The rising mainstream acceptance of gay rights and LGBT issues has been great for a lot of people, but none perhaps more than the humble television writer. After all, the realization that gender is less a binary than a spectrum, and that love can blossom between almost any two people in this world, means that all sorts of tired romantic plot lines—the sitcom writer’s stalwart stocks in trade—can now be reused and reconfigured into “fresh” new forms.
Take, for instance, Oh Mama, a new sitcom that NBC has just purchased from How To Live With Your Parents creator Claudia Lonow. The show’s basic premise—an engaged couple’s relationship is thrown into turmoil when two of their parents have an affair with each other—seems fairly pedestrian, if a little on the racy side. That’s when Lonow springs the twist on you: the parents in question? Ladies. Yes, the Mamas being Oh’d at are the philandering mothers of the show’s two leads, a situation that’s likely to lead to as many awkward situations and comedies of errors as Lonow and her crew can pull up from their suddenly evergreen-again supplies. If NBC picks it up to series, Oh Mama will be Lonow’s fifth show to make it to air; besides How To Live, she’s also had series on Showtime, Oxygen, and CBS.