Strangers in TV land.

There's a whole new breed of young gay characters on TV, but they're not who you think. Picture this: Three cute, sensitive high school kids are crushed by the fear that if society uncovers their dark secret, they will be humiliated and destroyed. They used to think they were the only ones like themselves in the whole world, but recently they've discovered that other kindred spirits exist. They're torn between sticking it out in their high school closet or running away to seek out their own kind, maybe in the big city. Sound familiar?

Or how about this: On another show a brooding young man seems like a stunning hunk on the outside, but inside he feels ancient. After years of reveling in obsessive lusts, he's finally on the wagon, but it's touch and go. He knows that if he slips up just once and ventures out into the Los Angeles night looking for the hot human contact he craves, he'll spiral back into an uncontrollable circuit of hell. So as darkness falls and disco music thumps in the distance, he sits alone in the dark, the stranger everyone wants but no one can have.

These high school kids and this 20-something stud muffin are among the most realistic gay and lesbian young people on TV. To me, anyway. Although I'm no longer either a closeted high school kid or a confused 23-year-old, I can relate. Only problem is, they're not gay. They're gay metaphors.

The high school kids are the main characters on the new series Roswell, and their dark secret is that they're aliens in human form. The hunk is Angel, a vampire who's trying to clean up his act. They're not gay, but their problems are, and therein lies the problem of how gay people appear on today's TV.

OK, I know I shouldn't complain about gays and lesbians on TV. After all, black and Latino characters remain so scarce that even Hollywood cynics feign embarrassment, while the tube is so awash in openly gay and lesbian characters that GLAAD is actually, well, glad. Just a few years ago there were practically none, so we should all be glad, and, by golly, I am.

If there's any complaint left, it's that gay and lesbian characters seldom, if ever, get physical on the tube. The brouhaha over Ally McBeal's recent lesbian lip lock shows how rare physical affection remains, so it's a valid complaint. But an equally valid complaint is that gay and lesbian characters seldom get real.

The kinds of issues the Roswell kids face--secrecy, otherness--are as real as it gets for huge numbers of gay and lesbian high schoolers. But you won't see that on Will & Grace or Dawson's Creek (though hats off to both shows). And Angel's struggle to figure out a way to find love without getting pulled into a bloodsucking lust circuit is the stuff of gay fiction, gay self-help books, and controversial Michelangelo Signorile journalism but not of Veronica's Closet or even Sex and the City.

Those shows generally depict gay and lesbian young people not just as sexual eunuchs but as cheerful emotional blanks. Whatever problems they've had adjusting to a homophobic world are usually paved over in glib one-liners, wry smiles, or, in the case of melodramas like Dawson's Creek, happy endings. Sure, it's a far cry from the days when lesbian and gay kids were routinely treated as doomed losers, so it's progress. But gay young people are certainly not doomed losers; neither are they all happy jokesters or high schoolers surrounded by glowing love and acceptance.

Some might say that no network would dare air a show about the real issues that face real lesbian and gay kids. Straight audiences would click the remote; advertisers would pull the plug. But that's what everyone said about gay and lesbian characters, period, just a few years ago. And the fact is that the outsider theme at the root of shows like Roswell and Angel is both universal and tres gay.

So while I'm thrilled about the gay population explosion on TV, I long for the day when writers and producers start to mine the real mother lode of gay drama. Until then, don't call me on Tuesday or Wednesday nights. I'll be watching Roswell and Angel and dreaming of better television.