The second consists of 20 episodes.Īlthough the bedroom scenes are steamy, Offsay said they are no more graphic than other Showtime fare about heterosexuals. The show’s first season had 22 episodes, which are out this month on DVD and videocassette. The rest of the ensemble cast, including Sharon Gless as Michael’s kooky but supportive mother, also will be seen more. The women will get more attention this time around Showtime thought they were underused last season. It emphasized the men’s camaraderie and “hit the nail on the head of how dangerous it can be sometimes being gay in America.”
The series really hit its peak in the finale, Offsay said. His recovery, and the assault’s psychological effect on him and others, will be explored in the second season. It was Justin who was brutally attacked by a homophobic classmate at the end of last season. Teenage Justin (Randy Harrison) is coming to grips with his sexuality.Īlso featured is a lesbian couple (Michelle Clunie and Thea Gill) whose lives intertwine with the men. Michael (Hal Sparks) is his good-hearted childhood friend who carries a torch for him.
The characters populating “Queer as Folk” are mostly young men, attractive and single, whose adventures we follow at work, at home and in bed.īrian (Gale Harold) is a handsome heel, successful and self-absorbed. “Some characters will succeed at that, and some won’t. “What the show is really about is boys becoming men,” Lipman said. What he hopes they get is how much in human experience is universal, whatever one’s sexual orientation. “We’ve written it very specifically, and if people get things, they get it and if they don’t, they don’t.” “We’ve never written the show to try to guide people into this world,” Lipman said. Lipman recalled one magazine review that questioned the lack of a “straight guide” to the series, and the response a reader sent in: “I don’t see a gay guide to ‘Once and Again.’” But they didn’t create or shape the series to accommodate heterosexual viewers. “They came, they watched, they liked it.”Ĭowen and Lipman, writing partners for 25 years and a couple for even longer, welcomed the expanded audience. It’s a story about friends, and that’s something that plays well with women,” Offsay said. (Straight men tended to take a pass on “Queer as Folk.”) There are a lot of MTV-style, super-hyper sequences, and the sex scenes, as explicit as they are, are handled quite tastefully.The audience was fairly evenly split between gay men and heterosexual women Offsay and others at Showtime have kicked around theories why. Her portrayal of a working class woman who feels at home in the gay and lesbian community, is a real winner, and she brings a heady poignancy to almost all of her scenes.ĭirector Russell Mulcahy (“The Highlander”) adds his usual visual-candy approach to the subject matter. Veteran actress Sharon Gless (“Cagney and Lacy”) also makes a most welcome return to the tube as Michael’s accepting mother. Gill and Clunie are quite effective as the sensible lesbian couple whose lives are forever entangled with Brian’s, and the dynamics of their relationship is frequently more interesting than the sexual escapades of the boys. Rounding out the cast are Emmet (Peter Paige), a flamboyant club boy who has a fling with a Japanese hustler, and Ted (Scott Lowell), an accountant with a big porn collection and very little self-esteem.Īlthough several of the leads fail to go beyond the sitcom-ish, surface delivery of their lines (relative newcomers Harold and Sparks come nowhere close to generating the charisma and chemistry of Aidan Gillen and Craig Kelly in the Brit version) the women seem to fare better here. Rarely motivated by anything other than pleasing himself, he moves from one man to the next and scorns anyone who believes in love and commitment.įollowing Brian around like a puppy is his childhood friend Michael (Hal Sparks), a boyish store manager whose life changes when an older man (chiropractor Chris Potter) shows some interest in him.Īlso in the picture is 17-year-old Justin (Randy Harrison), one of Brian’s one-night-stands who falls for him in a big way, and lesbian couple Lindsay (Thea Gill) and Melanie (Michelle Clunie) who are new mommies thanks to sperm generously donated by superstud Brian.
In the two-hour opener, viewers meet Brian (Gale Harold), a sexual conquistador who changes partners as often as some change TV channels. This time around, the story is set in a working-class neighborhood in Pittsburgh instead of Manchester, England.