NO SOFT SOAP | Actress Eden Riegel, above, plays queer soap character Bianca on ‘AMC,’ who will now have to deal with her sexuality with her teen daughter Miranda, opposite. (Photos: Eric Leibowitz/OLN)

STEVEN LINDSEY  | Contributing Writer
stevencraiglindsey@me.com

It’s common knowledge that nobody on a soap opera is ever truly dead — even if the actor portraying a role dies, the character simply comes back to life after some remarkable plastic surgery and a whole new look. Sometimes even a new ethnicity.

So it should come as no surprise that two entire soap operas that went to TV heaven in 2011 would come back to life eventually — looking mostly the same, but somehow different.

Prepare to meet the evil twins of All My Children and One Life to Live, both bringing sudsy action back to daytime via the Internet. Fans can once again catch new, 30-minute episodes streaming online in HD on Hulu and Hulu Plus, which pushes content to connected TVs, mobile phones, tablets and desktops. (Episodes will also be available at the iTunes Store for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Apple TV, Mac and PC.)

For 10 years, Eden Riegel played Bianca Montgomery, the lesbian daughter of Pine Valley’s most notorious citizen, Erica Kane (portrayed by Susan Lucci for more than 40 years) on the TV version of AMC. Now she’s back in character in the new incarnation.

“It is a lot alike, I have to say,” Riegel says during a break from performing in a play in Los Angeles. “A lot of the same people are involved. [Not, however, Lucci.] A lot of our producers are the same, the writers, of course the actors. We’ve all come back for this sort of family reunion with lots of cameras,” she says. “It does feel somewhat the same except the Internet kind of lends this greater freedom to us.”

That includes the ability to use curse words (though Riegel promises not gratuitously) as well as show more skin than network TV allowed.

“I’d say the biggest difference is that kids are able to use sort of the slang they’d really use. They sound like authentic kids,” Riegel says. “We’re really catering to the fans this time, not catering to advertisers.

This is really a fan-driven resurgence. It’s because the fans never gave up hope that this even happened.”

The series is filmed in Stamford, Conn., which doubles for Pine Valley on location shoots. The cast films multiple episodes over a couple weeks and then OLTL moves in to produce their chunk of shows. It’s a fast production schedule, but none of the network gloss has been lost in the new medium. If anything, they’re just working smarter.

“I heard somebody say that they wanted to do 250 episodes a year or something,” she laughs hesitantly, “and we can do it.”

All My Children ended its TV run with a cliffhanger that seemed like it would never find resolution. But audiences may finally get closure.

“I would say the cliffhanger more than gets addressed,” Riegel hints. “The effects are felt basically by everyone in Pine Valley. It’s five years later, so we get this exciting time jump and catch up with these characters’ lives. The cliffhanger definitely impacts my character in particular and she’s reeling from the effects. It’s affecting her family, so it’s definitely a big part of the show. Moving it forward means that people don’t have to stand around in black and mourn for weeks.”

Riegel says to expect plenty of familiar characters and a few new ones, plus lots of drama for her character.

“I’m not allowed to say much, but I can say that Bianca’s daughter [Miranda] has SORAS: Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome. She’s a teenager now dealing with high school drama and taking after Erica Kane in a lot of ways. Bianca has always taken more after Mona [Erica’s mother], so you get this interesting symmetry from the early days of Erica being a teenager rebelling against Mona. Now it’s my daughter rebelling against me.”

Miranda must also cope with her mother’s sexual orientation.

“Miranda is dealing with things at school that have to deal with her mother’s sexuality. The fact that Bianca is gay is really sort of first and foremost in her life and the plot. We deal with that fallout, too, because we’ve never seen Bianca with a grown daughter having to deal with maybe her daughter feeling the effects of intolerance,” she says. “Bianca has certainly dealt with that, but it’s a lot different when the person you love more than anyone in the world has to deal with it because of you. So I think Bianca feels some guilt about that and is trying to help her daughter deal with that. Bianca’s sexuality definitely plays a role in the context of her family.”

Ever since the Bianca character came out of the closet, she has been an icon of sorts to the LGBT community, a role that Riegel cherishes.

“It’s been a great experience,” she says. “I love how the audiences really have embraced her. Certainly it’s attracted gay audience members to watch the show and they connect with Bianca and they identify with her and that makes me proud. Also, straight audiences adore Bianca and they root for her. In a way, I think she’s possibly opened a few minds and introduced people to their first kind of gay friends.”
Most of all, she sees Bianca as a positive role model.

“We tried really hard not to make her a saint — she’s a whole person. We don’t want somebody representing this sexual orientation and not have her be a real human being. That’s the whole point of all of it. Give people an image of themselves on TV,” Riegel says. “If it makes people feel a little more comfortable about who they are because of the fact that they see it on TV, that’s great.”

All My Children premieres, along with One Life to Live, online Monday at TheOnlineNetwork.com. Riegel comes to Austin in June for the ATX Television Festival. ATXFestival.com.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition April 26, 2013.

Fans of the HBO series Game of Thrones don’t just love the show — they loooove the show. I should know; I’m one of them. (It was one of my Top 10 of 2012.) It’s the third-highest-rated series in HBO history, made even more significant considering how complex and challenging the storytelling is: More than 250 speaking parts with Middlearth-sounding names like Tywin and Tyrion, Daenerys and Sansa, with more intrigue than a Kardashian pregnancy and more sex than … well, the same. It’s a sweeping story of rivalries between factions on the fictional continent of Westeros — the Lannisters and the Starks and the Baratheons — but each season is only 10 episodes long. You’d be exhausted by more.

Now that Season 3 starts up this weekend, fans will have some English accents to glue them to the tube every Sunday other than Downton Abbey.

This season, though, gets off to a slow start. It’s not surprising — after killing off the leading characters by the end of Season 1 and fomenting a rebellion throughout Season 2, a breather was in order. We’re introduced to more new characters (including Diana Rigg as a sassy dowager and Ciaran Hinds as king of the north) before saying goodbye to old ones. And many of the old ones still hold their appeal, especially Emmy winner Peter Dinklage, pictured, as Tyrion Lannister, the wily dwarf (and sole likeable member of his clan), and Daenerys (Emilie Clarke), the mistress of dragons (we get to see the buggers fly around in the season premiere, though she’s not even in Episode 2). And let’s not forget hunky, brooding bastard Jon Snow. What’s missing so far is a bit more deliciousness and sex (they killed off the best gay character last season!), but we can wait. It’s all in the Game.

— Arnold Wayne Jones

Four stars. Premieres on HBO Sunday at 8 p.m.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition March 29, 2013,

In the show, debuting on HBO at 9 p.m. (with rebroadcasts numerous times throughout the month), Gumble talks to a 51-year-old point guard for Mission College’s women’s basketball team, a 6-foot-6 powerhouse named Gabrielle Ludwig. But it’s not her age that’s the focus of the piece — it’s that she was born Robert Ludwig.

It’s been 30 years since Robert played a semester of NCAA hoops, dropping out not to be seen on the court again until last year. By then, Ludwig had transitioned to Gabrielle, and was quickly accepted Mission’s coach, who welcome outcasts on his team.

For the most part, Gumble handles the interview respectfully and thoroughly, using proper pronouns (and playing audio from ESPN Radio where commentators certainly did not, calling Ludwig “he/she” and “it”). And the reunion with Ludwig’s parents after nine years without contact is emotional and touching. Gumble’s only misstep, though — and it’s a big one — is when he questions how one of Ludwig’s teammates took two weeks before she knew Gabrielle was trans. “Come on! It took you two weeks?!” Gumble presses incredulously. Yes, Bryant. Not all trans people are as easy to clock as you think.

Sadly, the episode of Real Sports makes a much more insensitive and lazy joke at the expense of Mike Tyson. In the segment with the former heavyweight champ that kicks off the episode, annoying journo Bernie Goldberg sits in a theater where Tyson is performing his one-man show and asks him, “Are you a thespian?”

“I don’t know about that…” Tyson responds.

“I’m not talking about your sexuality,” Goldberg smugly laughs. “I’m talking about being an actor.”

Sure, Bernie — you thought you’d tease the champ with punny jokes about being a lesbian. But Tyson gets the last laugh, lecturing Goldberg about “Thespis” being the first actor in Greek lore. He didn’t overreact to Goldberg’s offensive, snarky, schoolyard taunt, he set him straight. Which, Bernie, is not meant as a comment on your sexuality.

It seems now that the only criterion for a reality cable TV show is how punny and suggestive the title can be. A show about big-breasted women working in a bra shop would be a non-starter …until you call it Double Divas, then you have a tentpole. Would anyone watch Honey Boo Boo if it weren’t called Honey Boo Boo?

Add to that list Built. The premise: Five gorgeous male models also work as home renovators! Of course, they do both extremely well: Look hot, nail … and maybe get nailed. It’s all the same nowadays. (The show is a combination of Trading Spaces and Joe Millionaire, without the class of either.)

Still, Built is probably the worst new show I am likely to start watching right now. OK, I admit it: The clients are tasteless nouveaux riches, the projects full of faux drama, the men seem like Ken Doll narcissists (some have to be gay, though none discussed his sexuality in the pilot I screened). Built handsome guys with their shirts off is as good a reason as any to waste an afternoon watching TV.
Monday at 8 p.m. on the Style Network.

Next week also welcomes the returns Monday of Dallas on TNT and RuPaul’s Drag Race on Logo, and Project Runway Thursday on Lifetime. We’re not sure which will have more catfights.

— Arnold Wayne Jones

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 25, 2013.

People might know Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell through their television show The Fabulous Beekman Boys on the Cooking Channel, but with their come-from-way-behind victory on last season’s The Amazing Race, the couple is now twofers when it comes to TV fame, winning a race around the world.

“They actually recruited us,” Ridge says. “We knew as middle-aged contestants — even if we trained hardcore — we weren’t going to be the fastest or the youngest.” So the couple 12 years strong focused on their secret weapon: trust in each other.

“When a team fails or gets eliminated, it usually stems from a team defeating itself. So we focused on how to communicate or motivate each other,” Ridge says.

But why run the race at all? In addition to TV fame, they already enjoy a trendy business run out of their farm; Ridge is also a physician and Kilmer-Purcell a novelist. Was mere vanity driving them?

“There is this notion that because we’re on TV, we’re millionaires already, but you don’t make very much money on reality TV — certainly not enough to get Josh here at the farm full time,” Ridge says.

“The last five years Josh has been at the farm only on weekends. Now, with the winnings, he can be here all the time.”

It was the infamously aggressive Sri Lankan sister team — The Twinnies — who many considered the boys’ closest rivals. Likeably brash and never afraid to refer to the team as “the gays” or make catty remarks about them, they ended up being key factors in the boys’ victory. “They really riled up our spirit and we got sassy back,” Ridge says. “When we crossed the finish line, the twins were one of the first we thanked for lighting a fire under our asses.”

Their run through Gotham Hall was one of last year’s unforgettable TV moments, especially for gay viewers who have waited nearly a decade since Reichen and Chip won to see a queer team take it.

“Having us as underdogs, which we were, and people plotting against us I think brought up that alienation gay people have growing up,” he says. “Many times, people were counting us out or never thought we had a chance. But we did it and perhaps viewers triumphed with us.”

— Rich Lopez

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 11, 2013.

DRAGSTER | Korean-American actor Hoon Lee took on an unusual role — that of a small-town cross-dressing gangster — in the new Cinemax crime drama ‘Banshee’ from Oscar-winner Alan Ball.

ARNOLD WAYNE JONES  | Life+Style Editor

As an Asian-American actor, Hoon Lee is accustomed to looking at, as he says, “a smaller spectrum of roles.” So when a good one comes by, why turn it down?

That experience informed Lee’s decision to take on the role of Job, the cross-dressing Korean-American gangster in small-town Pennsylvania in Banshee, a new series premiering Friday on Cinemax. Considering it is executive-produced by gay Oscar-winner Alan Ball, it’s hard not to see the similarity to another of Ball’s series where a rural gay man in drag seems not to raise eyebrows.

“Yes, when I talked to people about this role, they always referenced Lafayette from True Blood,” Lee concedes with a chuckle. “It’s as if he asks, where can we put these guys? Amish Country! Is there a niche being created [for minority actors]? But that very question implies a problem. It’s never really [an issue] to say we have another white, heterosexual male hero — it’s a trope standard to the genre.”

Banshee revolves around a recently-paroled thief who steals the identity of the town’s new sheriff, enlisting the help of shady computer hacker Job to stay ahead of the game.

Lee has done drag for theater before, but this role upped it.

“I’d done drag once in a play, but it was a farce so it was part of that comedic thing. It was very much a new experience we all had to think about and work around. I felt the production was extremely helpful.”

Lee, who is straight, has been mindful of his responsibility not just to the character, but to the communities he represents — both LGBT and Asian-American.

“What I like about becoming part of this community of characters is, we have a sense of shaping how people see these kinds of characters,” he says. “The more extreme the character is, the more interested I am in doing it. It does carry a risk; you are sensitive to that as [a minority]. Is this propagating some stereotype of Asian men as gangsters? The real trap is looking at things in generalities. If there’s a sensational quality, that’s where the problem arises.”

If Job is a stereotype, it’s not a bad one. Lean and handsome, Lee plays Job with a sassy personality; when two teenage girls gawk at him sitting on a beach in a designer wrap, he hisses, “This is Diane von Furstenberg! Now go get pregnant, Snooki.”

Lee laughs at the reminder. A graduate of Harvard University, he brings a thoughtful, analytical approach to his role.

 “What’s exciting to me about Job — and I really enjoy this character — is, I think there’s been a rich dialogue for why he does what he does. He pulls from whatever he needs to achieve his objective — that’s a computer hacker mentality. That also speaks to his cross-dressing — there’s a lot of power in the feminine side of the world, something men can’t access.

“I don’t get even asked to audition for these kind of roles very much and I think the opportunity is tremendous. If someone watches me and puts me in a container in the first few seconds, that allows me to shatter that. If they don’t, they are waiting to see what you are.“

As for the downsides of playing gay and drag, so far Lee has just been happy to explore a unique aspect of society. Even his folks are cool with that.

“My parents are from Korea and pretty traditional,” he says. “What was really curious was, when I told them about the role, their reservations had nothing to do with drag, but the potential for me to be nude. That was funny to me. It’s nice to get these reminders that your parents aren’t as square as you think.”

 This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 11, 2013.

HUMOR WINS | The hilariously gay-friendly sketch comedy of ‘Key & Peele’ won us over.

10. The New Normal (NBC). Ryan Murphy is so over-taxed — in addition to this, he has three other shows on the air (Glee, The Glee Project and American Horror Story: Asylum), all of which took a turn for the worse (however slightly) this year. While New Normal wasn’t perfect, its sassy discussion of gay issues, including the best comic villain since Will & Grace’s Karen Walker in the form of homophobic GOPer Ellen Barkin and the delightful Bebe Wood as a precocious pre-teen, kept us watching.

9. Nashville and Revenge (both ABC). It wouldn’t be fair to call these ABC shows our trashy secrets or our guilty pleasures — they were both damned good in their own rights last year, with interesting storylines and superior acting. The nighttime soap opera has certainly improved since the old days of Dallas and Flamingo Road.

8. Downton Abbey (PBS). Maggie Smith. That is all.

7. Boardwalk Empire (HBO). The genius of this series? It doesn’t have any likeable characters, just unlikeable ones you end up rooting for. Steve Buscemi forms the emotional center of this tale, based on some real characters from the era of Prohibition, but the ensemble work is as good as you’ll find.

6. Modern Family. The funniest live-action comedy on television got even better this fall in a episode when gay couple Mitchell and Cam crossed paths with two lesbian moms, but that was just the high-water mark in a show that has been consistently great.

5. RuPaul’s Drag Race (Logo). It helped that the last “newcomer” season had a winner (Sharon Needles) who didn’t go simply for glam, and that the All-Stars edition brought back some of our favorites. This show still makes America’s Next Top Model look like it’s populated by rejects from The Walking Dead. And Ru’s deadpan delivery makes it all the funnier.

4. Archer (FX). This foul-mouthed animated spoof of James Bond movies, with a petulant superspy and his Oedipal relationship with his mom, who’s also his boss, is like The Sopranos without James Gandolfini’s weight gain … and a whole helluva lot more laughs. Gayish, sexy and weird, you rarely saw where it was going.

3. Game of Thrones (HBO). Mythic fantasy never seemed more vibrant, and never better told than in this remarkable series, which juggles fully 40 major characters across competing storylines without ever becoming confusing. Throw in a lot of hotties (including some same-sex attractions), dragons and rousing battle scenes, and you have the most fully-realized action series since Alias.

2. The Daily Show (Comedy Central), The Colbert Report (Comedy Central) and Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO). 2012 was an election year, so almost nothing mattered more than comedians who put the ridiculousness of the election process in perspective — and the liberal perspective (even ironically presented via Colbert’s faux Bill O’Reilly impersonation) gave a counterpoint to the serious-as-a-heart-attack misinformation of Fox News. Collectively, 2012 would have seemed very different without these folks — not just on television, but possibly at the ballot box.

1. Key & Peele (Comedy Central). Comedy Central scored a threefer this year, and this sketch comedy show is the reason why. The one unmissable show of 2012 was this hilarious satire of everything from same-sex marriage to gay adoption to Rihanna, though it is probably the “Obama and his anger translator, Luther” segments that made each fall episode so timely and funny. We needed to laugh — no one made us laugh harder than these two humorous hotties.

— Arnold Wayne Jones

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 4, 2013.

Eh. Teams is reality TV competitionspeak for “we set up folks to fight more.”

No, what really interested me was that in discussing the return, they noted Heidi would be back with Tim Gunn and Nina Garcia and new featured guest judge Zac Posen.

No mention at all of Michael Kors.

Then, later down, we find out Kors will be the final celebrity guest judge during Fashion Week.

Auf Wiedershesen.

Gotta say it: Bad move. Kors’ catty quips, as only a gay man can be, are for me the raison d’etre of Project Runway. I love me sum Tim Gunn, and me likee Heidi’s brush-off, but Kors is the tart souffle to Nina’s logy cheese course. We’ll have to see…

The train wreck that has become Lindsay Lohan didn’t start out that way. She was handily the most gifted pop princess of her incoming class, with a throaty voice that conveyed maturity; she even picked good projects, like Mean Girls, and held her own opposite Meryl Streep in A Prairie Home Companion. After all her drug and legal problems, the decision to rehabilitate (her career, at least) by doing a biopic of Elizabeth Taylor seemed like a savvy one: Both actresses were dogged by paparazzi, substance abuse and personal tragedy. Surely Lohan would bring her own experience to bear. And she looked the part, clearly. I was excited.

And now, disappointed with Liz & Dick, the Lifetime movie (airing Sunday) that was to be her comeback.

Aside from the “look,” Lohan lacks most of Taylor’s essential qualities — most specifically, the volcanic passion percolating under a slightly icy exterior. Taylor was never earthy and warm, like Ava Gardner or Rita Hayworth, but unattainable; imagine her in that white slip from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and you can see the formula of sexuality and porcelain perfection that she was — a brunetted and more talented version of Marilyn Monroe.

Lohan has little of that in this TV film, which concentrates on her 20-year relationship with Richard Burton. Taylor had diction and vulnerability; Lohan seems snippy and hardened already. Those qualities come out occasionally, but not consistently, and she too often seems amateurish. It’s simply not her best performance, as much as you want it to be. And the meta-experience of watching Lohan recreate the binge-breakdown cycle of her icon, mirroring her own life, seems less like haunting authenticity than more tabloid exploitation of both of them.

Grant Bowler is more convincing as Burton, with both the craggy looks and the resonant baritone trill, and his heavy-lidded yearning for Liz feels real. Back in the day, no one ever doubted Liz and Dick loved each other — indeed, they were better as exes than as a couple. Bowler reminds us of that devotion.

The film itself dashes, TV-movie-ishly, from scene to scene with little room for development or transition. If the director, Lloyd Cramer, spent less time racing to cover ground and more tailoring Taylor from Lohan, it might be good. Instead, it feels like she’s back at square one.

One-and-a-half stars. Airs Nov. 25 on Lifetime.

I watched the returns in a room full of gay people, ready to pop the bubbly cork as soon as Obama was called by one of the news channels (we were swimming in champagne by 10:15 p.m.). We flipped among the channels to see who had different predictions up. And we got to hear Rachel Maddow on MSNBC announce Barack Obama was the president still.

Lesbian.

Then we watched as Anderson Cooper oversaw coverage on CNN.

Gay.

And we logged onto Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog from the New York Times to check updates.

Silver’s also gay.

All of these people are out and proud and given principal responsibilities for overseeing election coverage for their media organizations. And so far as I noticed, none of them (or their fellows on TV in the cases of Maddow and Cooper) so much as hinted at their sexual orientation during their election night coverage. Because that was irrelevant to their reporting. (Compare that to the folks on Fox News, who acted as if the vote was a rebuke of Christian heterosexuality.)

We’ve reached a special plateau when the most respected newsmen in the country get to report on popular votes about gay folks and be on the side of the majority. The excitement wasn’t just at the ballot box Tuesday night. It was right up there on the screen.