Infectious Subject

AIDS story lines continue to spread on TV--in fact, the San Francisco Chronicle recently rounded up a batch of upcoming prime-time AIDS story lines. But they missed a kinda creepy one--to be set within the Chron’s own S.F. city limits.

It’s an episode of NBC’s “Midnight Caller,” a new hour drama about Jack Killian (Gary Cole), a cop-turned-radio-talk-show-host in S.F. (The series pilot airs Oct. 25; weekly episodes aren’t on until December.)

In the segment, Killian discovers that a friend has been exposed to the AIDS virus by a promiscuous bisexual male who’s cruising night spots, knowingly infecting male and female pickups. Killian tries to track the diseased culprit down.

Exploitative?

“No--definitely not,” declared supervising producer/writer/creator Richard Dilello. “This will be a different take on the AIDS problem. And it will be a responsible approach. It will be one of the first stories that shows that AIDS is no longer a confined disease--that it is overlapping and spreading into the heterosexual community.”

Written by Stephen Zito, the script has been “scrupulously researched” by medical and law enforcement reps, said Dilello, who pointed out there have been numerous news reports about diagnosed AIDS patients who continue to engage in unsafe sex.