You definitely can't leave it up to the soaps to portray MI with any degree of accuracy.

The prime-time shows don't do much better, actually. I don't get Showtime so I've never seen "Homeland", but the only two bipolar characters I can remember in recent years are Taye Diggs' character's sister in "Private Practice", and Sally Field's role as Abby's mother on "ER" a number of years back. Both characters portrayed BPers as violent and unpredictable, which isn't helpful, although Sally Field's role was more involved and lasted quite a while. The audience also got to see her in her remission periods, as well as her manic and depressed episodes, which I think fleshed out the bipolar character better than most shows do. But we've still got a long way to go in getting TV and movies to portray us as multidimensional people, rather than mere "crazies".