CBS is breaking LGBT barriers with their new drama series Instinct, which will star Alan Cumming as an openly gay character.

The show is based on a James Patterson novel and has Cumming playing Dr. Dylan Reinhart, who returns to law enforcement to help the NYPD stop a serial killer. after leaving the CIA to go into academia and write a book. The book, about psychopathic behavior, is what brings Det. Lizzie Needham (Bojana Novakovic) to ask for Reinhart's help.

Sounds like a few other shows out there, right? The plot twist isn't in the detective work, it comes with Dr. Reinhart who is a gay, married man. Cumming, who acknowledged that American TV a character's "gayness is the prime thing," says that's not the most important part of his character - and honestly, with Cumming, there is always something amazing about his character portrayals - but “the fourth or fifth most interesting thing about the character.”

His husband is not happy about the new venture - surprise. But maybe not to Cumming who has been married to Grant Shaffer since 2007 and to Hilary Lyon from 1985–1993 and knows the drill.

Cumming is excited to join the cast saying, "It was one of the reasons I wanted to do the show. To be the first ever network drama [with a gay lead] on U.S. television, it's an incredible thing and a terrible thing at the same time. It's another layer to the character. Socially and politically, especially at a time in America where gay people are being persecuted and our rights are being removed and the president is condoning the persecution against gay people by his silence, it was all the more important to have a character with a healthy same-sex marriage on TV. I applaud everyone on CBS for having the courage to put that on right now in a climate where that may not be the best time to do that. But I think it's the perfect time to do that."

CBS was in trouble this past fall for whitewashing after the release of Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park from Hawaii 5-0 when they requested pay increases in their new contracts.

Cummings rejoins CBS after working on the hit drama, The Good Wife as Eli Gold. Instinct premieres March 11, 2018.