There's no denying that we're living in a golden age of LGBTQ+ programming right now. In fact there is so much great stuff out there, we barely have time to watch it all.
It's a far cry from the days where the only gay representation on TV was Mr Humphries on Are You Being Served or The Generation Game's Larry Grayson.
But TV hasn't always got their LGBTQ+ programming right. The initial thought behind these shows may have been well meaning but the final product went down like a plop sandwich with audiences and critics…
1. There's Something About Miriam
Long before trans issues were being talked about as openly as they are now, some clever dick came up with an idea for a dating show that saw a bunch of guys being sent out to a sunny destination to compete for the affections of a stunning glamazon called Miriam Rivera. The twist? Unknown to them, Miriam was actually a trans woman.
In the series finale Miriam chose Tom as her lucky suitor, who initially was ecstatic to have scooped the £10,000, the girl and a romantic yacht trip with glam Miriam. But then presenter Tim Vincent told Tom that Miriam had something she needed to share. What followed was a tense and drawn-out reveal.
The reactions displayed on screen were appalling. While Tom was unsurprisingly winded, his immature showmates standing behind him started laughing and making lots of inappropriate jokes about Miriam's gender. The episode attracted over 1.5 million viewers, but it was heavily criticised for exploiting Miriam.
After the series aired, the lads sued the show's production company Endemol for conspiracy to commit sexual assault, defamation and personal injury due to the "psychological and emotional damage" they had suffered; all six eventually settled for an undisclosed fee, although it was reported they received as much as £500,000 each.
Although the show was slammed for being offensive, its producer maintained that he was actually trying to be progressive.
"It's hard to produce TV that gets people talking. Miriam made headlines around the world," Remy Blumenfeld told The New Statesman. "We were helping the audience to get to know one trans character very well.
"You have to remember that at the time, so like 2003 to 2004, transsexual people were very seldom seen on TV. So just by casting a trans person in the title role, we were helping the audience to get to know one trans character very well. And while today, that in itself might not be groundbreaking, at the time it felt important. For me, the show was always about finding an engaging, populist way of exploring whether attraction is primarily from the neck up or from the neck down."
2. Playing It Straight
The premise for this show was simple. One girl enters a villa of twelve men looking for Mr Right and tries to work out which of them is straight and which of them is gay! If she ends up with the straight guy, they both win £25,000 each, but if she picks a gay guy, he gets all the money.
In fairness, the show was a lighthearted series that was embraced by much of the gay community, but some snootier critics thought the show merely reinforced sexuality stereotypes.
One writer pointed out in an article for the Huffington Post that the terminology presenter Jameela Jamil used on the show was offensive. For example, in the debut episode she gives the guys some advice, saying: "You're going to have to put your butchest foot forward, as she is going to be eliminating each one of you that she think is gay throughout the show..."
The writer added: "As a gay man, I have found it astonishing that this sort of entertainment show is still being commissioned in this day and age."
Although the show had been a hit in the US and Australia and ran for two seasons in the UK, telly bods have since said that a show with a premise like this would never ever be made again.
3. The A List Of New York
Those lucky straight viewers have got Made In Chelsea, TOWIE and the Housewives franchise, so what did we gays get? Ah, yes, The A List Of New York. This was a reality show that followed the lives of six ridiculously buff and flamboyant gay men who fell in love, fell in lust, fell out with each other and then came to blows (no, not those kind of blows) when they got angry.
Celebrity Big Brother star Austin Armacost made his name on this noisy and outrageous show and was possibly the most misbehaved on it, getting naked for photo shoots and getting into fisticuffs.
While some viewers recognised themselves in the brash characters, a lot more thought the fellas' on-screen behaviour was too flashy, superficial and stereotypical, and reinforced negative views about gay men. Austin Armacost later said the show merely portrayed the lives of real gay men and "told our truth".
4. Drag Queens Of London
When it was announced the UK was to get its own RuPaul's Drag Race-type show on London Live, gay men around the UK were thrilled because we thought we would finally have a show that highlighted a part of the community not usually featured on the telly. However, when Drag Queens of London literally crawled on to the schedules, viewers coughed up furballs in disgust, as it portrayed the queens of the capital as shambolic, sloppy and – dare we say – a little unsophisticated.
While those aspects ARE actually part of the London drag scene's charm, some viewers felt the wild and over-the-top behaviour only reinforced the view that London gays were too "scene-y" and sassy for their own good.
5. Glee
Now this is an odd one. Even though many younger viewers who were dealing with their own sexuality identified with young Kurt in Glee, other viewers felt he ticked one cliché box too many.
Effeminate? Check. Overly emotional? Check. Obsessed with fashion and musicals? Check. Hell, double check.
Although Kurt was the creation of openly gay Ryan Murphy, critics were fast to lambast the character as being too obvious and too gay.
Where this criticism comes from is anyone's guess: Ryan filled Glee with LGBTQ+ characters who were all so very different and representative that it's hard to see why Kurt was such a controversial character.
6. Gaytime TV
When the BBC announced it was launching a mainstream magazine for the LGBTQ+ community back in the '90s, there was joy. Until, that is, it made it on screen.
Although the Daily Mail – of all things – credited the show for its refreshingly lightweight approach to serious subject matter, it faced criticism from the gay community who felt it was still obsessed with the frothy side of gay culture, listing its camp, bright set, flamboyant title sequence and mid-episode breaks featuring muscled men and glam lesbians snogging on a beach as merely reinforcing popular opinion that gay people are superficial and obsessed with their bodies.
While it was pilloried at the time, in retrospect, the show was indeed groundbreaking, merely conforming style-wise to the prevailing look of the time, inspired by The Big Breakfast – which was no less brash nor camp.
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