The Week in Gay TV: Riley has a crush on "Degrassi", Tim Gunn pulls a prank and more!

Welcome to another edition of Week in Gay TV where we'll take a look at a number of season finales, the return of Riley on Degrassi: The Next Generation, a new series of Gavin & Stacey, Neil Patrick Harris creating trouble on Glee and Tim Gunn pranking fast food customers on a new I Get That A Lot. 

Finale season is getting into high gear this week, starting with the season finale of Smallville, which promises a showdown between Clark and Zod. That means I’m finally going to see Callum Blue in an episode, outside of the credits, right? Unfortunately, there’s no mention of Annette O’Toole so there’s no hope of The Red Queen making me wonder when Tamara de Lempicka created a DC heroine.

Then again, I thought Caprica's Tamara Adama also looked like a de Lempicka painting when she was weilding a gun in New Cap City.

Meanwhile, as Smallville ends, BBC America debuts the final season of the romantic britcom Gavin & Stacey. This season, Gavin and Stacey move to Wales, while Nessa has moved on from Smitty and is getting ready to marry another man. As you might recall, Stacey’s family includes Uncle Brin who frequently sets off people’s gaydar as well as Stacey’s gay brother, Jason. Hopefully, we’ll finally find out what happened between Jason and Brin on that fishing trip that seems to have forever damaged their relationship. 

BBC America also has a new episode of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross where guests include Adam Lambert and Jake Gyllenhaal. A new Party Down sees the crew working a funeral that gets crashed by someone very unwelcome. Megan Mullally got some good screen time last week which should happen again since this story has good follow-up potential.

Adam Lambert with Jonathan Ross

This week’s Degrassi: The Next Generation brings Riley back into the spotlight. The last time we saw him, Riley had come out to himself but decided to stay closeted until graduation. I suspect a lot of AfterElton readers know how plans like that can get thrown out the window when the right guy comes along. And that is exactly what happens with Riley this week when Zane enters his life and pulls Riley into the dating realm.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes, especially since next season Degrassi will have more episodes and more chances to explore characters like Riley with a little more depth. However, I’m also thrilled that Degrassi is continuing its commitment to diversity, giving us the show’s first gay Asian character.

Aw, Riley's smitten!

This week the Private Chefs of Beverly Hills work for teens as well as a couple in need of counseling. I suspect the episode will manage to leave me wondering how nearly every client manages to pull a Padma and announce a twist after the chefs have arrived at the job, while not really delivering a lot of drama.

Meanwhile, a new Merlin sees Uther go on another anti-magic kick, leading to a literal witchunt. I actually spotted a bit of hoyay in last week’s episode — and then they missed a major opportunity when Arthur “died” and didn’t fall into Merlin’s arms.