I’ve always found it curious that for someone who considers himself a true Anglophile, I have never really been able to get my arms around British television. I don’t know what it is, but it must have something to do with George Bernard Shaw’s cute observation that Americans and Brits are separated by a common language. A lot of good drama from across the pond finds its way into my home via cross-produced programs, like Showtime’s “The Tudors” and “The Borgias,” or else the usual A&E/History/PBS fare that might or might not have a British pedigree, excepting the Oxbridge-molded intonations of the narrator (whose accent might just as easily originate in “SoHo” [Manhattan] as “Soho” [London]).

I would have continued on in blissful ignorance concerning the ‘State of UK Telly Programmes’ but for a recent entry I read online concerning an old standard of British (and American-by-way-of-cable) television, “Doctor Who,” specifically a spinoff called “Torchwood,” which ran originally from 2006 to 2011 and is available on Netflix and other video services.

The series is a paranormal drama along the lines of the “X-Files” of the 1990s, with situations that reflect more modern sensibilities. But what makes it truly modern is that it has as its male lead an openly-bisexual character (“Jack Harkness”) played by an openly gay actor, John Barrowman.

The series is the creation of openly-gay British TV writer/producer Russell Davies, whose other groundbreaking television work includes the original British television version of “Queer As Folk.”

Now, the idea of an openly gay lead in a dramatic (okay, Sci-Fi) series may not seem like such a big deal in these days of “Glee,” “The New Normal,” and days post-“Queer As Folk” and “Will and Grace,” but the fact is, those shows play very much to camp, and if they have opened doors for tolerance and understanding (music and laughs are surely the way into the hearts of most decent folks), they are still very much a far cry from the hair-pulling, chest-thumping romance of man-on-man (I’m not talking porn here) that has been mostly relegated to LoGo, Here!, and the fringe of cable.

In an interview several years ago, Davies noted the Puritan (and Puritanical) cultural influences still being fed to American audiences. “I do watch a lot of television science fiction, and it is a particularly sexless world,” Davies said. “With a lot of the material from America, I think gay, lesbian and bisexual characters are massively underrepresented, especially in science fiction, and I’m just not prepared to put up with that. It’s a very macho, testosterone-driven genre on the whole, very much written by straight men.”

In Britain, Barrowman’s character is described as the “first openly gay” action hero, and as a “hunky bisexual.” Can you imagine that same verbiage being generated by a Hollywood publicist? I’m a gay writer, and I have hard time finding the acuity to break down that mental barrier. It’s just THAT ingrained into us.

Part of the appeal of the Jack Harkness character is that his sexual identity is simply a matter of fact—he doesn’t have an affectation and so people aren’t “affected” by it. There’s no doubt that the widespread acceptance of the show and character relate to changing societal views about what it is to be gay and how society sees gay people. The fact that Jack kisses both a male and female costar on the lips in a nonchalant and natural way makes it easier for an audience to believe it.

My partner and I were at the Florida Renaissance Festival last weekend, and during one of the live stage performances, one of the entertainers made a playful comment about the “gay guys in the audience” that the rest of the crowd took in the stride in which it was meant. But that gap has yet to be bridged on a larger, more mainstream scale. Maybe after these commercial messages.