It was a good news-bad news week for LGBT parent visibility on television. Ellen DeGeneres got the greenlight to produce a pilot for an NBC comedy about a lesbian mom, while on the same network, Sean Hayes’ Sean Saves the World, about a single gay dad, was told to halt production.
Ellen will executive produce One Big Happy, about “a lesbian who gets pregnant just as her straight male best friend meets and marries the love of his life,” says the Hollywood Reporter. As I mentioned when the show was first announced, I’d much rather see a show about a lesbian or lesbians raising older kids, rather than about a lesbian pregnancy and early parenthood. The theme of pregnant lesbians is an old one, as Sarah Warn wrote at After Ellen back in 2003 — and the theme of lesbians trying to get pregnant is just as tired, as I myself wrote five years ago.
Of course, with Ellen at the helm and openly lesbian Liz Feldman co-executive producing and writing, that’s two smart, funny women who could help the show avoid the shoals of overdone LGBT family plotlines. (Jeff Kleeman, president of Ellen’s A Very Good Production company will also co-produce.)
The announcement came a day before NBC announced it was halting production of the low-rated Sean Saves the World. The show has aired 13 of 15 completed episodes, with 19 originally scheduled, reports HuffPo. I have to say, I watched a couple of episodes and found it an only mediocre comedy. It gets points for gay-parent visibility, of course, and bonus points for showing a single gay dad with a child from a previous different-sex marriage instead of the usual intentional same-sex parents. I suppose it’s good that the show was cancelled for quality and not subject matter, though (as we can assume from the pickup of Ellen’s show). That, in its own way, is progress.
What do you think of the idea for Ellen’s new show? Will you watch?