AE reader runchaorun tipped me off that Tuesday night's episode (7.7 "Face Value") of the CBS missing-persons drama Without a Trace included the abduction of a lesbian, Ariana, played by former All My Children star Kelli Giddish.

I'm a fan of Without a Trace in general, and I loved their March 2006 episode "Check Your Head," in which two women who were secretly in love with each other but afraid to admit it are ultimately united.

But this episode ... well, the best I can say is that it started off promisingly.

American viewers can watch the first two minutes here:

Ariana is introduced in the opening scene working at a crime scene as a victim's advocate, after which she disappears. She is casually revealed to be a lesbian a few minutes later when her the FBI agents bring in her girlfriend Val (Kristen Ariza) to question her about whether she knows of anyone who might want to hurt Ariana, including any violent ex-girlfriends (not because lesbians are violent, but because people who choose this line of work have often been victims of abuse themselves).

Val assures the detectives that she has met all of Ariana's ex-girlfriends, and they're not violent, but discloses that Ariana's mother was stabbed to death by her boyfriend when Ariana was young.

They show a flashback of the two women having dinner together, as Val recounts to the agents her efforts to get Ariana to quit her dangerous job to get a graduate degree.

So far, so good. In fact, it all seems quite progressive because of the sheer matter-of-factness with which the writers are treating Ariana's sexual orientation, and her relationship with Val. There's no big "reveal" that Ariana is a lesbian, or that Val is her lover; these are just presented as facts that rounded out the character.

But then the writers do something I've never rarely seen them do in seven seasons of the show — they introduce a second, completely unrelated abduction (of a little girl), and back-burner the original case (of the missing lesbian). … continue reading