CarnalNation

Daytime drama will soon be a lot less gay.  Kyle and Fish, the gay couple that soap fans refer to as Kish, are going to be written off One Life To Live next month, reports TV Guide.  According to Frank Valentini, an executive producer on the show, the network is "very proud to have broken new ground with a same-sex couple on daytime," but says the characters, played by Scott Evans and Brett Claywell, have met the end of their storyline.

While they weren't the first gay characters on a soap, or even on this particular soap, they became something of an internet phenomenon, with the show receiving multiple awards from LGBT organizations and bloggers enthusiastically posting screenshots anytime they took their shirts off.  The show's also expected to do well at this Saturday's GLAAD Media Awards.  However, internet phenomena and awards don't always translate into good ratings.

One Life To Live has been struggling with low ratings for a while, and TV Guide says they were particularly dreary during the time when the couple was first introduced.  (However, some viewers are quick to point out that viewer patience may have been tested by terrible concurrent storylines, including one in which a mayoral candidate pretended to be a lesbian in order to win an election.)

Though the characters perservered even as actresses didn't, the internet is, predictably, quite upset by the show's announcement to axe the couple.  Here's--SPOILER ALERT!!--how it's all going to end:

Fish, who viewers already know fathered newborn Sierra Rose after a drunken fling with a psychotic (now dead) stripper named Stacy, learns that he's the baby'sfather, and he and Kyle retreat to raise the child themselves.  According to a rep for the show, the characters won't actually leave the fictional town of Llanview, and Fish, a cop, may possibly show up in later storylines.

As The World Turns, the only other soap with a gay storyline, got the axe from CBS recently, with the final episode airing some time in September; for now, that means the end of gay couples on daytime TV.  (Bianca, the lesbian on All My Children, is expected to return next month from a trip to Paris, though it's unlikely that she'll be settling down in a healthy relationship, soon considering her taste runs towards ridiculous stereotypes.)