The Week in Gay TV: Class Resumes for "Degrassi" and Current Gives Viewers Control Over "Bar Karma"

It's time for another edition of The Week in Gay TV, your guide to the shows that will be battling for space on your DVR in the week ahead. There are a few new shows to anticipate in the week ahead, including the return of Degrassi, Current's viewer-controlled Bar Karma and Bravo's new pop culture talk show The Approval Matrix.

Teen Nick returns to Degrassi on Friday with the remainder of the 10th season. Closeted jock Riley and his out boyfriend Zane should be part of the drama, as previews have shown Riley trying to come out to his mother.

Honestly, I'm back to mixed feeling sabout Degrassi. I thought the pacing improved during this summer's "The Boiling Point" event. For the most part, characters didn't completely disappear for long periods. However, when Degrassi went back to weekly episodes, we had a whole mini-season without any sign of Riley or Zane. There's no sign of either gay teen this week as the focus will fall on transgender teen Adam, his love interest Fiona as well as Anya and her mother's hot doctor.

I've been enjoying Adam and Fiona's relationship, so I'm looking forward to see where their story goes, but it's frustrating watching interesting characters disappear for such long periods of time. I don't remember Degrassi having that problem in its first few seasons.

That's not Friday's only debut as Current has the premiere of its intriguing Bar Karma. The drama follows a man (True Blood and Newhart's William Sanderson) who wins a bar on a bet, only to learn that the bar lies at a karmic crossroads. Lost souls are drawn to the bar where they're compelled to examine their lives and rethink where their life is headed.

What's interesting about Current's first drama is that the series comes from The Sims creator Will Wright and will run its stories through its community of fans. It's an idea that has as much potential as it does pitfalls. I've certainly seen fan speculation turn out to be more interesting than what ended up on the screen, however, turning over a show's creative direction in the hands of viewers could also result in a true mess.

I wonder if Lionel will learn the hard way that Martha has a secret crime fighting identity.

Friday also brings a new Smallville with the return of Martha Kent, who is now working against the anti-vigilante movement. She's not the only one returning, however, as Lionel Luthor (John Glover) makes his debut to the world. It should be fun to see how the mirror-universe Lionel reacts to a good-boy Clark, as opposed to the evil version Lionel raised.

On Supernatural, now that he's got body and soul reunited, Sam is about to find out about the kind of things he did while he was (literally) a soulless hunter as he and Dean are drawn to a small town that has recent memories of Sam ... and unfortunately, the Sam they remember wasn't a particularly kind one.

Friday also sees the battle over the House of Battius intensify on Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, while Merlin discovers the birthplace of magic on a new Merlin. BBC America also has a new Law & Order: UK as the team looks into the death of a police officer

Finally, OWN has a new episode of Your OWN Show as Suze Orman mentors the remaining hopefuls as they try to put together a financial advice segment.

Syfy has a double-feature of camptastic (faboocamp?) original movies on Saturday starting with Highlander hunk Adrian Paul in Eyeborgs, where weaponized security cameras are hacked by a terrorist group and used to create chaos.

Syfy follows up on that tech-paranoia with Iron Invader, which sees Stargate: Atlantis and Eureka's Kavan Smith battle an iron statue that comes to life and go on a killing spree thanks to some alien bacteria. So basically, its the evil twin of Iron Giant?

Did the statue always look like that? The problem might have started when they sculpted the statue to look like a murdering machine.

Saturday also sees Kate Hudson and comedian Russell Kane visit a new Graham Norton Show while David Bromstad gives a living room a beachy makeover on a new Color Splash.