The Showtime network (the folks behind Queer as Folk and The L Word) are in the midst of developing a reality series about gay and lesbian people coming out to their friends and family.

Titled Way Out, the project is in the pilot stage and is being compared to A&E's approach to addiction recovery in Intervention, mostly because it comes from that series' executive producer, Bryn Freedman. In each episode the gay or lesbian central subject would come out in a group meeting, and deal with the aftermath.

Definitely an interesting topic, and one that could be very engaging if done right. Like many of us, my own coming out was gradual and piecemeal (I didn't organize a press conference or anything), so seeing someone come out to a group of friends and family at once would be interesting.

Since we're so excited about Showtime's development of Perry Moore's gay superhero adventure Hero, we figured we'd try to make the wait go faster with our picks for who we think should be cast for the lead roles. So, after scouring the cast lists of various teen dramas, here are a few thoughts on who I see as Thom Creed and pals...

Thom Creed:
Kellan Lutz or Mitch Hewer

Our hero, Thom, is a teen who should have it all (he's athletic, smart and attractive) but whose easy road to adulthood faces the hurdles of coming to terms with his gayness and figuring out how to deal with his newly awakened superpowers. Thom needs an actor with a good amount of charisma but who can underplay it with Thom's introspective and insecure side. I think I saw a bit of that potential in Twilight hottie Kellan Lutz in his guest-spots on 90210. However, I think we saw a lot of Thom's qualities — great talent mixed with a little bit of doubt — in Mitch Hewers' Skins performance.

Goran:
JD Pardo or Argiris Karras

Thom's mysterious crush requires someone who can bring the kind of brooding and sense of mystery that David Boreanaz brought to the early days of Buffy. While JD Pardo's most famous role was playing Gwen Arajuo in a Lifetime movie, I really liked him on the short-lived Drive and he certainly showed an ability to play a character with a dark side as Hidden Palms' dead teen Eddie Nolan. I also was impressed with the way Argiris Karras played up Degrassi's closeted gay jock, Riley: take out Riley's jerky side and you're getting pretty close to Goran.

This is, um, super:

Perry Moore's young adult novel Hero - which tells the coming-out story of a gay teen superhero - is being developed as a one-hour series for Showtime by comics legend Stan Lee.

We knew that Lee and Moore were working together on something from their appearance together at a gay comics event earlier this year, but this is great news. Showtime of course brought us the groundbreaking Queer as Folk and The L Word, and while something based on a young adult novel might not be as racy as either of these series, it will no doubt continue the trend of out-loud, out-proud television.

We can't wait to hear more! In the meantime, check out our interview with Moore and our interview with Lee.

While we're all anxiously awaiting to see if Swingtown will be renewed by CBS (or moved to a better another network), producer/creator Mike Kelley has inked a deal to produce more shows, including a very intriguing offering that's being co-produced by Sean Hayes.

Bi-Coastal is a one hour drama set to air on Showtime, and according to the press report, "it centers on a successful man who struggles to balance family life with his wife and kids in Los Angeles as he falls in love with a man in New York."

According to Kelley, you can expect something new and fresh:

"It has a lot of the watermarks of things I love to write about -- people with secrets and high-stakes love lives," Kelley said.

Compared to Swingtown, which was based on his childhood memories of his parents and their swinger friends, "I want to give 'BiCoastal' a bit of a harder edge and heightened sense of drama," Kelley said.

There's no word on casting, but it certainly sounds interesting, and because it's going to be on Showtime, it won't have that "neutered" feel that a network show does. Bisexuality is rarely explored on TV, and when it is, it's rarely done well, so hopefully this will be an improvement.

For those of us who aren't old enough to remember those decadent days of disco in NYC, the only way we can experience it is from firsthand accounts (I have a dear friend who has one story about that era, and it ends with the line "The itching lasted a month"), or from movies like the recently restored 54.

Now Showtime, whose stock has gone up considerably with us with this announcement, will be bringing those days back in a new scripted drama series called Studio, about the early days of the legendary discotheque:

"Studio centers on flamboyant co-founder Steve Rubell and starts off in the months leading to the club's April 1977 opening.

But Studio, which is in development, will be a fictional series and not a biopic or docudrama. Rubell will be the only real person featured, with the rest of the characters fictional or composites."

The show has already earned its gay credentials with out Hairspray producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron involved, as well as the possible directing skills of out A-list director Bryan Singer. Zadan and Meron jumped at the chance as soon as they heard about it:

"It really was a time that has never been seen again," Zadan said. "Socially, politically, everything about it was unique."

Added Meron: "It was the last hurrah before the era of AIDS."

They said that Rubell will be the only "real" character in the series, but I'm hoping for some cameos. Bianca Jagger looks about the same as she did back then, and maybe they can get Crispin Glover to don his Andy Warhol costume again.

And because it's on Showtime, it's sure to be "gritty and real", i.e. "lots of naked butt shots".

Anyone else looking forward to this as much as we are?

Premium channel Showtime doubled up its British comedy quotient when it announced that it would be bringing comedian Marc Wootton to American airwaves.

I know Wootton best as Shirley Ghostman, the fake celebrity psychic who claims to channel the spirits of famous people (often claiming to speak with the ghost of Princess Diana). But Wootton jumped headlong into gay prank territory on the reality game show My New Best Friend, where people had to pretend that an appalling character played by Wootton was their new best friend.

Normally, hidden camera shows that try to mine comedy out of people's embarrassment leave me cringing more than laughing but Wootton targets his victim's worst qualities in a way that reminds me of Sacha Baron Cohen. In the first episode of My New Best Friend (warning, some NSFW language in the show), Wootton takes Tim - a real "man's man" - and forces him to spend the weekend with Stevie, a campy, effeminate social worker with whom Tim must pretend to be best friends. The experience brings out Tim's homophobic tendencies and makes him face them (even to the point of coming out to his friends) in order to win the prize.

Wootton's Showtime series will have him similarly interacting with unsuspecting members of the public and I wonder if this series will include a gay character like Stevie. There's certainly room for a character that makes cringe comedy out of American homophobia like Cohen's Bruno did. We'll have to keep Wootton's new series on our radar.

In what would be a refreshing change of pace from gay personal assistants (Entourage, Ugly Betty), guys who don't know they are gay (Help Me Help You, The Class) or guys who are gay, then aren't, or maybe they are, who can tell and who really cares (The Shield, Rescue Me) word is out that Showtime is looking at a series about a gay baseball player. It's called The Beard, a reference to the fact that the player has to hide his sexuality by pretending to be in a relationship with a woman.

A source told Daily Variety that The Beard is "...a comedy of errors, strikes and runs. It has its slapsticky moments and its sweet comedy moments."

Not only is this a refreshing change of pace from so many typical gay characters on television, but it's also a good sign it is being produced by David Collins and Michael Williams, the gay couple who founded "Scout Productions" which brought us Queer Eye For the Straight Guy. Maria Maggenti (Puccini for Beginners, The Incredibly True Story of Two Girls in Love) is set to write the half-hour comedy and former baseball player Billy Bean who came out in 1999 will act as a consultant.

It's about time there is a show about a gay man set in the world of sports. As Beane, John Amaechi, Esera Tualo, and other gay athletes prove, gay men are found in all walks of life, but even now television far too often casts us as hairdressers, gay best friends, and interior decorators. Nothing wrong with those professions mind you, but I, for one, am sick of seeing them!

I wish I'd heard about this while at the Television Critics Association so I could've cornered some Showtime suits to get details, but I'm still excited to see a series like this in development. There is no work on casting yet, but I'd love to see Wilmer Valderrama or Luke MacFarlane. With this and the Canadian film Breakfast with Scot, we're one movie away from a full-fledged trend! Maybe The Dreyfus Affair will finally get made into a movie!