Where have all the gays gone? After years of inclusion, gay and lesbian characters are pretty much absent from the new fall TV season. Stephen Tropiano, the author of The Prime Time Closet, explains why. (fall TV preview).

A few seasons ago you couldn't swing a small yappy dog without hitting a regular or recurring gay character. Besides Ellen and Michael Boatman's character on Spin City, there were trailblazers like Dawson's Creek's Jack and Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Willow and Tara. At the Television Critics Association's annual powwow in Pasadena, Calif., to preview the networks' fall offerings, it became clear that the 2002-2003 season slate is virtually devoid of gays and lesbians.

"I think we're in a transition period," says Stephen Tropiano, author of The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV (Applause Books), a detailed account of queer lives on the small screen, from All in the Family to St. Elsewhere to Queer as Folk. "The question is, What do people do next? How do you follow Will & Grace?"

One answer seems to be: Mine suburbia for all it's worth. "There are lot of shows that are very domestic, shows about couples raising children," Tropiano says. "There are lots of father-daughter shows. There are also shows that are a little bit like last year's hit shows--Everybody Loves Raymond, The King of Queens, and Yes, Dear. I think it creates a universe that writers and producers aren't so quick to put gay characters into."

To wit, NBC offers Hidden Hills, one of many shows set among beige stucco houses and Wal-Marts. The sitcom follows the lives of three couples (including an African-American pair). Tropiano has identified, thankfully, one husband as "gay-straight,' a term he uses in his book to identify the fey heterosexual (think Niles Crane). "He's a little flamboyant," says Tropiano. "He'd rather drink chardonnay than beer." Another show, Oliver Beene, due in early 2003, fits TV's other reigning trend this season: nostalgia. In the show, set in 1962, Grant Rosenmeyer (The Royal Tenenbaums) plays an 11-year-old. Among his best friends is Michael, who offers bracing style tips and lives for Judy Garland musicals.

Tropiano says that shows set several decades ago--before the Stonewall riots--or far outside cities create a universe where gays and lesbians don't exist, which belies the notion that we're everywhere. "When networks think of gay, they think of urban and single. I don't think they think suburban and domestic," says Tropiano. "If you do a show about three couples, why can't one be gay? We haven't come far enough where they think that gay couples are the norm. I still believe it all comes down to economics. They're trying to boost their ratings and make money."

There is hope later in the season, however. In addition to Fox's Oliver Beene, there's CBS's mid-season sitcom Charlie Lawrence, marking Nathan Lane's return to TV. The openly gay actor will play an openly gay actor who becomes a politician. In the meantime, gay TV fans may have to wait patiently for one of the proposed gay cable networks, which Tropiano sees as a real opportunity "to fill in the gaps in terms of our invisibility."

That invisibility isn't limited to gays and lesbians--the upcoming San Francisco-based drama Presidio Med has no Asian main characters, much less gay ones--but Tropiano remains optimistic.

"I'm always a believer in giving people time," Tropiano says. "Who would have thought Laura Innes's character on ER would come out as a lesbian? It never crossed my mind. If anything, I'm hopeful."

Jones writes Movie Scoop for E! Online.