2008's Hottest On-Screen Kisses

Regardless of your taste in film and television and your sexual orientation, 2008 was a year of scorching hot on-screen kisses. Here's just a sampling:

The BBC's Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood's first season back in 2007 was particularly steamy as it featured a lesbian affair, a predatory sex alien and a whole lot of bisexuality. So if I'd been asked to place bets on sources for one of the 2008's hottest kisses, placing my money on this show's second season which aired back in January would have been a no-brainer. Even so, what I didn't expect was for it to feature two of the year's best kisses.

The first was in the second season's first episode was between Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and his ex-boyfriend/partner in crime John Hart (Buffy the Vampire Slayer's James Marsters). Their reunion involved a whole lot of guns and a fist fight/make-out session that winds up trashing a bar. It's hands down one of the most ridiculous things that I've ever seen on TV. It was also utterly delicious to watch.

Torchwood's second hot kiss came later in the season in the episode To the Last Man. This time it's Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) and Jack Harkness. Why does this one score points? Well, aside from the way these two grab each other's faces, wow, finally some narrative development to whatever has been going on between Jack and Ianto since sometime in the first season. Sexy and an actual plot point is a combination that's hard to pass up.

For those of you more interested in watching two girls kiss, both Bones and House delivered in 2008, but the kiss between Angela and Roxie in Bones gets extra points in my book, by avoiding cliches. Both Angela (Michaela Conlin) and Roxie (Nichole Hiltz) are strong but feminine looking and the chemistry was awkward but familiar, which is exactly as it should be in a plot about exes getting back together. The fact that the relationship might actually go somewhere in the broader show arc is a big bonus. Meanwhile, House episode Lucky Thirteen was completely hot, but involved (as House does) a lot of drama and bad behavior. The toxic narrative behind Thirteen's various lesbian kisses in the episode put a damper on the sexiness for me. Why does so much of television's queer content always have to be about scandal?

Of course, 2008 had some great heterosexual kisses too, and the best might have been between Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) and the Drover (Hugh Jackman) in Baz Luhrmann's epic, Australia. While I didn't enjoy the overall film as much as I had hoped, Luhrmann knows how to do romance like no one else and the chemistry here is divine. So is the lighting. Every moment Kidman and Jackman lock lips in Australia is sexy, gorgeous and iconic.

Considering my own broad tastes, I'm sure I've horrified a few of your with my choices for the hottest kisses of 2008. What were your favorites?