As seen on TV

Whether it's a documentary about a gay-friendly Christian teen, the family dramatics of a gay mortician, all-gay all the time networks, or campy classic TV shows on DVD, this summer may as well be dubbed "Queer Eye for the Cable Guy."
LGBT folks have been popping up all over the networks for years, but now they have stations of their very own: here! and Logo.
Reaching over 30 million households, here! is the country's first gay TV network. According to heretv.com, the network "offers a wide variety of high quality movies, original series and general entertainment programming targeted to a broad-based gay and lesbian audience." In Michigan, here! is available on satellite via DIRECTV and DISH Network.
Where else could you see Lili Taylor ("I Shot Andy Warhol") and Courtney Love ("People vs. Larry Flint") playing New Jersey housewives who shack up and fall in love but here!? Taylor and Love star in director Bob Gosse's film "Julie Johnson," a story of two women who find the satisfaction they were missing in their lives in each other – and the price they pay for it. "Julie Johnson" debuts this month on here!
Also on here! this month is "Tying the Knot," a powerful documentary about the fight for equal marriage rights, and "Here with Pride," a look into the history and purpose of the gay pride movement. For more information and a full schedule visit http://www.heretv.com.
While here! has been around since 1992, the new kid on the block in gay TV is Logo, which will hit the airwaves June 30. Launched by Viacom, Logo will feature a partnership with CBS News and original content from The Advocate and Out. It will also feature queer films like "Angels in America," "Mulholland Drive," "Kissing Jessica Stein," and "Chuck and Buck." In addition, the network will air an ongoing original documentary series, "Momentum," focusing on the variety of distinct and different lives within the LGBT community.
Other original series on Logo will include "Noah's Arc," "Open Bar," a reality series following one man's coming out process, and "First Comes Love," a comedy/reality series from Canada hosted by actor/comedian Scott Thompson ("Kids in the Hall") who has to fulfill the wedding dreams of gay and lesbian couples in just two weeks.
On July 24, Logo will present the first-ever telecast of the 16th Annual GLAAD Media Awards. Building up to the airing of the awards, the network will present a week-long tribute featuring past award recipients and an original documentary.
For more information about Logo's budding emergence, visit www.logoonline.com.
As for the honorary gay channels, Showtime's popular gay and lesbian series "Queer As Folk" just started their new season, which will be the show's last, while "The L Word" is currently filming season three in Vancouver.
Also on Showtime this month will be two new gay documentaries. "Damaged Goods," which follows five people living with HIV/AIDS, premiers June 14 and "We Are Dad," the story of gay foster parents in Florida, debuts on Father's Day, June 19.
HBO's wildly popular "Six Feet Under" began its fifth and final 12-episode season June 6, which means the show is now on Monday nights. The Emmy and Golden Globe winning series was created by Alan Ball, who picked up a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for the film "American Beauty."
According to Ball, saying goodbye to the show was very hard. "When I wrote the last episode, I have a little place up in Lake Arrowhead and I went up there with two of my dogs to sort of just lock myself in, and immerse myself in it, the final couple of days I was working on it," he said. "And I was sitting on the couch writing the very final moments of the show, and I just started weeping."
However, said Ball, it was time for the show to end. "Running a show is exhausting," he said, "and I really feel like I've aged in dog years over the last five years. And also creatively, I just want to do something different. And also, organically, it just felt like it was time for the show to end. This was the first season where we really started to run into walls in the writer's room because we'd pitch things and go 'Oh, Keith did that in Season 2' or 'Oh, Brenda did that in Season 4.' You know, it sort of organically felt like it was the right time."
You don't need cable to see cutting edge TV, however. On June 21, the 18th Season of the acclaimed P.O.V. Series on PBS (check local listings) kicks off with the Sundance Film Festival Award-winning documentary "The Education of Shelby Knox," a film that promises to challenge the idea of "red" and "blue" state moral values.
Shelby Knox, the subject of the film, is a Christian teen in Lubbock, Texas who becomes an unlikely advocate for comprehensive sex education and the rights of gay and lesbian students.
After seeing countless girls in her high school get pregnant, Shelby begins to question the effectiveness of the district's abstinence-only sex ed program and begins a campaign to get comprehensive sex education taught in her district. During this campaign, Knox allies herself with a group of gay students who have been denied the right to form a gay-straight alliance in school. By her senior year, Shelby is committed to working with the gay teens, who have decided to sue the Lubbock School Board. She has also declared herself to be a liberal Democrat, a turn that shocks her Republican parents.
Knox is not a typical teen. Without giving up her faith, she fights for the moral values she believes in her heart. "I think that God wants you to question," Shelby said, "to do more than just blindly be a follower, because he can't use blind followers. He can use people like me who realize there's more in the world that can be done."
For more information visit http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/shelbyknox.
Summer 2005 is also a hot season for TV series on DVD. You can beat the heat and catch up on your favorite shows, from last season or from when you were a kid, on your own schedule.
This is especially good news for folks who don't have cable. For those catching up with "Six Feet Under," the third season came out on DVD May 17 and season four comes out August 23. If you missed some of last season's "Queer As Folk," it's out on DVD now, too.
But, of course, they just don't make shows like they used to and if your heart is pining for some of that good ol' fashioned Tee-Vee, you're in luck.
The first season of "The Brady Bunch" is out now. With all 25 original episodes, you can re-live the crazy antics of America's grooviest TV sitcom family like it's 1970 all over again. For those who just can't get enough of Greg, Peter, Bobby, Marcia, Jan, and Cindy, the second season comes out July 26.
June 21 is a day of magic for fans of "Bewitched." The first season of the popular 1960s sitcom contains 36 episodes of adorable Samantha Stephens (Elizabeth Montgomery), a typical American housewife who just happens to be a witch. Dick York stars as Samantha's husband Darrin and Agnes Moorhead stars as his witch of a mother in law Endora. The show has been remastered and is available in both black and white as well as color.
Everyone's favorite sassy seniors, Dorothy, Sophia, Rose, and Blanche are available on DVD, too. The second season of the Emmy award-winning late 80s sit com "The Golden Girls" was released last month. Special guests include Burt Reynolds and George Clooney.
For fans of action and adventure – not to mention red, white, and blue spandex – the third season of Wonder Woman is out now. The beautiful Lynda Carter stars as the superhero every lesbian fell in love with and every gay man wanted to be. Now if only they'd release "The Bionic Woman" on DVD…