The Winner, Wedding Bells, and "the gay episode"

A few weeks back we wrote about the new show The Winner, which features The Daily Show's Rob Corddry as Glen, the "richest man in Boston" -- although when we meet him back in the 90's, he's just a guy working at a video store who lives with his parents and can't get his life together.

Last night the show aired its "gay episode", where Glen becomes friends with a recently-single (and rather hunky) gay man whom Glen refuses to believe is gay, because the guy likes football and doesn't like cinnamon toast. Glen is so fixated on his new friend's season tickets that he lets the guy make advances at him -- but when the guy's ex reappears, things get complicated.

The episode was actually funnier than expected and had a handful of hilarious, stereotype-busting lines (Glen's reference to Liza Minnelli as "that hot piece of *ss from Arthur" was one of my favorites). The show's obviously still finding its footing, and it's interesting that it would throw a "gay episode" into the mix so early in its run.

Now, The Winner does have a recurring gay character -- Glen's boss Richard, played by Amir Talai. So the "gay episode" doesn't feel like a left-field ratings-grabber or "very special episode".

But the idea of having an entire episode dedicated to a self-contained gay storyline seems to be very in vogue lately. shows like The Wedding Bells (which featured Stephen Guarino, pictured at the right, as well as a Liza impersonator -- come on, guys, isn't there another gay reference you can come up with?), The New Adventures of Old Christine, Boston Legal, and more have dipped their toes into gay waters recently for material. And if other shows continue to handle the themes as well as these shows have, it's a trend that's fine by me.

What do you folks think? Is the "gay episode" a passing trend, or are we seeing real progress here?