilient.

She-Ra: Of course three of my choices are animated TV series because, for one thing, people always underestimate animated TV and write it off as innocent and naive, when, in fact, it’s the facade of innocence and naivety that allows it to explore the depths of human experiences and relationships in ways live-action “adult” TV shows do not. And for another thing, I think anyone who’s really living is constantly coming of age in new ways. For, She-Ra, it’s the path out of fascist evangelicalism and into the prism of light cast by found family, and the never-ending quest of figuring out who you are.

Friday Night Lights: The thing I am more than anything else is southern. I will likely never live in the rural south ever again, but it will never not live in me. Friday Night Lights somehow embraces both the oppression and the comfort that exists in the perpetual cycle of living in a town — where kids grow up playing football and have kids who grow up to play football who have kids who grow up to play football — where everyone knows everything about you and “y’all” can be a term of endearment or an indictment.

Steven Universe: What I said about She-Ra and add in a hard-won ability to hope, an eternal journey of compassion and self-betterment, and the firm belief that love really is the answer.

Adventure Time: “Sometimes life is scary and dark. That is why we must find the light.“