Television
‘Flatch’ delivers a ‘welcome’ dose of comfort comedy
A place where people are accepted, no matter their sexual orientation
Television, a medium less than a century old, has evolved so much since it became a fixture in our households that the pioneers who first produced its content would surely be overwhelmed by what it is today. Where there was once a limited selection of mostly middle-of-the-road (i.e., bland and banal) entertainment choices designed to amuse and distract us during our after-dinner family time, there is now a seemingly infinite array of channels to choose from, loaded with enough complex, provocative, stimulating, and otherwise challenging content to keep even the most intellectual viewers busy for the rest of their lives.
And yet, with all that, sometimes you just want to shut your brain off and laugh – and that’s when we are reminded that television, no matter how respectable it may have become, is still at its most essential when it gives us an outlet to do exactly that.
Take, for example, “Welcome to Flatch,” a new half-hour comedy from Fox that might seem, at first glance, to be about as mindless as they come.
Adapted from a BAFTA-winning BBC series titled “This Country,” “Flatch” has been brought to U.S. television by writer Jenny Bicks (“Sex and the City,” “The Greatest Showman”) and producer/director Paul Feig (“The Office,” “Bridesmaids”), who joined forces to executive produce it. It’s set in a small Midwestern town called, well, Flatch, and its unabashedly flimsy premise revolves around the idea that a documentary crew has been sent to explore small-town American life. That’s more than enough to let you know exactly what to expect going into it.
The first episode introduces us to most of the townsfolk who will become our main characters, starting with a pair of young cousins and best buddies – the Mallets, Kelly and Lloyd (who goes by “Shrub”) – who quickly establish themselves as our unofficial guides; they’re your classic underachievers, two teens in a town where there’s nothing to do except indulge in juvenile pranks and concoct get-rich-quick schemes. Played by out queer newcomer Holmes and former “The Kids are Alright” actor Sam Straley, their effortless chemistry, combined with their endearingly dim-witted blend of false bravado and insecurity, wins us over right from the start.
We next meet Flatch’s local minister, “Father” Joe (Seann William Scott), whose enthusiasm for his role as the “youthful-and-hip” spiritual center of the community doesn’t quite keep him from missing his former girlfriend Cheryl (Aya Cash), now the plucky and determined editor of the town newspaper, for whom he still carries decidedly worldly feelings. There’s also Big Mandy (Krystal Smith), a large-and-in-charge force of nature whose confidence and street smarts make her as respected as she is incongruous in this tiny rural town; Nadine (Taylor Ortega), Kelly’s rival and “frenemy,” a teen socialite and mean girl who runs the Flatch historical society; and Mickey (Justin Linville), an eternally upbeat nerd who relentlessly attempts to become Shrub’s best friend.
There are others, too, that we meet as the show progresses, but you get the idea. It’s a cast of eccentrics – probably the number one ingredient in making a “mockumentary.”
Of course, it’s not enough for them just to be eccentrics. They have to be loveable, too – something that has been the hallmark of every great mockumentary since “This is Spinal Tap” more or less created the genre as we know it today. That film, and the series of comic masterpieces from Christopher Guest (“Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show,” “A Mighty Wind”) that followed in its wake, all made us laugh with the absurdity of the insular communities they were sending up, but they won our hearts with characters who never let us lose sight of their humanity even in their most wacky and embarrassing moments. It’s a formula that has proven to be comedy gold for TV shows from “The Office” to “Modern Family” to “What We Do in the Shadows” – not to mention “Parks and Recreation,” which along with “Guffman” is closest of these examples in tone and spirit to “Flatch” – and in every case, it only works when the characters are played by a remarkably gifted cast of actors.
In this regard, “Welcome to Flatch” is off to a good start. The performers make a strong showing from the very start, and while it’s hard to say this early in the series whether the character arcs they develop will be worthy of the players’ talent, they earn enough credit within the first seven episodes (all available if you’re a Hulu subscriber, doled out a week at a time if you’re not) to keep us watching longer.
That’s a good thing, because “Flatch” – perhaps unsurprisingly for a comedy about a place where nothing interesting ever happens – has some challenges if it’s going to have any staying power. Early on, the episodes are geared around skewering aspects of modern life by putting them into a small-town context; in one, for instance, Kelly starts her own version of a ride-share app, while in another an elderly resident is “catfished” on a dating site while attending an adult computer education class at the church. Others rely on bemusing us with the eternal tried-but-true tropes about small-town life; there’s a rivalry between Flatch and neighboring Pockton over an obscure historical dispute, and a contingent of outraged conservative women who try to close the town’s combination vape-and-magic shop for Satanism. These familiar scenarios are enough to conjure smiles, maybe even chuckles, for a while – but without some more substantial fodder to drive the show’s development, it won’t be long before they start to wear thin.
Fortunately, the seeds for future storylines are clearly planted within the first handful of shows. Most obvious is the will-they-or-won’t-they interplay between Father Joe and Cheryl, given a twist by their status as an ex-couple with second thoughts on their split, but Kelly’s unrequited need to be accepted by her estranged father (Jason MacDonald) is an early recurring theme, as is Shrub’s infatuation with home-schooled Beth (Erin Bowles). These and other beginnings seem promising as avenues toward opening the characters up and allowing the cast to flesh them out into the kind of people we look forward to spending time with.
Perhaps even more encouraging, the mockumentary format, rather than simply being a convention in which the actors talk to the camera, is taken a bit further in “Flatch.” Though we never see the documentary crew, we are reminded of their existence frequently – characters address them off-camera, and their presence in the room becomes a factor that affects outcomes, though to go into any more detail about that would warrant a spoiler alert.
Finally, though, what makes “Welcome to Flatch” worth jumping on board for might just be its refreshing – and frankly, for the genre, unprecedented – diversity. Though our expectations of a rural Midwest community tend to lean toward a very white and very straight demographic, the series goes out of its way to defy them. Much like “Schitt’s Creek,” “Flatch” is a place where people are accepted, no matter their race, gender, body type, or sexual orientation – just as long as they’re not from Pockton.
“Welcome to Flatch” airs on Fox on Thursday nights.
Nominations for the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards are here — and they are so, so queer!
With the year we’ve seen in LGBTQ media, this isn’t very surprising; whether it be jaw-dropping new series or the ends of fan-favorite classics, every month offered a new project or performer for queer audiences to fall in love with. There were some pleasant surprises — and shocking snubs — with these nominations that have left the many TV fanatics in our community excited, hopeful that their favorite actor or series can take home at least one award at this year’s ceremony.
Will this be the gayest Primetime Emmy Awards that the Television Academy has ever seen? Let’s take a look at some of the biggest, absolutely queerest nominations for this year and find out!
Leading the pack (and making history) for queer television is “Hacks,” with the final season of this HBO Max comedy earning a massive 25 nominations — breaking “Schitt’s Creek”’s record for the maximum number of nominations for a comedy series’ final season! Following an established comedienne (Jean Smart) and her bisexual, thoroughly Gen Z comedy partner (Hannah Einbinder), the series has been applauded for not only its portrayals of queer identity but also for how it showcases the generational divide in a way anyone can laugh at. Smart and Einbinder are both nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress and Outstanding Supporting Actress, respectively, with their fellow performers Meg Stalter, Paul W. Downs, Kaitlin Olson, and more also earning nominations for their time on the show. These, along with the numerous nominations for “Hacks”’ writing, directing, and all-around production, make it one of the most nominated programs at this year’s Emmys.
And this isn’t the only sapphic program being celebrated at this year’s awards! When “Pluribus” premiered, it took the (thankfully non-hive-minded) world by storm; it follows a lesbian author (Rhea Seehorn) who becomes one of the only people left with autonomy when an alien virus takes over the Earth. Seehorn — who offers an impeccably bitter performance as protagonist Carol Sturka — is being honored with an Outstanding Lead Actress nomination, with the show itself receiving 18 nominations overall in categories ranging from Outstanding Supporting Actor to Casting for a Drama. One extremely fun, thoroughly queer fact about these nominees: the actresses behind both of Carol’s onscreen love interests, Karolina Wydra and Miriam Shor, have earned their first Emmy nominations ever due to their work on the series!
While these queer TV shows are earning massive praise, the Emmys also made sure to honor the LGBTQ+ and ally celebrities who’ve graced our screens this year.
When he isn’t exciting audiences all over the world in “Heated Rivalry,” Connor Storie was making viewers laugh on “Saturday Night Live,” a hosting spot which earned him a nomination for Guest Actor in a Comedy. And though Jeff Hiller (who is coming off a 2025 Emmy win for “Somebody, Somewhere”) has proven to be one of the best parts of new hit “Widow’s Bay,” it was his turn as a mind-controlled, bicycle-short-wearing drone in “Pluribus” that earned the openly gay actor an Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama nomination. Along with these, the always immaculate Zendaya received a nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress for her role as queer recovering drug addict Rue in “Euphoria,” and long-time ally Claire Danes will be competing for Lead Actress in a Limited Series for her role as troubled lesbian writer Aggie Wiggs in “The Beast in Me.”
When it comes to scripted television, the 2026 Emmy Nominations are filled with nominations for queer performers and stories alike. But, to the shock of nobody who loves nothing more than a good confessional and shocking table flip, there was one category where queer performers absolutely dominated: Reality Television.
The Outstanding Host for a Reality/Competition Program is one of this year’s most competitive categories — and not just because four of the five nominees are queer! The hilarious RuPaul Charles and Alan Cumming have both received nominations in this category, with their shows “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “The Traitors” also being nominated for Best Reality Competition Program. They’re joined by lesbian heartthrob Kristen Kish, who, for the third year in a row, has been nominated for Outstanding Host right alongside her series, “Top Chef,” for Best Reality Program!
And, finally, making her debut in the world of Emmy nominations is Ariana Madix, who just earned her first nomination for Outstanding Host thanks to her work on “Love Island USA”! An alum of reality TV herself, her guiding sexy singles along the path to love has helped this reality series take the country by storm. An openly bisexual host — who has stated that she wants her own show to be more queer — she joins this amazing group of leaders helping to innovate this genre today.
While these are some of the biggest LGBTQ+ nominees at this year’s Emmys, they don’t include the countless queerr editors, writers, costume designers, and more who have also been nominated in the ceremony’s 100+ categories. They all deserve a huge round of applause for their tireless work this year, and each of them should remember that they’ve each won just by being nominated.
And even if they don’t take home that illustrious trophy, in the words of a particular Queen of Drag who’s nominated for Outstanding Reality Host, always remember: losing is the new winning!
You can watch the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. EST on NBC and Peacock.
Television
‘Big Mistakes’ an uneven – but worthy – comedic showcase
In the years since “Schitt’s Creek” wrapped up its six season Emmy-winning run, nostalgia for it has grown deep – especially since the still painfully recent loss of its iconic leading lady, Catherine O’Hara, whose sudden passing prompted a social media wave of clips and tributes featuring her fan-favorite performance as the deliciously daft Moira Rose. Revisiting so many favorite scenes and funny moments from the show naturally reminded us of just how much we loved it, even needed it during the time it was on the air; it also reminded us of how much we miss it, and how much it feels now like something we need more than ever.
That, perhaps more than anything else, is why the arrival of “Big Mistakes” – the new Netflix series starring, co-created and co-written by Dan Levy – felt so welcome. We knew it wouldn’t be the Roses, but it seemed cut from the same cloth, and it had David Rose (or at least someone who seemed a lot like him) in the middle of a comically dysfunctional family dynamic, complete with a mother who gets involved in town politics and a catty sibling rivalry with his sister, and still nebbish-ly uncomfortable in his own gay shoes. Only this time, instead of running a charmingly pretentious boutique, he’s the pastor of the local church, and instead of a collection of kooky small town neighbors to contend with, there are gangsters.
As it turns out, it really does feel cut from the same cloth, but the design is distinctly different. Set in a fictional New Jersey suburb, it centers on Nicky (Levy) and his sister Morgan (Taylor Ortega) – he openly gay with an adoring boyfriend (Jacob Gutierrez), yet still obsessive about keeping it all invisible to his congregation, and she drudging aimlessly through life as an underpaid schoolteacher after failing to achieve her New York dreams of show biz success – who inadvertently become enmeshed in a shady underworld when a gesture for their dead grandmother’s funeral goes horribly awry.
They’re surrounded by a crew of equally compromised characters. There’s their mother Linda (Laurie Metcalf), whose campaign to become the town’s mayor only intensifies her tendency to micromanage her children’s lives; Yusuf (Boran Kuzum), the Turkish-American mini-mart operator who pulls them into the criminal conspiracy yet is himself a victim of it; Max (Jack Innanen), Morgan’s live-in boyfriend, who pushes her for a deeper commitment and is willing to go to couples’ therapy to prove it; Annette, his mother (Elizabeth Perkins), who lends her society standing toward helping Linda’s campaign against a misogynistic opponent (Darren Goldstein); and Ivan (Mark Ivanir), the seemingly ruthless crime boss who enslaves the siblings into his network but may really be just another slave himself. It’s a well-fleshed out assortment of characters that helps our own loyalties shift and adapt, generating at least a degree of empathy – if not always sympathy – that keeps everyone from coming off as a merely “black-and-white” caricature of expectations and typecasting.
To be sure, it’s an entertaining binge-watch, full of distinctive characters – all inhabiting familiar, even stereotypical roles in the narrative – who are each given a degree of validation, both in writing and performance, as the show unspools its narrative. At the same time, it makes for a fairly bleak overall view of humanity, in which it’s difficult to place our loyalties with anyone without also embracing a kind of “dog eat dog” morality in which nobody is truly innocent – but nobody is completely to blame for their sins, anyway.
In this way, it’s a show that lets us off the hook in the sense that it places the idea of ethical guilt within a framework of relative evils, as it permits us to forgive our own trespasses by accepting its “lovably” amoral characters, each of whom has their own reasons and justifications for what they do. We relate, but we can’t quite shake the notion that, if all these people hadn’t been so caught up in their own personal dramas, none of them would have ended up in the compromised morality that they’re in.
However, it’s not some bleak morality play that Levy and crew undertake; rather, it’s more an egalitarian fantasy in which even “bad” choices feel justified by inevitability. Everybody’s motivations make enough sense to us that it’s hard to judge any of the characters for making the choices – however unwise – that they do. In a system where everyone is forced to compromise themselves in order to achieve whatever dream of self-fulfillment they may have, how can anybody really blame themselves for doing what they have to do to survive?
Of course, all things considered, this is more a relatable comedy than it is a morality play. As a comedy of errors, it all works well enough on its own without imposing an ideology on it, no matter how much we may be tempted to do so. Indeed, what is ultimately more to the point is how well this pseudo-cynical exercise in the normalization of corruption – for that is what it really about, in the end – succeeds in letting us all off the hook for our compromises.
In the end, of course, maybe all that analysis is too deep a dive for a show that feels, in the end, like it’s meant to be mostly for fun. Indeed, despite its focus on being dragged into the shady side of life, the arc of its messaging seems to be less about a moralistic urge toward making the “right” choice than it is a candid recognition that all of us are compromised from the outset, often by choices we only force upon ourselves, and that’s a refreshing enough bit of honesty that we can easily get on board.
It helps that the performances are on point, especially the loony and wide-eyed fanaticism of Metcalf – surely the MVP of any project in which she is involved – and the directly focused moral malleability of Ortega; Levy, of course, is Levy – a now-familiar persona that can exist within any milieu without further justification than its own queer relatability – and, in this case, at least, that’s both the icing on the cake and substance that defines it. That’s enough to make it an essential view for fans, queer or otherwise, of his distinctive “brand,” even if he – or the show itself – doesn’t quite satisfy in the way that “Schitt’s Creek” was able to do.
Seriously, though, how could it?
Television
‘The Pitt’ stars discuss what season two gets right about queer representation
Noah Wyle and Taylor Dearden spoke with Blade in LA
As season two of “The Pitt” comes to a close this Thursday, stars Noah Wyle and Taylor Dearden are looking back on what this season got right about queer representation.
“There is some intentionality behind it, but it’s not necessarily for the representation to be anything other than human or ubiquitous to anyone that would come into an emergency room,” Noah Wyle, who plays Dr. Robby, told the Los Angeles Blade at PaleyFest event in Los Angeles on April 12. “I know that we’ve done some storylines with some gay couples, and we did a storyline in season 1 where a woman comes in who’s cut her arm, who’s trans. But in both of those storylines, that wasn’t the point.”
Wyle continues, “In doing it that way, and not making a point of orientation being part of the problem that brings you to the emergency room, we have been told in feedback that that has been extremely revolutionary, almost, and extremely appreciated. But that’s true whether we do storylines with any kind of minority or a person with a disability. We try to have a cosmology of cast and representation on the show that’s indicative of what you find in Pittsburgh.”
Dearden, who plays Dr. Mel King, echoed Wyle’s sentiment: “I think constantly battling tropes is always important. It’s not a show about romance; it’s a show about real life and a shift in the ER. The more we represent everyday people going through everyday life, they just happen to be queer, they just happen to be trans, and making it not the plot, is putting everyone on equal playing [field]. You don’t have to have a big coming out scene.”
Queer representation on “The Pitt” is also notable through the actual actors themselves, including openly queer actor Supriya Ganesh, who plays Dr. Samira Mohan (who didn’t attend PaleyFest after the news that she is not returning for season three), and Amielynn Abellera, who plays Perlah Alawi.
“Doctors don’t put value judgments on who they treat,” Wyle concludes. “That’s not a luxury extended to them, and so that’s not part of our storytelling.”
The season two finale will air Thursday, April 16, on HBO Max, while season three has already been confirmed and is currently being written.
Authorities investigate officer-involved shooting outside Asheville gay bar
Popular Mount Vernon gay bar Leon’s to temporarily close after owner’s death
30 years on, ‘The Birdcage’ remains a landmark
Comings & Goings
Whitman-Walker to host legal services workshop
Democrats are trying to disqualify trans candidates. Here’s how
Mexico’s first openly gay mayor killed
Expected India Supreme Court ruling could shape future LGBTQ rights cases
Celebrate Pride in Rehoboth Beach this weekend
Christa Tichy hopes to preserve LGBTQ representation in Md. House of Delegates
-
National5 days agoDemocrats are trying to disqualify trans candidates. Here’s how
-
Mexico5 days ago
Mexico’s first openly gay mayor killed
-
India4 days ago
Expected India Supreme Court ruling could shape future LGBTQ rights cases
-
Rehoboth Beach4 days ago
Celebrate Pride in Rehoboth Beach this weekend
