TV may be entering a golden gay time and we honestly can't wait. Just before the end of 2017, it was announced that Ryan Murphy's series Pose was going ahead with an eight-episode season, and would be a record breaker for the largest trans cast on American TV.
Murphy also promised the series would feature more than 50 LGBTI+ characters in the first season as well as mentoring up and coming trans directors behind the camera.
Now CBS is stepping up to the plate with their announcement of Alan Cumming's new series, which also looks to be making a historic step toward onscreen representation with Cumming reportedly playing the first gay lead character in an hour-long broadcast series in the United States.
Instinct is a run-of-the-mill crime procedural with Cumming playing Dr. Dylan Reinhart, a former CIA operative who left that world behind to become a professor and published author but, as these things seem to go, gets pulled back into the world of crime-fighting when the NYPD needs his help to stop a serial killer on the loose.
At a press event, Cumming was asked if he took the role specifically because he'd be playing a gay man. According to Deadline, Cumming said Reinhart was more than just gay, but a "confounding character".
Reinhart is a former CIA agent, a stuffy professor, a dandy, "drives a motorbike... he's also a little on the spectrum, a child musical prodigy," Cumming added to the list of character traits alongside gay.
"I'm conscious of the fact that, most times," Cumming said, "when we see gay characters on American television their gayness is the prime thing," however according to the 52-year-old actor his character's gayness is "the fourth or fifth most interesting thing" about him.
Where most series put a character's sexuality into a context of being a problem, Cumming said it was refreshing for Instinct to have a queer lead character in a steady marriage.
"I married a man so I brought that to the table," he said. "What’s refreshing about [Instinct] is there’s a successful relationship and they’re supportive of each other."
Cumming even criticised the current political climate in the United States saying it's the "perfect time" for a queer lead character while "the President is actively condoning, by his silence, violence and persecution against the LGBT community".
Instinct, which premieres in March in the US, also stars Aussie actress Bojana Novakovic as well as featuring stints from Riverdale's Casey Cott and Whoopi Goldberg.
