glantern954
Nov 14, 2006, 10:02 PM
Title: Homicide: Life On The Street's Bisexual Detective
Source: AfterElton.com
Author: Locksley Hall,
Published: November 14, 2006
Imagine there's a cop show. Imagine it's on network television. Imagine that, although it's never been the biggest ratings-grabber, it's acclaimed critically, having won several Emmys. Naturally, the show has a male lead who is attractive, complex and sympathetic. Now imagine that he's also openly bisexual.
Given the current state of network television it sounds too good to be true, right? Except it already happened. On 2 January 1998, NBC aired an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street titled ‘Closet Cases' during which Baltimore-based thirtysomething detective Tim Bayliss (played by Kyle Secor) acknowledged his attraction to men. In the episode, Bayliss accepted a date from a gay man, played by guest star Peter Gallagher. In the following episode, Homicide's writers re-established Bayliss's interest in women, while making it clear that he was not closing the door on the possibility of dating men.
Detective Timothy Bayliss thereby became the first - and, as of now, the only bisexual male lead on an American network television show. During the rest of the sixth season - in which the ‘Closet Cases' episode occurred - the seventh season, and the made-for-TV movie that concluded the show, Bayliss's bisexuality or ‘bi-curiousness' continued to be addressed.
Homicide is today released for the first time as a complete series DVD set. The show ran from 1993 to 1999, with the movie coda Homicide: Life Everlasting shown in 2000. Co-executive producer Tom Fontana would go on to create the gritty HBO prison drama Oz, a show that would depict one of television's great male/male relationships between Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen) and Chris Keller ( Chris topher Meloni).
Like Oz, Homicide dealt with a predominantly male environment - and as such had a particular emphasis on relationships and feelings between men: hatred, rivalry, collusion, friendship, companionship, love, lust.
One of the reasons why Bayliss's storyline is interesting for a queer audience, even before his coming out, is because of what can be seen as his ambiguous feelings for his arrogant, prickly detective partner, Frank Pembleton (played by Andre Braugher).
The show had a habit, maintained all the way through the series, of referring to work partner relationships as if they were romantic relationships. In the very first episode, the partner-shy Pembleton tells Giardello, the unit's Shift Commander, that he has turned “yenta”, or matchmaker, by trying to make Pembleton work in pairs. Later in the season, Detective Lewis finds Pembleton and Bayliss bickering, and tells them that “Y'all two got a co-dependent relationship, you need to work on that.” A Season 3 episode contains the following exchange:
Bayliss: So, you're just gonna walk out on me?
Pembleton: I didn't walk out on you Tim. We're not engaged; so don't act like I left you at the altar.
In a recent interview with AfterElton.com, Kyle Secor referred to Pembleton and Bayliss's “very kind of ‘old married couple' relationship”, describing them jokingly as “the deeply involved couple who didn't have sex anymore”. Of the show's ambiguous dialogue, he says that:
“It's the writers, and Tom Fontana. He can split that dialogue both ways. Andre and I had many talks about it. And in a lot of the relationships in the show you see that, where the partners are very intimate with each other. They generally care a great deal about each other, and about their personal lives, and it feels like, you know, they know each other better than potentially their husbands or wives might know them, or boyfriends or girlfriends. So it was very intimate, what we were all going through.”
Even pre-coming out, Bayliss's storyline had been phrased in terms of self-discovery, and particularly sexual self-discovery.
An early episode delved into his discomfort in dealing with an S&M murder, suggesting that it was perhaps partly due to his own repression. Then he winds up sleeping with a woman in a coffin. A Season 3 episode seems to have him confessing that he had some homosexual experiences as a young man. On a darker note, Season 5 also saw him acknowledging and confronting the sexual abuse he had suffered from his uncle as a child.
Secor, who is straight, reflects on the gradual evolution of his character, leading up to the bisexuality storyline: “It progressed from the end of the second season, I walk into a strip bar wearing a black leather jacket. And Tom Fontana says they always wanted that to point towards something, but they didn't know when they were going to actually start layering some of that stuff in. And they didn't know what would be layered in, or how it would turn out, which I thought was sort of the brilliance of the whole thing.
“And it was great - the writers had their ideas, and they would listen to some of my ideas, as the seasons went along. Everyone was interested in exploring different avenues. And [eventually] it just seemed like it was a natural thing for this guy to... to be wanting to walk in all sides of the neighborhood, so to speak.” He laughs.
Secor says he thinks that Bayliss was attracted to men before the ‘Closet Cases' episode: “I think that he had had fantasies, but he'd never acted on it before. I mean I really think that with the Peter Gallagher character, that was the first time. [Being attracted to men was] something he had been aware of... you know, it could be in the corner of his eye, looking over, seeing someone, and then just going on and doing his business, but never... But stuff with women didn't work either. And, you know, in a sense, [he was] almost, like - ‘There's gotta be something else. There's gotta be something else. Oh, men understand me much better than women. Let's see if this [could work].'”
To read the rest of this story:
http://www.afterelton.com/TV/2006/11/homicide2.html
Source: AfterElton.com
Author: Locksley Hall,
Published: November 14, 2006
Imagine there's a cop show. Imagine it's on network television. Imagine that, although it's never been the biggest ratings-grabber, it's acclaimed critically, having won several Emmys. Naturally, the show has a male lead who is attractive, complex and sympathetic. Now imagine that he's also openly bisexual.
Given the current state of network television it sounds too good to be true, right? Except it already happened. On 2 January 1998, NBC aired an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street titled ‘Closet Cases' during which Baltimore-based thirtysomething detective Tim Bayliss (played by Kyle Secor) acknowledged his attraction to men. In the episode, Bayliss accepted a date from a gay man, played by guest star Peter Gallagher. In the following episode, Homicide's writers re-established Bayliss's interest in women, while making it clear that he was not closing the door on the possibility of dating men.
Detective Timothy Bayliss thereby became the first - and, as of now, the only bisexual male lead on an American network television show. During the rest of the sixth season - in which the ‘Closet Cases' episode occurred - the seventh season, and the made-for-TV movie that concluded the show, Bayliss's bisexuality or ‘bi-curiousness' continued to be addressed.
Homicide is today released for the first time as a complete series DVD set. The show ran from 1993 to 1999, with the movie coda Homicide: Life Everlasting shown in 2000. Co-executive producer Tom Fontana would go on to create the gritty HBO prison drama Oz, a show that would depict one of television's great male/male relationships between Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen) and Chris Keller ( Chris topher Meloni).
Like Oz, Homicide dealt with a predominantly male environment - and as such had a particular emphasis on relationships and feelings between men: hatred, rivalry, collusion, friendship, companionship, love, lust.
One of the reasons why Bayliss's storyline is interesting for a queer audience, even before his coming out, is because of what can be seen as his ambiguous feelings for his arrogant, prickly detective partner, Frank Pembleton (played by Andre Braugher).
The show had a habit, maintained all the way through the series, of referring to work partner relationships as if they were romantic relationships. In the very first episode, the partner-shy Pembleton tells Giardello, the unit's Shift Commander, that he has turned “yenta”, or matchmaker, by trying to make Pembleton work in pairs. Later in the season, Detective Lewis finds Pembleton and Bayliss bickering, and tells them that “Y'all two got a co-dependent relationship, you need to work on that.” A Season 3 episode contains the following exchange:
Bayliss: So, you're just gonna walk out on me?
Pembleton: I didn't walk out on you Tim. We're not engaged; so don't act like I left you at the altar.
In a recent interview with AfterElton.com, Kyle Secor referred to Pembleton and Bayliss's “very kind of ‘old married couple' relationship”, describing them jokingly as “the deeply involved couple who didn't have sex anymore”. Of the show's ambiguous dialogue, he says that:
“It's the writers, and Tom Fontana. He can split that dialogue both ways. Andre and I had many talks about it. And in a lot of the relationships in the show you see that, where the partners are very intimate with each other. They generally care a great deal about each other, and about their personal lives, and it feels like, you know, they know each other better than potentially their husbands or wives might know them, or boyfriends or girlfriends. So it was very intimate, what we were all going through.”
Even pre-coming out, Bayliss's storyline had been phrased in terms of self-discovery, and particularly sexual self-discovery.
An early episode delved into his discomfort in dealing with an S&M murder, suggesting that it was perhaps partly due to his own repression. Then he winds up sleeping with a woman in a coffin. A Season 3 episode seems to have him confessing that he had some homosexual experiences as a young man. On a darker note, Season 5 also saw him acknowledging and confronting the sexual abuse he had suffered from his uncle as a child.
Secor, who is straight, reflects on the gradual evolution of his character, leading up to the bisexuality storyline: “It progressed from the end of the second season, I walk into a strip bar wearing a black leather jacket. And Tom Fontana says they always wanted that to point towards something, but they didn't know when they were going to actually start layering some of that stuff in. And they didn't know what would be layered in, or how it would turn out, which I thought was sort of the brilliance of the whole thing.
“And it was great - the writers had their ideas, and they would listen to some of my ideas, as the seasons went along. Everyone was interested in exploring different avenues. And [eventually] it just seemed like it was a natural thing for this guy to... to be wanting to walk in all sides of the neighborhood, so to speak.” He laughs.
Secor says he thinks that Bayliss was attracted to men before the ‘Closet Cases' episode: “I think that he had had fantasies, but he'd never acted on it before. I mean I really think that with the Peter Gallagher character, that was the first time. [Being attracted to men was] something he had been aware of... you know, it could be in the corner of his eye, looking over, seeing someone, and then just going on and doing his business, but never... But stuff with women didn't work either. And, you know, in a sense, [he was] almost, like - ‘There's gotta be something else. There's gotta be something else. Oh, men understand me much better than women. Let's see if this [could work].'”
To read the rest of this story:
http://www.afterelton.com/TV/2006/11/homicide2.html