Friday kicks off with a Randy Disher-focused Monk. Randy's a great character. I'm not ashamed of my fondness for Monk, but it really is such an old-person show. Best to watch the episodes while baking muffins or polishing your boots.

Laughing on the inside.

Forest Whitaker hosts SNL. Personally, I don't associate Forest Whitaker with hilarious comedy. His movies are dark and his award acceptance speeches are soporific. So… maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised? Also, I'd like to put a motion out there to make Bill Hader's Peter O'Toole impersonation a permanent SNL fixture. I couldn't find the latest sketch with Drew Barrymore, but here's his funny first appearance.

There's a new Battlestar Galactica Sunday. Wheee! The guy made of water from X-Men is a guest star. But who cares — if you watch, you'll watch. And you should watch.

Recently, the AP ran a piece on gay actors and straight roles. You probably know the entire article without reading it — blah, blah, T.R. Knight, blah, blah, Neil Patrick Harris, blah, blah, gay actors stay closeted so they can get better roles.

It’s a sad state of affairs, but it’s true. In fact, I’m still sort of raising an eyebrow at George’s scenes with Callie on Grey’s Anatomy. It’s no one’s fault but my own, but whenever he and Callie have a spat (which — have you noticed? — every sentence out of Callie’s mouth lately is some variation on “I’m your boss now, not your wife!”) I just want him to take off his white coat revealing a rainbow flag cape. Then he’d blast off, breaking through the roof of Seattle Grace and leave a trail of glitter over the Space Needle.

Admittedly, though, this is just one more part of actors being real people. I raised that same eyebrow when I saw Jake and Heath in Brokeback. Or whenever I see Lindsay Lohan in a role where she’s sober.

In general, though, it would kind of stink to be a gay actor in TV, due mostly to people like me. Most of the really good stuff for out people is reality shows on Bravo (the gays have always been pretty well represented on reality shows). In the world of film, too. There are a lot of really bad gay movies out there — seems like our love of camp (the place and the aesthetic) has dug us a little hole.

As far as actually good, scripted shows for gay characters, the pickins are slim, so it’s understandable that you’d want to keep yourself ambiguous to score good, straight roles.

So here’s a little chart about good vs bad and gay vs straight. Enjoy.

(PS — this is kinda, sorta, totally unrelated. I don’t know if any of you saw MTV’s True Life: I’m Out, but it was a mostly horrifying affair. Aside from some smart, reasonably well-adjusted and adorable lesbians, a few of the men displayed devastatingly stereotypical and dramatic behavior. It was enough to make me want to run screaming to the nearest ESPNzone. Nevertheless, the morning after I saw it, I e-mailed Cristin in a gay panic and demanded she view it at her next opportunity.)