Hey, guys! Grab your little dog Precious, pop some popcorn, and settle in: It's creepy gay killer week on NBC!

If you tuned into Saturday Night Live this past week, you're obviously not just a serial killer, but a masochist, to boot. Nothing else explains why anyone would suffer through 90 minutes of watching Christopher Walken read cue cards to a cast that seems openly terrified of him. Yes, I do kind of love the guy, but this was painful.

Aside from the general unevenness of the episode overall, one skit in particular stood out as legitimately creepy: the office party skit. In the scene, Jason Sudeikis is leaving his job and his office throws a party for him. One co-worker, Eric (Walken), seems to be a little too fond of the departing colleague despite the fact that they've never officially met, and in the end (after giving him a mix CD and a painted portrait) goes out to choke the man to death in the parking lot ... out of "love".

Christopher Walken in a different, though equally painful, skit from SNL

Best-case reading: That creepy guy in your office is probably secretly in love with you, bro. Worst-case reading: Gay guys aren't capable of understanding love if it doesn't involve throttling a straight man to death after giving him gifts. Um, can we have Target Lady back, or something?

Maybe on its own it wasn't that bad. Uninspired? Sure. Predictable? Yeah. But come on, we're talking about SNL here, the same show that later aired the THIRD agonizing installment of "Laser Cats". It's not like we're expecting miracles.

But last night's Medium offered the second gay predator of the week for the network, this time a publisher who used one of his author's books on seducing hot young men to lure unsuspecting hunks to their increasingly violent deaths.

Never mind that the plot twist (we're supposed to think it's the author herself, guest star Rosanna Arquette) makes absolutely no sense whatseover given the setup. What, were all of these victims gay? Otherwise, how were they seduced by a man? And if they were gay, why were the cops holding a female possible perp under suspicion in the first place? But even more ridiculous is the fact that the gay character shows up literally in the last 5 minutes of the episode to hit on a straight detective, unwittingly reveal his leering, gay-flavored guilt (in the longest elevator ride in history), and be put away.

Rosanna Arquette totally didn't kill that gay guy

To their credit, there's no big deal made out of the fact that the killer is gay within the world of the show, meaning that the detective doesn't kick into gay panic mode when he gets hit on by the leering gay executive. But come on ... why did there need to be a gay twist in the first place? We learn the identity of the killer literally seconds after the detective finishes saying,  "well, all the women at the publishing company have alibis, so...", so it's not like there's any real suspense here. The fact that the killer was gay was utterly inorganic to the story and the arc of the episode, and seemed to be added for completely exploitative purposes.

You might read the above and think I'm nuts for getting upset about a skit in a show nobody watches anymore and a three-minute scene at the tail-end of a wildly ridiculous supernatural cop show. But when you compare it to the number of positive gay representations on NBC in the past week (none), these two killer queers are worth noting. If we're to believe NBC chief Ben Silverman's claims that gay visibility will be improving under his watch, we need to see some proof.

If you want to watch the Medium episode (to see the former Susan-Seeker do some pretty hot vamping, more than anything), you can check it out in its entirety here. Interestingly, the office party skit is not available on NBC's video streaming site, Hulu, although several other skits from this week's episode are. Maybe they liked it as much as we did.

(Big thanks to reader Ed for posting about the Medium ep!) 

The folks at Saturday Night Live one-upped both Jimmy Kimmel and As the World Turns this week by running a digital short that featured Superbad actor Jonah Hill making out with Andy Samberg's dad (or, at least, an actor playing Andy Samberg's dad). Considering the central bromance of Superbad and Hill's hilarious deleted Brokeback Mountain monologue in Knocked Up, we shouldn't really be surprised to see him dip his bucket in this particular well. No, that's not a euphemism.

How was your weekend? No, Gay Visibility on Television, I wasn't asking you, because I know yours was pretty wretched. Here are a few highlights...

*-*-SPOILERS-*-*

The Amazing Race: Sorry, Ari!
Michael noted in his column Friday that we heard at the last minute that there actually was a gay man in this season's cast ... and then saw that he didn't make it through the first episode anyway. Glad we bothered. Given that Ari's first words were "Karma's a bitch but I'm an even bigger bitch," it's not surprising that: A) I wasn't too sorry to see him go; and B) He was one-upped by a donkey.

Saturday Night Live: Fumbledore
I was one of the few people who was really excited to see Brian Williams play host on SNL, but I think he's hilarious. And to his credit, he did a great job in all of his roles. But the episode was pretty scattered overall and featured a skit about gay Dumbledore that, had this news not just broken weeks ago, I would have sworn was written and taped in about 2001. Gay wizard bars? Ugh...

Initially it seemed the joke was that everyone was taking the whole Dumbledore news way more seriously than author J.K. Rowling, whose repeated reply to Larry King in the skit was that he is a fictional character. But the abysmal fake outtakes from the films didn't play to that gag at all. Considering how well SNL has been doing with its gay jokes this season, this was a disappointment.

To view the skit, head on over here.

Desperate Housewives: Neighborhood Beeotch
The Desperate Househusbands served one function in last night's episode: to throw a fabulous party. Check that one off the list. Oh, wait ... they also got to make bitchy comments to the other characters and freak out about their rug being ruined.

Really? This is what all the fuss is about? And what's with the scenes with Eva Longoria feeling like they were filmed on another planet or something ... what, is she quarantined?

That tornado can't come fast enough...

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) contract expired last night, and talks between the studios and the writers have broken off — with no talks rescheduled. Even more ominous, the WGA has asked members to show up at the LA Convention Center tonight at 10:00pm for an "announcement."

It looks almost certain that there will be a writers' strike. The sticking issues? First, the writers want a bigger cut of the increasingly lucrative DVD market. The current formula, set in 1985 to deal with videocassette sales, gives writers about four cents for every DVD sold. The WGA wants a new formula that would essentially double that. Second and possibly more important, the WGA wants a share in the profits for internet broadcasts. The studios say they want to table that discussion until the internet market is "more mature."

Neither side appears willing to give ground, which is making a walkout seem inevitable. And if a similar strike in 1988 is any example, this thing could drag on for months.

So, what would a strike mean to television viewers (and gay television viewers in particular)?

First to be affected would be talk shows. As early as next week there would be no more David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, or Jay Leno.

Regis & Kelly and the ladies of The View might still go "live," but if they do they'll be ad libbing all their own material. (Oh the horror!)

Also immediately impacted: Saturday Night Live. Amy Poehler says the show has no backlog of scripts so, “Boom — our show just shuts down.”

Worse in my mind, we'd also immediately lose The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. The Bush administration might be cheering this turn of events, but the rest of us will need to get our daily fix of Stewart and Colbert via Comedy Central's online video archive.

But that's just the beginning.

I'm one of those weird people who still watches Saturday Night Live, and is willing to slog through an hour and a half of intolerably bad guest hosts, openly wretched intro monologues and enough Will Forte to choke a camel for just a glimpse of Kristen Wiig in any of her twitchy incarnations.

But only two episodes into the season, something already seems different about SNL: it's bona fide gay-crazy.

The biggest gay gag thus far was the premiere's digital short, where Andy Samberg sang a love song to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, based on the leader's baffling comments to an audience at Columbia University early last week that there were no homosexuals in his country.

But this week's episode (which featured guest Seth Rogan) featured a gay-inclusive moment that was far more interesting for the fact that it was barely even addressed. In a skit about a couple of hideous twin children who keep interrupting their parents' dinner party, Jason Sedakis and Fred Armisen played what was obviously supposed to be a gay couple. But in a rare turn, their being gay had nothing to do with the skit and wasn't a punchline of any kind or an excuse to camp things up. It felt as thought the writers simply said, "Well, if an urban couple was having a few other couples over for dinner, one of them could very well be a gay couple" and that was that.

The Weekend Update's "Really!?! With Seth and Amy" skit called out Larry Craig for his gay bathroom sex antics and anti-gay policy, and made the point that it's not the gay part that has them upset, it's the sex in bathrooms part.

The bit was funny and hit the right notes, and a later joke about George Takei getting an asteroid named after him once scientists realized he was "supergay" was amusing if only for the continued mention of the actor, whose public profile has skyrocketed since he came out.

In case you missed it, here's the SNL Digital Short from last Saturday's oddly gay-crazy premiere, in which Andy Samberg pitches woo at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, played with uncanny accuracy by Fred Armisen. The cameos from Maroon 5's Adam Levine and Jake Gyllenhaal are nice, but it eventually goes off-track for me. What'd you guys think?