The other "gay episode" ("gaypisode"?) to hit otherwise straight TV last night was on the Grey's Anatomy spinoff Private Practice, which I haven't seen until now and have no real intention of seeing again, no matter how many tempting flashes of the delectable Taye Diggs they wave in front of me.

The show itself is a very generic office romance set in a medical practice, and feels kind of like Grey's retooled for Lifetime or The Practice but with different high-yield degrees. Everything about it is sabotaged by its own self-conscious cuteness, from its otherwise solid cast to its revolving-door medical plots.

One of the stories last night involved a 10-year-old skater kid named Michael whose mother brings him in to see Dr. Cooper Freedman (Paul Adelstein), or as I like to call him, "George 2.0". Cooper thinks the kid might have mono but while the mom is out of the room, Michael admits that he's not sick, he's just in love with someone who doesn't love him back.

In the great tradition of shows about people who are insanely, incurably narcissistic, Cooper of course relates this to his own problems with his unrequited ladyfriend and encourages the kid to ask out his crush, missing out on a lot of non-gender-specific pronouns in the kid's responses.

A few days later, Cooper has wussed out on asking out his gal, but when Michael appears beaten bloody, it becomes clear that he hasn't. He tells Cooper that Brian, the kid he asked out, beat him up at the skate park. The surprise registers on Cooper's face, the music swells, and we cut to black. Twist!

Fortunately, the kid's actual sexuality doesn't even register a blip for Cooper, except to make him realize that this kid came out, got his heart broken, and got the crap beat out of him all at the same time. He vows to help the kid deal with the situation, and when his ladyfriend points out that gay kids are at risk for suicide, my Foreshadowing Meter clips off the scale and Cooper rather dumbly says, "Yeah, I'll talk to his parents."

Um, NO!?

Lord, the worst thing you could do is tell this kid's parents without at least warning him, as you're the only person who's established any trust with the poor kid at this point. But when his parents arrive, he doesn't get the chance to accidentally out the kid (again?) to them, because they're in a panic over the fact that the kid has apparently run away.

Cooper tracks down Brian, the object of Michael's affection, and in the space of about 2.3 seconds manages to make the kid feel pretty stupid for hitting his friend for simply asking him out and he offers an apology. He also gets from Brian the address of a rooftop where he and Michael sometimes hang out, and when Cooper gets there Michael is about to jump off the edge. Cooper talks him down and then bums him out with the sad yet true news that loving people who don't love you back is just part of life ... especially when you're in a Grey's Anatomy show.

In all the message is undeniably a good one and the way that it was handled was at least novel. The kid was just like any other kid (he wasn't another Justin from Ugly Betty, as fabulous as he may be), and there wasn't a hint of revulsion on the part of the adults at the kid being gay; in fact, they immediately wanted to help and protect him. His straight skater friend came around pretty quickly once he realized that someone asking you out isn't the end of the world, and at least the ending was reasonably happy (we can assume).

The tidiness of the whole thing (the kid's story acting as a mirror to Cooper's; the convenient suicide intervention) and the overall cute factor held it back from having much emotional impact. But hats off to the folks behind the show for opting to tell a story about a young gay teen and the risks that conflicted gay kids face. Now how about a gay regular character?