Sex! Sex! Sex!
Why we love to watch.
      by Rachel Hyland

Sure, he had a tattoo that told him to do things. But he was totally hot!

Let's start with that unlikeliest of places, The X-Files. Not because I think there's a chance that we will find any happiness going on there (Heaven forbid), but because I'm pretty sure it's gonna prove me right.

And would you look at that? It does! Mulder had sex with that British chick from The Flash, and practically got burned alive while getting his partner all cranky. (We've all noticed, by the way, that The Flash is now playing Dawson's dad, right?) Skinner had sex with a hooker -- accidentally, though -- and was thence suspected of her murder when some mythological chick with a crush got jealous. Scully had sex with the extremely unstable Ed Jerse, played by Rodney Rowland, and -- well, even though he ended up trying to kill her at the behest of "Special Guest Star" Jodie Foster, there really wasn't any bad there, was there? Damn. But... he did try to kill her... nope. No bad.

What about in Star Trek, then? That Captain Kirk had sex with half the Alpha Quadrant, and managed to charm at least a dozen various sentient robots into self-destructing, so on the surface, it looks like the sex thing was working for him. But... sorry, no. Poor ol' James T. has justly been accused of having a one-track mind, but on that track was his starship, the sadly deceased U.S.S. Enterprise, for which his passion was overwhelming... and, you know what? I'm gonna end that thought before it even begins.

In later incarnations of the Trek, sex became even more essential to the plots, and still no one ever ended up having very much of it. Every time a couple would get involved one of them would either die, be transferred, or just get so incredibly dull (I'm looking at you, B'Elanna Torres) that no one really cared what happened with them anymore.

Lois and Clark: Canceled proof that it's all about angst.

Babylon 5, at least, cannot be accused of letting a character get boring. But, still, sex wasn't doing any of them much good either. Ivanova finally let down her guard and fell in love with the telepathic Talia Winters only to be betrayed by subconscious commands placed in Talia's mind. When the bizarre Lyta Alexander (Patricia Tallman) got involved with revolutionary leader Byron, she didn't actually expect him to live did she? And as for Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) and Delenn (Mira Furlan) -- well, their marriage may have been a long and happy one, but you try running an intergalactic alliance knowing all the while to the very day when one of you is destined to die...

I knew I was right about this! I didn't want to be right, you know!

In fact, I think we need to expand this search for happiness in genre farther afield. How far? I'm talking Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman far. Here, surely, in the land of comic book television, we can find some good old-fashioned contentment? Superficially, it would seem so. The title characters finally got together -- after Lois (Teri Hatcher) saw through Clark's (Dean Cain) cunning disguise with her keen journalistic skill -- and then they got married. But, in a disturbingly I Dream of Jeannie turn of events, everyone then stopped watching -- which is the very reason Dean Cain can now be seen hosting Ripley's Believe It Or Not. (The Flash is Dawson's dad, Dean Cain is the poor man's Robert Stack -- they were superheroes, man! Do they have no shame?) It seems that no one was at all interested in watching the Man of Steel and the Bond Girl in marital bliss, so the show was cancelled. Which, of course, is the very reason that none of our favourite couples are ever going to get together, you realise this, yes? Damn you, fickle Lois and Clark fans!

Vampire Willow: Evil, skanky, and kinda gay.

But let's talk more about Buffy. Don't you love that topic? Haven't you missed it so?

These days Buffy's Willow, bereft of Oz and getting deeper into the ways of magic, is building something of a relationship with new Witchy Woman, Tara. Eyes perpetually downcast -- perhaps to hide her scheming heart? -- shy and diffident Tara has already earned a secret place in Willow's affections; soon we shall discover just how deep it goes. Producer Whedon, in an uncharacteristically forthcoming mood, recently informed fans on the official Buffy site's posting board that Willow and Tara were definitely getting romantic. To which I say: Watch out, Tara! The last time a character came out on Buffy, he ended up very dead. (R.I.P. Larry.) Of course, the last time anyone did anything on Buffy they ended up very dead too, but still...

Willow's interest in the Sapphic, meanwhile, should not really come as too much of a surprise to the attentive viewer. In the third season episode "Doppelgangland" -- which saw Willow's alternate-universe vampire self in Sunnydale, kicking local butt and swanning about the place in a lot of leather -- Willow observes of her double: "I'm so evil! And skanky! And I think I'm kinda gay."

Clever foreshadowing indeed. And a very clever, quite bold, plot development.

For all the talk of how genre allows creators to explore some of the more taboo subjects in life, and to give free reign to liberality without concern for censors, homosexuality is not a topic that has ever been much addressed. While shows like Star Trek have devoted a few episodes to the issue (the excellent Next Generation effort "The Outcast" springs to mind), they have been just that. Episodes. From over thirty main characters in four different series, not one Trekian has ever played for the home team. And a similar story exists in Babylon 5. While that show did have two main characters involved in a same-sex relationship, it only did so by having one of them under the influence of mind control and the other a female military officer -- so, of course she was gay!

It is to be hoped that the Mutant Enemy folks will deal with this sensitive issue -- and why it should be a sensitive issue I have no idea -- with less recourse to cliché. However they do it, though, I think it's pretty safe to say that it will not end happily.

But then, neither have some of the great loves of genre TV history...

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