The best TV reporters bring us more than the news — they bring us perspective, draw us into their stories, make us part of what they report on, be it major news or human interest.

WEEKDAYS Guiding Light 10 a.

FRIDAY Far from Heaven Dennis Quaid is extraordinary as a closeted gay man in 1950s suburbia in Todd Haynes’ powerful drama.

There may be no equality for lesbians and gay men in America: Witness the Obama administration’s utterly unnecessary support for the Defense of Marriage Act in a legal brief filed last week, after he wooed lesbian and gay voters by pledging to overturn what he called “an abhorrent statute” while campaigning, not to mention his shape-shifting on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

One of the more electrifying productions in recent Broadway history is about to take the stage in Philadelphia.

It doesn’t look like the smoke is going to clear any time soon for “Weeds.

According to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, nearly 13,000 servicemembers have been discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — the military’s ban on openly gay members — since 1993, and strong evidence suggests that countless others have made the choice not to join the military or have left military service rather than serve under the discriminatory law.

THEATER Avenue X Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival Theater presents an all a-cappella musical set in Brooklyn circa 1963, in which two young men want nothing more than to sing at the Legendary Fox Theater, through June 21, 2111 Sansom St.

So what is a self-respecting gay writer, director and producer to do when his immensely popular TV show grinds to a halt?

If you are Del Shores and that TV show is “Sordid Lives: The Series,” you take your act, and sometimes a few of the cast members, on the road.

It’s 40 years after Stonewall, a significant milestone in the long quest for LGBT civil rights.

“There’ll be buckets and knives.