The Week in Gay TV: New “Vampire Diaries” entries, Mel B faces a “Scary World” and a new “Nikita”

Welcome to another edition of The Week in Gay TV your guide to the shows battling for your attention in the week ahead.

It’s a few more weeks before the fall TV season gets going but the first signs of fall have officially arrived as the CW starts new seasons of The Vampire Diaries and America’s Next Top Model while debuting a new spy drama Nikita.

At the least, the Maguires seem like they'll be lively funeral attendees

It’s been an eventful season for the residents of Chatsworth Estate — Ian lost his memory, Monica abandoned her family (again), Paddy fought a heroin addiction and Kash returned, only to try to shake down the people who loved him.

However, on Friday’s season finale the Chatsworth community goes through its biggest shock when someone dies suddenly. This is a show that can certainly deliver emotional moments with a punch, and it looks like Shameless’ most dramatic season isn’t going to end quietly.

Fans of this series have seen plenty of characters come and go in the past seven seasons, but this is an exit that will have an impact on those who have followed in Shameless’ gay storylines. 

Heather Weather's file goes under "W" for "with, don't mess"

Meanwhile, expect things to get more uncomfortable on this week’s Death Comes to Town, especially between Dusty and the corpse of Mayor Bowman. I heard that Dusty might be a controversial character and now that I've watched him, I understand those concerns. Dusty definitely is a creepy guy, one who seems to be obsessed with a straight guy.

However, for me those kind of stereotypes are problematic when that’s the only depiction of gay people and The Kids in the Hall have given us a number of gay characters over the years. If there wasn’t Buddy Cole, the “Steps” gang and many other minor characters, Dusty would concern me, but it’s pretty clear the Kids see humanity as generally dysfunctional and that includes gays.

The TV schedule gets pretty quiet on Saturday, but Teen Nick has a marathon of the Degrassi’s recent “telenovela” season, The Boiling Point, including the entire season minus the final four episodes. Sadly, that doesn’t include Riley’s quiet coming out but that also means skipping the anticlimactic finale.

A holiday weekend can’t stop Danielle Fishel from getting into the past week’s craziest pop culture moments as she’ll still be bringing a new episode of The Dish.