Oz
HBO's Oz was originally a hypergritty study of prison life, but in later years it seemed to evolve into a homoerotic soap opera centered on the dysfunctional love affair between Lee Tergesen's fish-out-of-water brainiac Tobias Beecher and Christopher Meloni's semipsychotic Chris Keller.
Ellen
Ellen DeGeneres' ABC sitcom character Ellen Morgan declared herself a lesbian in the "Puppy Episode" of her show Ellen, after having come out in real life on the cover of Time magazine ("Yep, I'm Gay") a few weeks earlier.
My So-Called Life
Wilson Cruz played openly gay teen Rickie Vasquez on the landmark mid-1990s series, which devoted significant story time to Rickie's rift with his family over his sexuality.
The Real World: San Francisco
HIV-positive Pedro Zamora's participation in The Real World in 1994 humanized the disease (and homosexuality) for TV audiences. Zamora died of AIDS the day after San Francisco's season finale aired on MTV.
Melrose Place
Doug Savant is now best known for playing Lynette's hapless husband Tom Scavo on Desperate Housewives, but he began his career in the early '90s as Melrose Place's one resident gay character, Matt Fielding. Matt never got much action, but he nonetheless made his mark on TV history.
Dynasty
Why yes, that is Jack Coleman, aka H.R.G./Noah Bennet on Heroes, playing groundbreaking bisexual character Steven Carrington on Dynasty in the 1980s.
Want to see more gays on TV? Click through our Hot Girl-on-Girl Action gallery, and vote on which couples are real and which are just shameless chixploitation.