The Week in Gay TV: The return of "True Blood," "My Life on the D-List," "Beautiful People" and more!

Welcome to another edition of The Week in Gay TV, your guide to all the shows that will be competing for your attention as the summer season is getting into high gear, including the returns of Beautiful People, True Blood, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List and a new Top Chef. 

Friday kicks off the week with the start of the 2010 World Cup. Four years ago, I meant to catch a few World Cup matches, but after recording a few games that aired in the morning but were spoiled for me by the headlines before I could get home, my interest faded.

Hopefully, I can avoid hearing the results before I can watch the game this time. 

Soccer pin-ups and Cristiano Ronaldo

I know US sports fans typically complain that soccer is boring because few goals are scored in each match, but that’s what I enjoy about the sport. Watching soccer is about anticipation, each missed goal makes it even more exciting when your team does score. And then it gets even more exciting when the winning team celebrates by losing articles of clothing. 

For those of you who aren’t soccer fans, Starz has a new Party Down. The crew work a party hosted by a former colleague of Roman, who is mostly looking to flaunt his success. That should be good for some schadenfreudilarity, considering the, uhm, joy Roman brings to his coworkers.

Meanwhile, a new Shameless has the Maguire family dealing with a shocking insult as Mickey realizes he’s not happy with the way things are in his relationship with Liz and Ady. Over on BBC America, you can catch the second to last Gavin & Stacey while war threatens to come to Camelot in a new Merlin. 

If you want to wrap up the work week with some intelligent conversation, the spring finale of Real Time with Bill Maher has Rachel Maddow on the panel, Larry King welcomes Kathy Griffin back to his show and Sean Hayes visits Late Night with David Letterman.

Beautiful People's Layton Williams and Luke Ward-Wilkinson are retro-fabulous

On Saturday, Logo debuts a new comedy line-up starting with the second season of Beautiful People, the camptastic comedy based on Simon Doonan’s experience growing up in Reading. This season promises to be even more gay as Simon and his pal Kylie become more confident in themselves — I’m sure a guest appearance by Danni Minogue and a trip to The Eurovision Song Contest will contribute to this season’s gaiety.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect when Beautiful People first started airing. There was so much enthusiasm for the series, I tried to hold back my expectations to avoid disappointment. That caution wasn’t really necessary, however, as I quickly found myself addicted to the way Simon and Kylie embraced their effeminate traits as well as the series’ youthful exuberance.