SO MUCH FOR EXPLORING HIS BISEXUAL SIDE
At the Television Critics Association conference this summer, we heard that Desperate Housewives' Andrew (Shawn Pyfrom) might explore the heterosexual side of his supposed bisexuality this season. But thankfully so far, we've only seen him dress in drag and refer to himself as gay. Then word surfaced that an actual boyfriend might be in in Andrew's future. I did some poking around this week and confirmed that this was indeed the case. Or at least sort of.

In an episode filming last week and scheduled to air in January (depending on the writers' strike), Bree needs a contractor to fix her house after the silly plot twist tornado strikes a couple of eps from now. She wants to hire Walter (J.C. MacKenzie), a gay friend of Bob and Lee's to fix her roof, but unfortunately, Walter has just gone through a traumatic break-up with his partner and isn't interested in work. Bree and Orson hatch a plan to get Walter in the mood to pound nails by fixing him up with Andrew. I know there is a good joke here, but somehow I'm missing it.

Their plan works — at least until Susan decides to sabotage their relationship for her own reasons by fixing Andrew up with yet another good-looking guy. Naturally, Andrew being Andrew, he can't resist the temptation and screws everything up with Walter. Thanks so much, Marc Cherry Susan!

Andrew already has a significant number of detractors among gay fans of the show and seeing Andrew behave badly yet again will not endear him to anyone. But look on the bright side: at least he hasn't tried to sleep with Bob or Lee. Well, at least not yet.

WHY THE WRITERS STRIKE SHOULD MATTER TO YOU
I just read this rather sobering blog post by Brothers & Sisters creator Jon Robin Baitz over at Huffington Post. Like the rest of his colleagues, Baitz is on strike and currently manning the picket lines. Unfortunately, Baitz and the other strikers are being tagged in some quarters of the public as whiny, greedy brats out to get more than their fair share of the Hollywood pie. As a novelist myself, all I can say about the notion of writers being overpaid is HA! Make that a double HA! Even though my novels sold respectably, I can assure that had I done most any other job, I would've earned more per hour than I did writing. We don't write to get rich. We write because we're mentally addled lunatics. And because the voice in the computer commands us.

Apart from the simple matter of fairness that writers make a decent wage from their labors, gay viewers should support the strike because it's these same writers who write the gay characters (meager as they may be on some networks) that you watch week after week. And not only do they write these parts, the writers are almost always the ones that dream them up and fight for their inclusion in the first place. Trust me, if it were only up to most of the suits that run the networks — and focus on the bottom line — there would be even fewer gay characters than there are.

So even though you might feel annoyed at the possible loss of your favorite show, throw your support behind Marco Pennette (Crumbs, Ugly Betty), Jon Robin Baitz (Brothers & Sisters), Rob Lotterstein (The War at Home, Ellen), Jack Kenny (The Book of Daniel), Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies), Silvio Horta (Ugly Betty), Paris Barclay (NYPD Blue), Alan Ball (Six Feet Under), Marc Cherry (Desperate Housewives), David Chase (The Sopranos), and all the writers over at As the World Turns. They deserve our support!