Gays of our Lives (June 16, 2009)

GOOL NEWSBEAT
A chat with daytime’s hottest father and son duo, Degrassi is lauded with multiple awards, news on when your latest dramas will be back with new episodes, a Gossip Girl scandal – and more!

Raising the Bar’s Charlie Sagansky, played by Jonathan Scarfe

Now that Raising the Bar’s Charlie Sagansky (played by Jonathan Scarfe) is an openly gay man after spending Season 1 in the closet, what’s ahead for his character? Is he going to have some loving in the new season? Unfortunately, it doesn’t look likely, at least not for a while. Regarding a romantic relationship, Scarfe recently told The Advocate:

I would love that, but where we’ve gone with the scripts so far -— I’ve only seen up to episode 8 -— we haven’t seen that. That’s something I keep fighting for. But they have introduced another character, an older gay judge. He’s sworn off romantic relationships, but he’s become a sort of mentor for Charlie professionally.

[As reported in last week’s GOOL, the other gay character is Judge Albert Farnsworth, played by John Michael Higgins.]

Scarfe added that he is disappointed his character hasn’t had a romantic relationship, but he’s hoping it changes soon. The actor feels that it’s important that the show give Charlie a love life if they want to depict the gay community with respect.

I really want them to explore a personal relationship; otherwise, I feel like it’s chickening out. If I’m going to have this coming-out story line, I don’t want it to then get dropped away because they’re shy about exploring a gay relationship. We’ve gotten into all kinds of discussions about how we were going to proceed with Charlie, because I felt there were places where we weren’t being truthful. I was very concerned that it would become a sort of gimmick.

The city council of Cardiff Bay, Wales is currently under talks to construct an exhibit based on the sci-fi series Torchwood. The idea makes a great deal sense as Cardiff is where the series is set and the city has already experienced quite a boost in tourism and revenue because of the show. If they decide to go through with the plans, the council hopes to have the attraction ready in time for a summer opening in July when the new season debuts. The council is looking at using a Georgian building in Bute Crescent for the exhibition.

Martin Wilkie, who was part of the design team that built the Doctor Who exhibition, also in Cardiff, spoke to the BBC about the project. “A Torchwood Exhibition would be a great addition to the Bay area. We have looked at several sites but we are hoping that this one might be available soon. The appeal of Torchwood brings many visitors to Cardiff Bay, especially to see the Torchwood Water Tower. This would offer visitors a unique chance to see many of the key props, costumes and even recent creatures from the upcoming series.”

As previously reported, Torchwood: Children of the Earth will debut on BBC One and BBC America on July 20^th.

Former Coronation Street actor Sam Robertson

Former Coronation Street star Sam Robertson, who played Adam Barlow from 2004 – 2007, recently revealed that the writers on CS had planned to have his character discover that he was bisexual, but ultimately passed on the idea because it was too similar and would have played out too closely after the plot revolving around Todd Grimshaw (played by Bruno Langley), who had a popular and long running storyline in which he realized that he was gay.

"At one point they were going to make Adam bisexual, and I was bang up for that. Playing a guy who was proper bisexual, into guys and girls and as cool as a cucumber with it,” Robertson told the Daily Record. “It would have been great, I was excited about it at the time. But I think they decided it came too soon after Bruno Langley's gay storyline."

The actor has since joined the cast of BBC Scotland soap River City.