Pretty/Handsome

There's a review of it here, but you'll probably have to scroll down for it.

Pretty/Handsome is a new show on FX that stars Joseph Fiennes (from Shakespeare in Love) as a married guy with two kids who finds himself in that wonderful world we call TS Crash.

I downloaded the leaked pilot and watched it last night. It's good. Not perfect, but it's never going to be. Still, there's no question in my mind but that they had real transfolk advising on the show.

As far as I can tell, it's really premiering this fall. And yes, it was created by the same people who made Nip/Tuck, but even so, it seems amazing.

Carrie Anne Moss (Trinity from The Matrix) plays his wife. Robert Wagner plays his father, and Blythe Danner plays his mother. Honest to God, I don't know how they got a cast like this together for something as unlikely to fly.

I remember Helen Shaver's character on The Education of Max Bickford. That was the last time there was a trans character in prime time that wasn't being played for laughs or tragedy. I'm ignoring things like Lisa Edelstein's tranny lawyer on Ally McBeal and Wilson Cruz's Stephanie in the first Christmas ep of that same show. But Max Bickford got cancelled quickly, and I think that the trans storyline was part of the reason.

Still, that was 7 years ago, and it was on network TV. This is FX, which may be basic cable, but is still cable. So maybe it has a chance.