As the World Turns (CBS) Check local listings
Things hit a hitch with Luke's new foundation guy suggests Luke should, uhm, de-emphasize, his relationship with Noah "for business reasons". Then Noah responds with a "Maybe he's right" which ... hooboy. Yeah, this one's really going to need a liveblog so be sure to check back in starting at 2PM Eastern.

Project Runway (Bravo) 9:00 PM EDT
Yes! Chris March (who was utterly the season four fan favorite in my house) returns as the designers are challenged to outfit some fierce drag performers. Yesterday, Rachel Maddow gets a show and now Chris March returns on Project Runway? This is turning out to be a pretty good week. And to make things even bigger the models are a fabulous team of drag performers including Girls Will Be Girls' Jeffrey Roberson (aka Varla Jean Merman) and this week's guest judge is RuPaul. Check out a video featuring all the guest models, after the break!

Shear Genius (Bravo) 10:00 PM EDT
Uhm, wha? I want to know what inspired the producers to come up with tonight's challenge where the final four learn their next client is their "identical twin" because that is one special well of inspiration.

Sorid Lives (Logo) 10:00 PM EDT
Brother Boy wakes up from his coma ... which has to mean we're getting a Tammy Wynette tribute soon, right? Ooh, can't wait. Also, it's Sissy versus a goat, which on any other show would sound like reaching for story ideas but here sounds positively inspired.

Million Dollar Listing (Bravo) 10:00 PM EDT
After a couple weeks of non-drama, it looks like we're going to get a peek at Madison's love life as he goes on a blind date with a "mystery man" this week. Hopefully, this means I'll have more to do this episode than wonder why Chad isn't helping Mario rescue Princess Toadstool.

General Hospital: Nigh Shift (SOAPnet) 11:00 PM EDT
The bad blood between gay doc Kyle (Adam Grimes) and Leo (Dominic Rains) builds. Meanwhile, it sounds like the patient-of-the-week is a woman whose partner is banned by her homophobic family ... I wonder if that'll play in the family tensions between the Julian bros.

Matthew Mitcham

As the World Turns (CBS) Check local listings
So last week on General Hospital:Night Shift we saw Kyle deal with seniors who were getting far more action than him and today on ATWT Luke notices some sparks between grandma Lucinda (aka Lady Drumstick) and his potential foundation manager. So that's gay soap guys zero, soap grandparents two. As always, we'll be here following the action in a liveblog, so be here starting at 2PM Eastern for the up-to-the-moment action.

The Olympics (NBC) 7:00 PM EDT
Okay, I'm totally depending on NBC's online schedule (and WARNING: there may be SPOILERS at the link) but today is the preliminary round for the 3M men's diving competition, which means out Australian diver Matthew Mitcham will be competing today.

I Want to Work for Diddy (VH1) 9:00 PM EDT
The remaining hopefuls get French as half of each team is sent to Paris to find a model Diddy saw in a magazine while the rest of the team works on an ad that has to fit the Sean John brand identity. With Rob gone (unless he manages to make one of those reality TV returns this week), we're still cheering on transgender contender Laverne Cox.

The Cho Show (Logo) 10:30 PM EDT
In case you're not the type to watch a show online, Logo gives a sneak preview of Margaret Cho's upcoming reality sitcom. Catch it tonight so you have more reasons to tell people to tune in when The Cho Show makes its official debut Thursday on VH1.

Friday

The Peter Serafinowicz Show (G4) 9:00 PM EDT
Serafinowicz takes a stab at Kevin Spacey in this week's acting masterclass ... and what happens when Darth Vader meets his ideal woman? And, of course, there's Kennedy St. King on O! News.

Sordid Lives mini-marathon (Logo) starting at 10:00 PM EDT
In case you need to play catch-up, Logo is re-airing the first four episodes of the serial comedy based on Del Shores' sleeper hit film. Get caught up on the series or just tune in to relive moments like Brother Boy's suicide attempt, Ty's "therapy" with Jacob, the guest appearances by Margaret Cho and Carson Kressley ... and then there are all of Noleeta's fantasies about soap hunk Hunker...

Saturday

Paula's Party (Food Network) 7:00 PM EDT
Paula's having a "diva party" and you may think that means her guests will consist of more gay faves than gays, but with Ru Paul, Suze Orman and Susan Lucci getting invites, that's not the case.

Roxy: The Last Dance (Logo) 8:00 PM EDT
For 16 years The Roxy was an important part of gay NYC nightlife. That came to an end in 2007, but not without one final 14-hour bash which is chronicled in this Real Momentum documentary.

Summer Showdown's "Team Hot"

Sunday

Summer Showdown (HGTV) 9:00 PM EDT
It's the triple gay episode with David Bromstad (with carpenter Jared Walker Dostie) facing off against Constance Ramos in the Designer Dome where they'll have to make over America's most color-challenged bedroom.

Shameless (Sundance) 9:00 PM EDT
This week is heavy on the Kev/Veronica drama as the death of Kev's mother brings his wife, Roxy, back into the picture. I guess looking at Kev for an hour is supposed to make up for a lack of Ian. Fine by me for one week, at least.

Skins' Mitch Hewer as Maxxie

Skins (BBC America) 9:00 PM EDT
Coming from the makers of Shameless, this critically acclaimed drama follows a group of teens as adulthood looms closer. Among those teens is openly gay performer Maxxie (Mitch Hewer), who's best buds with not-so-devout Muslim, Anwar (Dev Patel). Judging from the clip at BBC America's page on Maxxie, Hewer brings an adorable energy to the role. As a huge Shameless fan, I can't wait to finally get to see this one.

Brooke Knows Best (VH1) 10:00 PM EDT
It's finally gay Glenn's turn to bring the drama this week as he lets his best friend, "game-playing, tattooed straight crazy guy" Rey, couch-surf for a few weeks. As you'd expect (how else would he get to be the focus of an episode?) Rey quickly overstays his welcome.

Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List (Bravo) 10:00 PM EDT
This is why I love this show and why it deserves a bunch of Emmys. In tonight's seaon finale, Kathy goes to visit our soldiers who are recovering at Walter Reed Army Hospital from horrible injuries. I can appreciate Kathy's ability to snark but I think she's really amazing in these serious episodes (like last season's prison visit and her visit to Iraq in season two) and is able to show how humor is an important part of our lives, one that helps us overcome all sorts of hurdles.

Reality Strikes Back (Comedy Central) 10:30 PM EDT
If you haven't been watching Comedy Central's reality TV parody show, I can't blame you because the ads make it look like a show even Michael Ian Black couldn't save. However, this show is so much better than the promos would have you believe. Since tonight's Olympics/talent competition mash-up, "So You Think You Can Dive", brings Greg Louganis back to our TV screens (and, might I add, the man still has it), it's a good time to check it out.

George Lucas offended racial minorities in The Phantom Menace with the Jar Jar Binks character. And now it looks like the upcoming CGI film The Clone Wars (which leads into a TV series on The Cartoon Network) is going to give us gays a chance to share that experience. One of the new characters introduced in Clone Wars is Ziro the Hutt (Jabba's uncle) who is, as MTV Movies' Shawn Alder put it, "a gay stereotype that makes what Jar Jar Binks represented to the island of Jamaica look subtle by comparison."

Sadly, it sounds like the stereotyping is deliberate:

So how did a character who wasn’t even supposed to speak English wind up sounding like that? Because George Lucas insisted on it, Clone Wars director Dave Filoni confessed.

“Ziro, Jabba’s uncle, originally spoke in Hutt-ese, like Jabba and then he had a different sluggish voice just like Jabba, and then George one day was watching it and said ‘I want him to sound like Truman Capote.’ He actually said that and we were like ‘Wow!’ ” Filion revealed. “It’s a hybrid of it but the inspiration is definitely there on Capote. It’s one of those things that takes him from being an interesting character and I think really does put him over the top and does something. He’s a favorite among the crew here.”

I've been looking for a video clip of Ziro to judge for myself with no success. Still, if Lucas directed the Clone Wars crew to base Ziro on Truman Capote, it's no surprise that the character is tripping some sensitivity meters. Based on the character biography found at Wookiepedia (which contains spoilers, if you care) Ziro sounds as admirable as Jabba, which makes him yet another scheming, lisping villain.

Worse, Filoni says the character is probably asexual and, therefore, not gay. So, the closest the Star Wars films have gotten to having any gay characters is a villain meant to sound like an effeminate gay man ... so Clone Wars gets to play to homophobia without actually having any gay characters.

My days as a Star Wars fan ended in 1999 when I saw The Phantom Menace. Honestly, I was a little bit tired of Star Wars by then; the hype was a little too inescapable for a little too long for me. I was hoping that seeing a really cool movie would rekindle my fondness for that "long ago" and "far away" world but that hope started fading the first time Jar Jar spoke with his stereotypical accent. 

I was offended by the stereotyping, but worse, they killed the wonder of Star Wars, where aliens previously felt like aliens and not characters based on a certain type of human. 

Does this news affect anyone's plans to see the movie? Was anyone planning on seeing it in the first place?

WARM UP YOUR VOCAL CHORDS FOR A "ONE OF US" CHANT:
Get your Barrowmania hats back on, cuz a certain Scottish actor has come a-courting. In an interview with the National Post of Canada John Barrowman talks about his love of science fiction, declaring himself a "G-Double-E-K":

"I grew up watching Doctor Who," he says. "I'm of the Star Wars generation; I love science fiction. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Battlestar Galactica ... love 'em."

"I love every morning, getting up to go to work because that little boy inside of me jumps with excitement every time I'm going to fight an alien or shoot a rocket gun or be on a spaceship or be with the Doctor or get onto the TARDIS," he gushes. "So every time I'm working on it, I'm really, really happy."

Barrowman: "G-Double-E-K"

Okay, so there's a little optimist Lyle on one shoulder and a cynic Lyle on the other. The optimist is going "Aw, sah-woon." while the cynic is muttering something about people who say they like Star Trek and follow the sentiment with a series of imitations of Checkov asking about "nuclear wessels".

METAPHORS FOR QUEER RIGHTS MOVE TO SAN FRANCISCO, FILM AT ELEVEN:
It's been a pretty high-profile change to the status quo, so you've probably heard that the X-Men made a move to San Francisco with the 500th issue of Uncanny X-Men. But editor Axel Alonso gave us an interesting teaser when he talked with the San Francisco Chronicle recently:

Q: Is there a chance we might see one of the X-Men come out?

A: Yes. Yes. The city being what it is, certain characters whose sexuality might have been ambiguous are going to feel free to be who they are. I will qualify and say that I never go into the situation with a mandate or an agenda. It has to come along naturally. We're not going to rush into it. But I see it happening.

San Francisco, open your Golden Gates...

Considering the current team working on the X-Men, I see more than a little reason for optimism. Alonso is the editor responsible for Peter Milligan's excellent run on X-Force/X-Factor and the current X-Men writing team includes people responsible for some notable gay moments in comics. Uncanny X-Men is co-written by Ed Brubaker, who created Holly, the temporary successor to Selina Kyle, in his Catwoman run. The adjectiveless title (currently called X-Men: Legacy) comes from the pen of Mike Carey who's was very gay-inclusive on Vertigo titles like Lucifer and Hellblazer, even though in most cases that was a matter of including gay people amid those titles' high bodycount. Finally, Astonishing X-Men has the mind of Apollo and Midnighter creator Warren Ellis working for it.

From the way Alonso phrases things, it sounds like any gay mutant who might come out would be one who has been quietly coming to terms with their sexuality for a while ... so who's been pinging your gaydar? Anyone think it might turn out that Beast wasn't joking when he came out a few years back?

The new Infinity Inc.

By the way, speaking of Peter Milligan, is anyone reading his gender-twisting work on Infinity Inc. at DC? There's nothing specifically gay about the series, so far, but the series includes one guy who sometimes deals with his insecurity by turning into a woman (leading to plenty of gay teasing from one friend) and another guy whose struggle with narcissism is complicated by his ability to clone himself. Of course, the series is already has its final issue scheduled to come out in a few months. Sigh.

AFTER THE BREAK: New life for the gayest video game never to get a US port, Calvin and Hobbes gets mashed up and more!

Live with Regis and Kelly (syndicated) Check local listings
Today it's Ugly Betty mean girl and gay fave Becki Newton who gets to sit in the guest-hosting chair as Tropic Thunder star Ben Stiller stops by to discuss his new, gay-inclusive film.

Project Runway (Bravo) 9:00 PM EDT
Hey, didn't we have an NBC cross-promotional challenge last week? This week Lipstick Jungle's Brooke Shields appears to guest-judge when the remaining designers have to design for modern professional women.

Brooke Shields and her Lipstick Jungle pals

Shear Genius (Bravo) 10:00 PM EDT
Someone was feeling cute at the Shear Genius HQ when this episode was planned, as we see the final five assigned to work on the hair of five five-year-olds. (Hey, do I hear the sound of the Count Von Count laughing?) After that, it's time for the surprise visit by loved ones, all of whom need a new 'do. Let's hope the stylists get to work on their own relatives, as I don't want to see Charlie channeling Jeffrey Sebelia with Nicole's mother.

Sordid Lives (Logo) 10:00 PM EDT
Its more hairspray and scandal as Dr. Eve explains her de-homosexualization therapy to Brother Boy's family, and Bitsy discovers who got her in prison.

Sesame Street (PBS) Check local listings
Can you tell me how to find a singing shoe fairy? Neil Patrick Harris' guest appearance as Telly's source for footwear is supposed to hit the airwaves today.

Food Detectives (Food Network) 9:00 PM EDT
Ted Allen tackles the brain freeze, aged beef and the eternal question of if poppy seeds can set off your drug test. Will he get poppy seed cakes unbanned in my house?

Flipping Out (Bravo) 9:00 PM EDT
After this past season's drama, we definitely need a reunion to address unanswered questions. Since this one promises to reveal "what really happened with Chris E.", I've got my hopes up we'll get at least a few answers.

Million Dollar Listing's Madison Hildebrand

Million Dollar Listing (Bravo) 10:00 PM EDT
With Madison short an assistant, having taken on a major listing and now trying to work two sides of a deal, he certainly has his hands full this week. Good thing the who's-Dorian-Gray guy and the arrested guy are keeping each other distracted with their own rivalry drama.

General Hospital: Night Shift (SOAPNet) 11:00 PM EDT
In what could be an unfortunate opportunity for snark, tonight finds gay doc Kyle (Adam Grimes) giving a sex education to a group of seniors on tonight's episode. Will this lead to another cliched moment that Grimes and Carrie Southworth (playing new BFF Claire) somehow manage to pull off with charm?

I Want to Work for Diddy (VH1) 9:00 PM EDT
This week, the remaining eleven assistants have to find a series of markers after being dropped in the middle of the woods. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll get to see Kim's claims that she would have been able to stay on her feet if she had been in Georgette's shoes (I hope she doesn't turn out to be one of those obnoxious contestants that the show keeps coming up with excuses to keep). And be sure to watch for gay contestant Rob to share some inside dish on the episode later this week when he recaps it from his perspective.

The Mole (ABC) 10:00 PM EDT
Judging from the ratings and the save our show campaign, I guess I'm the only one still watching ... but tonight's finale will finally reveal the Mole and include the usual reunion so that everyone who previously got kicked off the show — including gay contestant Bobby — can scream, "Ah, I knew it!" I keep wavering between Mark and Craig as my Mole pick and considering my record (which includes picking Heather in season two and Kathy Griffin during the first celebrity season) chances look good for it to be Nicole.