The New Normal (NBC gay series)

[The Pecman]

Just wanted to alert people that NBC is about to start airing a new series about a gay family called The New Normal which has already incensed the Mormon-owned NBC affiliate TV station in Salt Lake City, to the point where they refuse to air it on the basis that it's immoral.

The show is actually a whimsical, not explicit, comedy show about a gay couple who decide to have a child with the help of a surrogate mother. The twist in the show is that the woman's own mother (played by Ellen Barkin) is very bigoted and anti-gay... so conflict and hilarity result.

The series is from Ryan Murphy, whose previous show, Glee, broke new ground in introducing several gay teenage characters and showing their daily struggles just surviving everyday life.

My initial look at the pilot is that it's not great, several of the characters are very stereotypical (and predictable), and it's not very funny. The "sweetness and niceness" and politically-correctness of it all are a little heavy-handed for me. But at the same time, I think it carries an important message: that there are many different kinds of families out there in the world, and what constitutes a family means something different today than it did 20-30 years ago. And anything that incites the Mormons to riot can't be all bad. Here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJfBZxUlzhY

The pilot is at this link on Hulu:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/226904