The Week in Gay TV: The Summer Season Kicks Off and "Glee" makes a Journey to Regionals

Welcome to another edition to Week in Gay TV, your guide to the shows that will be battling for your attention in the coming week, including plenty of summer premieres, the MTV Movie Awards and the finale of Glee. 

With the sad news of Rue McClanahan’s death, WeTV is airing an 8-hour “Best of Blanche” Golden Girls Marathon on Friday. Too bad no one has the rights to Maude, it would be great to revisit those days, as well. 

Somewhere in heaven, there are angels having an amazing party.

Friday night’s comedies return with new episodes including Gavin & Stacey trying to figure out why they’re having problems conceiving. Somehow this leads to Uncle Bryn knowing more about Gavin’s sex life than Gavin is comfortable discussing. I have to admit, while I’m still enjoying this series, I’m glad this is Gavin & Stacey’s final season. As the series has tried to keep giving the main couple issues to cause them conflict, Stacey has become less and less charming as the person who creates the drama. 

After Mickey found his calling as an erotica writer in last week’s Shameless, he has a run-in with Chatsworth's excessively overzealous cop, Carrie. One thing leads to another and the two of them end up trapped in an abandoned building, with only Mickey’s latest story to prevent them from spending the time getting to know each other better.

Meanwhile, it’s time for the company picnic on Party Down, an event that’s catered by Valhalla Catering, which brings Kristen Bell back to the show. Michael Hitchcock also appears as the big Party Down boss and we finally get to meet Lydia's daughter, Escapade.

A new episode of Merlin has the young mage meeting a young druid woman. Meanwhile, due to Cufflinksandtie’s persistent recommendations, I’ll be checking out Friday Night Lights. Hopefully, I can fit that in with the Weeds episodes I need to watch to get current. Finally, if you’re looking for a bit of politics to kick off the weekend, Andrew Sullivan makes a return appearance to Real Time with Bill Maher. 

Saturday is pretty quiet but Doctor Who returns with a new episode where we meet with Amy who hasn’t traveled with the Doctor for five years and is about to give birth to her first child. So far, I’ve found Amy’s history with the Doctor the most interesting thing about her. It’s another interesting way showrunner Steven Moffat is playing with chronology this season. The Doctor keeps encountering River Song in the reverse order that she has encountered him, while there are long gaps in the time that Amy has known the Doctor. And Rory realized the time between the eve of his wedding and the day of the ceremony was a much longer than a night for Amy.

Rory is giving Eureka's Fargo competition the adorkable department

Speaking of Rory, after watching him in “Vampires of Venice,” I think he’s great. I felt a nice flashback to Donna when we found out he spent time after the Doctor’s previous visit researching theories about Prisoner Zero.  Hopefully, we’ll see why Amy and Rory are together. I’m getting the impression Amy settled for Rory, much like Rose settled for Mickey.