QAF reboot

You forgot that the Jewish lesbian had a baby with Brian Singer in real life.

Oops here is link

ALL of the cast on the American QUEER AS FOLK was GAY/LESBIAN in real life.

I know it was ''Groundbreaking'' for it's time, but every time I rewatch it I cringe over how cliche and OTT the writing and plotlines are.

Literally every single character was horribly written and acted. Watching it now is so funny. It could be a drinking game.... every time some cheesy call-out or gay stereotypical phrase is uttered, you have to drink.

R1, H-How?

And they were mostly awful people. One thing always stuck out to me, and that was Michael slamming the door in the face of the older gentleman who had befriended Emmett on the plane. Didn't even wait to hear who he was or what he wanted, just opened the door, saw it was an older guy, and shut it without a word. Asshole.

R7 exactly. There was not even one sympathetic character we the audience actually cared for. Maybe Justin's mother. She was a good actor but pairing her with the evangelical homophobe was not believable.

I liked Brian, he was a dick but he was honest, I also had a crush on him, his body type and his masculine energy during the show was really nice, today if we had QAF we would have a bunch muscle queens pumped with steroids with purses coming out of their mouths.

Agree 100% R9

The one thing that stands out from that series is that unlike pretty much every other portrayal of gay men on TV, the characters were a range from overly femme Emmet (Paige) to overly masculine Brian (Harold). Some of the characters were nerdy and nebbishy and could have used the services of the Queer Eye guys, which also started to put to rest that gays were all just a bunch of catty, femme fashion queens. The characters were fairly universal and even straight guys could relate to them.

In other words, no Modern Family minstrely.

It was a soap opera and it got silly at times, but I strongly disagree with OPs take on the cast as I think they are mixing up the actors with the characters they played.

I thought Harold, Lowell, and Paige were very strong, Harrison and Gant were more than decent, Gless was too over the top (though she was written that way) and that the only real weak spot was Sparks, who was a stand-up comedian and not an actor. He was wildly miscast, always seemed like he had wandered in from a different series and the character seemed like he was special needs, which made it unclear why the rest of them were so attached to him.

I've been watching again and thought Hal Sparks was perfect for that character.

Some of the writing was poor, but it's still an entertaining show. It did cause a sensation at the time. Nice to see men fucking for a change instead of something pitiful chaste kiss.

For every person who liked Brian, there was another who saw absolutely nothing likable or attractive about him. Bland body and looks and a narcissistic asshole. That he was represented as someone who could fuck absolutely any client in the men's room during a meeting or drive a Jeep through a showroom window without consequences was ridiculous.

Those scenarios would be crazy no matter who played Brian. It was a soap opera, not a documentary.

IIRC, there was bad blood between Sparks and the other actors, mostly Harold and Harrison. The latter two wanted the series to be better, to be less over the top and soap-opera-ish and more like the British version. Sparks just wanted them to shut up so he could keep riding the gravy train.

If you've ever seen interviews with the two queens who created the US version they really believe they created Art with a capital "A".

Though, as the thousands of Gale Harold frau threads on DL over the years attest, the series (and the Harold/Harrison pairing) touched a large number of women in unexpected ways.

[quote] Those scenarios would be crazy no matter who played Brian. It was a soap opera, not a documentary.

Exactly R13

Always surprising when DLers can't separate a poorly written character/scenario from the actors.

Harold was very good looking by most objective standards and as an actor, he did a good job of pulling off the "Cad Who Secretly Has A Heart of Gold Even If He Won't Admit It" role.

I remember watching this as a young teen. It was such a revelation! It wasn't perfect, but I loved it. I really hope they don't actually reboot it. They can't recreate the magic of the old show. OTOH I hope to see a great reboot of the L Word because the original was truly awful.

I was heavily active on the QAF message board, qaftalk in like 2002. There was NOTHING about Harrold/Harrison then. Seems a given now.

I basically hate watched it back in the day. I found nothing appealing about the character of Brian, and he was just not that hot. They needed to do more to explain why he was the Alpha Top of the bar, like he had a 10+ inch dick that guaranteed every bottom an anal orgasm or something. Otherwise, he was just smug, arrogant, and not that hot.

The show itself was wildly uneven. It's laughable that the creators thought they were creating Art with a capital A.

Interesting R17. Was it mostly women on the board back then or gay men?

From what I've read the fact that the show developed an army of Harold/Harrison obsessed fraus came as a shock to everyone, and that even 20 years later, those obsessed fraus still manage to make both actors lives hell by stalking them.

They are going to have to change the whole premise of the show now or it won't work. I don't know very many middle aged men who frequent clubs and bars anymore. It's all about Grinder. I don't think the new show should be so sex based either.

The US version quickly devolved into soft core gay porn for women with soap opera scenes thrown in about a couple in what in most ways was a traditional male-female hetero relationship.

Let's also not forget that the main love story was about a 30 year old executive who falls for a 17 year old high school senior and how freaked out 70% of DLers got about a certain Italian-based movie that seemed to recreate that dynamic.

Arguably, QAF was helped in that regard by the fact that Harold looked much younger than 30. so the age gap wasn't as pronounced visually.

Bars are still popular and active they just reduced in numbers, the ones that survived are usually more high end and higher quality. They could set the show in west hollywood or manhattan, we just wont have another Brian because the gays in WeHo are all woman like.

Agree with OP about the acting, the writing... but also... apparently, every evening in Pittsburgh thousands of good looking gays poured out of their luxurious apartments and went dancing all night.

I loved watching QAF. It wasn't perfect. It had the standard character and plotting flaws I associate with most TV series, but getting to watch all those gay storylines play out on my own TV in my own living room was astonishing to me. I did love Hal Sparks, d and the scene where he and his chiropractor boyfriend had a conversation about how they were going to deal with the financial aspect of their relationship given the disparity in their incomes blew my mind. I was dealing with the same situation in my own life at the time, and watching two guys "model" a way the conversation might go seemed like a revelation to me. I wouldn't watch it again, but I sure did love it at the time.

The guy who played Emmet was the best actor, but contrary to popular opinion, I think Gale Harrold did a very good job playing a generally unsympathetic character. He didn't play it obviously as 'hooker with a heart of gold' type. I think he was a bit more nuanced. And, yes, I think he was delicious looking. The guy who played Justin, on the other hand, sucked ass (and not in a good way)....

Brian was plain and looked like he'd never worked out a day in his life. And that stupid floppy hair. Ugh. I think a lot of people saw something that wasn't there because they were attracted to jerks.

I agree with you R26, but since this is the same Datalounge where every insanely hot Instaho is raked over the coals for some alleged flaw in his looks, there will be a lot of comments like R27.

Watch out, the Gale Harold fraus may return to DL like a pestilence!

R14 most straight frauen have very little intelligence based on the popularity of Twilight, 50 Shades, and other crap series that caters to their mindlessness. Anyone with intelligence could see that none of the writer's imagined gay utopia was grounded in real life.

Gale Harold was a fantastic Brian but a reboot of this series would be awful.

[quote] A straight man playing gay should never be acceptable.

Oh fuck you. Who ever said you get to set the rules for the universe? Crawl back to your safe space.

R32 fuck you. There is no need for a straight man to play gay anymore. It is not believable or authentic, you cunt.

That's why it's called ACTING, you fucking idiot.

R31 is either a straight girl or has the intelligence of a gnat.

R34 crawl back under your bridge, troll.

I loved it and hope it is rebooted. So shoot me, assholes!

Since this is on Bravo and not premium cable it will be forced to be a lot tamer.

How much tamer can it get? No nudity or swearing. The simulated sex with straight guys was fucking lame and not hot at all. Harold had the worst pretend cumming face in history.

Harold had zero charisma and flat delivery. Nothing his character did was believable.

The British QAF was hot, many of those scenes honestly got me going. The American one was too cheesy and purposefully soft core porny to be sexy.

Straight girls clearly don't need to see dicks going into actual holes to get their pussy wet.

The producers never hid the fact that the talent agencies refused to let their clients audition for this subversive gay show. The only name actors were Sharon Gless and Hal Sparks. But I thought Peter Paige and Scott Lowell (Emmett and Ted) were great making the campy and drama scenes work.

QAF is comfort entertainment for me. It's campy, it's fun (Justin's mom BEGGING Brian to fuck her son after he suffered PTSD from the gay bashing was hilarious). And you know, apart from Looking, I don't think there was a US show "from gays for gays" since then. Except countless web series (Where the Bears Are, Hunting Season, Go-Go Boy Interrupted, Eastsiders, etc.) on Youtube.

Everyone keeps saying Gale Harrold is straight. He's NOT straight he's GAY.

R44 source???

The two guys who wrote it were these two old queens still stuck in the 1970s which clearly influenced their writing. That's why it felt so cringeworthy outdated in its depiction of gay life even almost 20 years ago. My partner had some dealings with those two hacks while the show was filming in Toronto.

R46 what were their names? One of the writers/producers was Brad Fraser. He was a stalker/rapist type who always creeped me out when I saw him around town.

Cowen and Lipman, I think? I forgot their first names.

Aren’t the billed as ‘Cowlip’?

[quote]ALL of the cast on the American QUEER AS FOLK was GAY/LESBIAN in real life.

That's simply not true at all. Sharon Gless, Gale Harrold and Hal Sparks are all straight. You can dispute this all you like, but that doesn't make it less true.

I like Sharon Gless but she is totally LESBIAN. So was her partner on Cagney And Lacey-Tyne Daley.

R50-Why are you trying to keep them in the closet? There's nothing special about their gay/lesbian-ness.

R52—Why are you trying to make people gay when they're not?

They're all eldergays now, even Randy Harrison. Time flies.

Randy looks better now than he did back in '05. He has kept his looks.

r54- I know Randy Harrison is now 41 years old!

[quote] Watch out, the Gale Harold fraus may return to DL like a pestilence!

Too late.

We clearly have one on the loose (R52/R44) --the Deranged Fan Frau who is claiming the cast are all gay.

When I first found Datalounge all those years ago, one of the things I found most fascinating was that there was a small army of Insane Fan Fraus who used DL as home base and who were committed to the notion that Harold and Harrison were gay lovers off camera as well as on. They had their work cut out for them too, given that Harold had a series of long-term girlfriends and Harrison had a series of long-term boyfriends and the fact that they lived on opposite coasts.

But I learned that like Deplorables, truth and logic have no bearing on the dedicated fan frau and their fraubsessions" and that like Larries and the new breed of Charmies, they are committed to their fiction. (If you haven't checked in, there's a small army of fraus committed to the notion that Hammer and Chalamet were not acting either and are engaged in a torrid gay affair. Like their cousins the conspiracy theorists, they have all manner of "proof".)

C'mon, even the die-hard Brian & Justin worshipers have moved on by now ... or their cats ate them.

The felines (no doubt named Brian, Justin, Michael, Ted, Gus, etc.) seem to have spared R44 though.

She might have a secret cat-proof attic or something

R18 mte. I hate-watched too, mostly involuntarily because my dormmate in College put it on every day after class and I couldn't be bothered my ass arguing with her about something so damn trivial. It gave me a lot of laughs and I liked negging the girl I lived with about her abysmal trashy taste (she took it all seriously!). The premise, the dialogue, the narrative, the design...it was all so cheap and deliriously stupid, but the showrunners made their money off that stupidity so good for them I guess (wish I'd thought of it). I don't think I'm wrong in saying that Brian Kinney must have been some sort of borderline sociopath...

I'm possibly the only person who liked Michael more than other characters and thought him a refreshing and endearing portrayal of an unsure late-blooming gay man. I liked that he was similar to a lot of gays & lesbians I knew back then, an immature naïve dweeb who couldn't cut the apron strings or let go of his HS crush. Until I was advised differently I thought Hal Sparks was gay - he seemed a natural in intimate scenes.

So love it, hate it or indifferent, the one thing it seems we all agree on is that it showed a range of gay character types and all ranges of "masculinity" from jocks to nerds to femmes to milquetoasts to borderline sociopaths.

So how did we so quickly devolve from there to where we are now: every gay character is either a throwback to Boys In the Band-era swish or so traditionally "masculine" that the joke it "but he's REALLY gay!!!" There really doesn't seem to be any in-between.

The closest I've seen since QAF were the two bear-bros on the old Sarah Silverman Show who used to express affection by saying "I am so gay for you, bro!" Which was a joke, but at least it acknowledged that we're not all effete interior designers.

Or, Thank The Lord For Mayor Pete and Chasten.

How many characters on the new QAF reboot will be actual gay men? I'm willing to bet $$$ most of them will be like this...

I'm pretty sure that if we reboot QAF we're gonna get completely rolled over by the trans, they'll want half of the screen time for them and if you deny they'll scream STONEWALL !

R62 BINGO. It will be all woke, pussy hat wearing anti-Trump, SJWs, filled with all the loathsome tiresome freaks TPTB are pushing and trying to normalize. And the simple reason why they are pushing it? So they can divide all the normal populace and make them hate each other as a diversion so they can continue raping and pillaging the rest of the world and the third world country/militarized police state the USA has become thanks to them.

Lost on your way to Breitbart, R64?

As long as they're Trump hating we're good to go.

R65 it is not right wing thinking you fucking asshole troll.

JFC r66 NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT DONALD FUCKING TRUMP.

I'm certainly not a Trump supporter but enough already. You can't talk about the sky being blue anymore without people injecting Trump into it. STFU already!

R68 lol. They have nothing else to talk about. They are brainless fuckheads.

[quote] JFC [R66] NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT DONALD FUCKING TRUMP.

I'm not the one who brought him up you stupid fuckwit.

But you condoned it r66.

I can't help it, but Matt Battaglia was to die for. His not doing a frontal was as bad as von Stauffwenberg not getting Hitler in 1944.

[quote]Thea Gill was awful and not believable as a person or lesbian, had no weight whatsoever.

ha

[quote]Expect lots of diversity casting and the trans crap rammed down everyone's throat.

Yeah. And if you thought the old QAF was unwatchable....

R71, that doesn't even make sense. If you want to bitch about someone making everything about Trump you should be bitching at R64.

R72, Battaglia is an Emmy winning producer. I had no idea.

Oh dear, r64 tried to slip in Anti-trump as if that is bad thing. Of course those characters would be anti-Trump, just like DL is anti-Trump.

You will never see the truth about anything on your TV screens. Hollywood dishes out propaganda, not the truth.

it will be interesting to see how QAF in 2019 is played out. the only people who live in a gays only world like the earlier version depicted are instagram bros and queer studies pansexuals.

R77 sounds like a 15 year old who got high for the first time. Yikes.

No one thinks TV shows are real life. The original QAF was a soap opera that didn't even resemble the real world. It's meant for entertainment dear.

Propaganda-entertainment. Sometimes just propaganda. I bet the reboot will be not entertaining and full of propaganda.

Wait, so you're saying my 15 year quest through the bars and clubs of Pittsburgh to get a shot at Michael Novotny's hot ass has been for nothing?

R80 It's only propaganda for those weak minded who can't discern reality from fantasy, the rest of us who know it's only entertainment will be just fine.

I liked QAF for what it was, which was basically Melrose Place for gay people. It was a fun, often shallow nighttime soap and I was fine with that. A lot of gay people at the time hated it because they just couldn't accept it as pure entertainment.

It was pretty groundbreaking for the time, despite not being a "serious" show. Can it really be almost 20 years? We're all getting so OLD.

I always thought Brian's "hotness" came from his "no fucks given" attitude. Unapologetically gay, total slut at night, successful ad executive at day (even with all the drugs and alcohol still in his system from the night before).

Had to LOL at the scene of a trick telling him that he was kind of underwhelmed by the experience since his expectation was high after all the praise he heard from others about Brian being a fantastic lay.

Sometimes I wonder what all these characters would be doing now. Most of them would be pushing 50.

Propaganda? If you let a fictional TV show tell you how to live your life you are not very good at life in general. The same goes for expecting proper, non-dramatized, representation from a fictional TV drama show.

I imagine "Propaganda" is the new "PC (Culture)" buzzword for the trolls.

[quote]Brian was gorgeous and looked like he'd never worked out a day in his life. And that lovely floppy hair.

With that face and that hair, who needed to "work out a day in his life"? That's just DL Hot propaganda (speaking of propaganda).

Russkies love their propaganda

So how many pansexual, poly, gender queer fat characters will be on it?

r90, I hope at least one more you can't stomach so you won't watch and have no reason to join any discussion of the show. Other than trolling, of course.

You type fat R91.

I will watch if Brian comes back.

They all looked fat at the reunion

Hal Sparks def looks like ye olde queen there, R94.

R62 they would be from the cast of a different show FAQ : Folks As Queer

Wait. I thought "Folks" was triggering now. Ittabe "We Be Queers."

Fat as Folks.

Hal' s character will be shown posting on Datalounge.

Too bad they can't do at least a one-of with the American cast. It would be interesting to see what the characters are up to all these years later.

I'm curious to see a milennial/gen z version of Brian. I dont think we'll ever get a character like Brian again.

Jesus, you queens are hard to satisfy. I liked it, took it for what it was and that's that. It wasn't Classic, it was a soap. Is there ANYthing on DL that is genuinely LIKED??

Queer As Folk was mediocre at BEST. The best portrayal of a gay character was David Fisher on Six Feet Under.

[quote] Is there ANYthing on DL that is genuinely LIKED??

George Michael, among the gays.

[quote]The best portrayal of a gay character was David Fisher on Six Feet Under.

I hated David Fisher.

I will give QAF US the credit is deserves in that nothing like it had been seen on American television before and frankly with the exception of Looking there really hasn't been anything like it since. I remember when it first came out I watched it in the basement with the volume turned low as a closeted 17 year old hoping my parents wouldn't catch me. Indeed, the early episodes gave me an idea of the mechanics of gay sex - shocking to think about it now but QAF came out while dial-up was still around and if you wanted to download a 30 second porn clip you better have had 8 hours available.

I watched the first season and then maybe about a handful of season 2 before I stopped watching the show all together. After the novelty of the first season wore off, it was just a terribly written, poorly acted, soap operatic soft porn. One of the problems with the show for me was that few of the main characters were likeable.

A couple years ago after my partner and I moved in together, I discovered he had the DVDs for the show series to we sat down at watched it and I have to say it's not as bad I remember. Oh it's not a great show by any stretch of the imagination but the later seasons (seasons 3 & 4 in particular) moved the show in a slightly more mature less sexual direction. Though I have to say for a show that only ran for about 80 episodes, they repeated a lot of the same story lines (e.g. Lindsay and Melaine's relationship problems).

BTW OP talked about Thea Gill not being a convincing lesbian...you do know that she has been in a relationship with a woman for over a decade now go and look at her twitter. However, I found her acting style very affected.

As for the reboot, it's not a reboot of the American version. It's a totally new QAF written by Russell T. Davis who created and wrote the original British version. The American version is owned by Showtime, and Showtime no longer has the licensing rights to make any new QAF which is why they are doing an L Word revival instead of QAF despite QAF having pulled in higher ratings for Showtime than L word.

I liked QAF well enough. It was a soap opera. And I was a big fan of soap opera at the time.

QAF would be successful today if they focus only on gay/bi men, there's a lot of new material to explore pertaining to this generation but if they're going to pick a smaller town they better pick Boston or San Diego, no more Pittsburgh. Grindr hasnt killed bars and gay events/parties so they should be ok to portray that if they want, although I think it'd be better if this QAF focused on college seniors (21-22 years old), more storyline and if the series is successful they can move into adults in the next seasons.

[quote] today if we had QAF we would have a bunch muscle queens pumped with steroids with purses coming out of their mouths.

Actually, at the time the show came out, it was considered very strange that in trying to show a group of gay urban men that none of them--especially the one who was supposed to be of godlike beauty, Brian--had a muscle body. The cable network deliberately chose to go that route to make the show more appealing to its biggest audience, straight women: it was thought they would find steroid bodies too intimidating.

R108 that is so true. When it aired from '00-'05, no gay guys I knew watched it but their mothers and frauen in their family? They all loved it and never missed an epi.

r108 = Maria Musculosa

R108 It makes the show more normal, if you watch any young drama with straight people they're also good looking but with normal bodies, QAF really got it right in this aspect.

As the show went on, they realized that they would get a bigger gay viewership if they had more genuine gym bodies, and so Robert Gant and Matt Battaglia were added to the cast. Gant was the only member of the cast who was an A-lister in real life (he talked about regularly going to circuit parties in interviews with The Advocate and other gay magazines), but unfortunately he was not a very good actor.

R112 Gant was the worst "actor" as bad as Thea Gill. All he had was one goofy smile, that's it.

r112 Gant always reminded me of James Denton from Desperate Housewives, lookswise and actingwise.

At least he was openly gay.

Was Denton a closet case?

peter paige had style

R116 No, you fuck, he was talking about Gant.

I knew that, but he said "At least he was openly gay," as if to compare him to someone who wasn't.

And why "you fuck," you fuck?

R119 fuck off, troll, not everyone in the fucking world is gay.

[quote][R112] Gant was the worst "actor" as bad as Thea Gill. All he had was one goofy smile, that's it.

He was the Tommi DiDario of his day (only with less moles).

I lived in Toronto when QAF was in production and have a couple stories of connected with the show.

My first apartment in Toronto was in the building used as the exterior for Michael's apartment 7 Glen Road - the interior to the apartment was filmed on a sound stage - the buildings while looking dumpy on the outside were very well kept in the inside. I lived there for three years, the rent was dirt cheap for Toronto at that time, until the buildings were sold to a developer who was going to incorporate them into high rise condos but that project was cancelled due to city regulations and when I left Toronto in 2014, the buildings were abandoned but still standing. They used to do a lot of night shoots on this street and it was annoying because my bedroom faced the front of the building and they would use bright set lights.

However, I met several members of the cast and here's my take: Hal Sparks - total asshole, refused to talk to fans or even signed autographs. Gail Harold - nice he would talk to fans if they approached him but actually seemed very shy. Scott Lowe- sweetheart he held the door for me once when I was coming home with groceries. Peter Paige - hit on me wasn't interested and regret that now LOL.

QAF was a goofy soap opera with a lot of gratuitous soft-corn porn style gay sex thrown in.

But for a teenagre like me, who was not stereotypically gay (I was on the baseball team, all my friends were straight, I was more nerdy than fashionable) the show was a godsend. I wanted to be Brian Kinney in the worst way, or even Michael or Ted, because unlike every other gay character on TV/movies, they were just normal guys. No "Hey, Miss Thing!" No "FAaaaaaabulousss!"

I know most DLers don't fit into this bucket, but it was very isolating at the time, feeling like I'd never fit in with the "gay community" and then came QAF and it was like "okay, if there are gay guys like this, then maybe I can deal."

I agree r123. I loved that they had the Ted character. He was just a regular guy, a real nerd, not glamorous or fashionable at all. SO many gay guys are like that, but you hardly ever see them portrayed in the media.

One of the things I do admire about QAF was that even though the show had romances and sex, it was basically a show about gay friendships. That's something we don't get a lot on TV and in films. Typically if a show has two gay characters it's because they're lovers or romantic interests. It's very rare that we see gay platonic friendships.

Is baldy Peter Paige?

R125 absolutely, the friendships fascinated me far more than the love storylines which came over dull and predictable to me.

My favorite friendship was the odd bond between Brian & Ted that was rather overlooked in the end. They were pushed begrudgingly into becoming friends and co-workers thanks to the mutualism of their close relationship with Michael, but by later seasons they seemed to get along well by themselves and grew an exasperated fondness for one another. I liked seeing their solo scenes together because I always felt they were the only characters who consistently told each other the truth. I think Brian came to really welcome and respect Ted's earnest advice and pragmatism, while Ted came to care for Brian as a person once he fully got past any envy he might have of the man for his looks and confidence and money. They made sort of a funny, sweet 'Odd Couple' in a business sense and they had some interesting conversations about male emotional travails in the show.

I've said this before but it's interesting that at their most basic core they're very similar - efficient logicians and problem-solvers who just want to get laid. The difference between them is in the strengths they were both given and how they used these strengths to deal with their respective hands.

This is one of the very few elements that the American version of QAF improved upon from the British. In the UK the equivalent 'Ted' character was largely a background figure of fun, and in a dark twist died very early in the series without developing into much of a character at all.

I’m onboard with the writing sucked contingent. It truly was. I embraced the sexual freedom that the characters indulged in. To see gay men and lesbians who had healthy sexual appetites was refreshing. My favorite character was the uncle of Michael who had AIDS. His death scenes were one of the shows better moments.

I am a horror fan so the reboot should legit be about modern day TO. It is 50% black/brown these days so the show would reflect that smorgasbord.

They would have Bruce McArthur as a cannibal killer who would feast on the principal cast, one per week. The lesbians would live of course. Once all are eaten they'd have a new cast. Maybe subtitle it Hungry Like Bruce.

It'd be huge with us horror fans.

R129 Wtf just happened ?

[quote] There was bad blood between Sparks and the other actors, mostly Harold and Harrison. The latter two wanted the series to be better, to be less over the top and soap-opera-ish and more like the British version. Sparks just wanted them to shut up so he could keep riding the gravy train.

R14 now you mention it, I always felt that was the sub-textual argument Harold & Sparks were using as a conduit for their performance in the "you infected him" scene (not sure of the episode). If you listen closely it sounds like a screaming match about integrity of being. But maybe that's giving them too much credit.

Yes. Giving them too much credit. They are actors who read lines, they are not paid to think.

[quote] I am a horror fan so the reboot should legit be about modern day TO. It is 50% black/brown these days so the show would reflect that smorgasbord.

What is TO?

Speed this up to 1.25 to hear it properly.

It was played at end of season 5 episode 4. Hard Decisions.

Does anyone know the name and singer of this song. I have been searching for it. She sings something like: gonna rock you like you've never been rocked before.

R134 that has to be Loleatta Holloway.

Horrible show. So was the original. Reboot for what? To ruin it a third time? Hard pass from me.

[quote]Typically if a show has two gay characters it's because they're lovers or romantic interests. It's very rare that we see gay platonic friendships.

What about [italic]Will & Grace[/italic]?

Or Billy Joel’s love life

I saw the original British version when I was a kid. It played at a Gay and Lesbian film festival in my city and was a big hit. I loved it. I loved the first season of the. U.S. remake but it went down hill from season 2 on. I mean c'mon, take my son? My daddy is a drag queen? Fuck'em all Honeycutt? Emmett the Ken Ryker of Pittsburgh? It was nothing but cliches and stereotypes from then on sprinkled with unsavory doses of self- righteousness.

What about Loretta Pye?

Has Rosie been consulted?

Fur pye.

[quote]My favorite character was the uncle of Michael who had AIDS.

I found that character to be the most annoying.

I want Robert Gant to sit on my face.

R142 is a real human rights nut

Jack Wetherall who played Uncle Vic is primarily a stage actor doing classical roles. I picked up early that he was the only good actor on the show. Despite the bad actor I loved it as bubblegum.

Despite the bad acting.^

R126, yes.

Hal Sparks was such a horrible actor.

I had just finished rewatching QAF when I found DL and was excited when I saw all the threads about Gale Harold--I'd have other gay people to discuss the show with. So imagine my dismay when I found that all 357 of those threads were created by crazed foreign fan fraus who were either stalking poor Harold or arguing that he was really gay, or, in the face of the evidence of multiple girlfriends, bi, or maybe just bi for Harrison. Because they could not wrap their heads around the fact that he was an actor and he was acting. "What straight guy would kiss another guy like that, even for $250,000?" and similar. (I'm sure you all stumbled on them at one point or another.)

So thank you all for letting me have my sane (or as close to sane as DL gets) conversation about QAF with other gays and lesbians, six years after the fact.

QAF -- none of the actors were horrible. All pros, doing their job. The awfulness was in the writing, the situations. Not believable to anyone, gay, straight, or nothing.

NONE of the cast of Queer As Folk were STRAIGHT.

R151 the consensus here is kill yourself, stupid cuntfrau.

I dont know for a fact if they were all gay but let's say I wouldnt be surprised if it turns out they are.

R153 we know for a fact you are a moron and a cunt.

R154 Oh honey, dont you know anger and stress causes wrinkles and early aging ?

R153-Is NOT a moron or a cunt. He is CORRECT.

You delusional cunts who think everyone is gay need to be dropped into a live volcano.

Hal Sparks just disappeared. Is he even in the industry anymore?

The only people I think are gay are the GAY ones.

R157 So emotional, are you on your period ?

You cannot reason with cunts or morons. Best to ignore them.

The Brian character was not really as GREAT looking as he was supposed to be on the show at the same time the Ted Schmitt character was NOT so unattractive as they made him out to be. In fact he was CUTE. It's not like Ted weighed 300 pounds at 5f3in then he really would have been rejected by the so-called HOT guys at the bars/clubs.

We’ve all known a Ted

I aspire to be Ted.

I didn't think the acting was that bad; though that remark about Hal Sparks walking in from a different show and being special needs strikes as funny.

Hal Sparks looks awful now. Completely lost whatever looks he had.

R162 I always thought the Ted being "the ugly one" was kind of funny. I think Scott Lowell could be defined as "hollywood ugly" but he's a decent looking guy, in fact Scott has aged into a kind of classically handsome looking guy.

R126 yes Peter Paige is the bald one. I actually think he looks really hot bald which is odd because on the show I didn't find him attractive at all. You could tell his hair was thinning on the show and they may have switched to a piece in later seasons.

I think Scott Lowell (Ted) is straight, no?

Least he showed his weiner

R167 google it, you dummy. He says he is straight.

The show made a point that Ted would have gotten laid as straight guy (in the episode of the wedding of Linds' sister). So Ted was pretty, and a catch, for women (aka. the straight dating pool) but was below average for the gay world.

To me, as with Brian, it wasn't about looks that made the characters uber hot, or not, it was their attitude (which includes body language). Ted got his revenge on the guy who pity fucked him in the Pride episode later in the show's run just by being more confident in himself and his looks.

I know he isn't very well liked, but I loved Hal Spark's dorky Michael. Devoted friend, total nerd, hot body, bit of a mamma's boy, and his bright smile. But he had such a bad taste in men looking for dominating, passive aggressive daddy types (daddy issues?). On some levels I could relate to his character the most.

Ben was way too good for whiny Michael, who was stuck in arrested development with his superhero fetish and his childhood crush on Brian. I wish they would've paired Ben with Ted or even Emmett... Anybody but Michael.

Also, whatever happened to the actor who played the street hustler son that Ben and Michael adopted?

I want Robert Gant badly. That ass is a work of art.

That's Charlie Hunnam (Jax from Sons of Anarchy) on the far left side of the picture R2 posted

He played the character Randy went on to play on the US version

We've all definitely known guys like Ted who were good looking but lacked self-confidence and guys like Brian who were good looking but had a certain swagger to them that allowed them to pull in guys (or girls) on a regular basis. The idea was that they were always in awe of Brian's ability to score precisely because he was an 8 or a 9 ,not a 10.

And let's be real--one thing they got right was that in the gay community, the guys who frequently have that kind of swagger are guys who present as straight, like Brian (versus having muscles and wearing 'jock clothes' which DLers often mistake for 'masculine' no matter how swishy the guy's mannerisms actually are.)

And thanks for the love on the Sparks comment R164. It wasn't really his fault, he was just completely miscast--he wound up years later on a goofy Disney Channel sitcom that my nieces and nephews used to watch and that seemed much better suited for his broad comedic style.

I thought they all looked good in that reunion video--they are all almost 50 at this point.

Not sure the show did any of their career's a favor though. Harold had some later success with Desperate Housewives and Deadwood--he's allegedly a very smart quirky guy who had dreams of having. a career more like Aiden Gillan but instead found himself cast as the shirtless hunk. Paige is a successful producer (The Fosters) Harrison has had some success doing touring companies of Broadway hits (Cabaret) and Lowell was in Elephant Man with DL obsession Bradley Cooper. (Yes, Google is my friend.). OTOH, it's not that common for TV actors to have a second hit series. Or semi-hit, as the case may be.

[quote]The idea was that they were always in awe of Brian's ability to score precisely because he was an 8 or a 9 ,not a 10.

Wouldn't Brian be considered a PIttsburgh 10?

The weird frau obsession with Gale Harold has got to be painful for him.

He's at that level where it's unlikely he can afford the types of protection that say a Leo DiCaprio or Tom Cruise have and so he's dealing with the crazies head-on.

As we've learned from their posts on Datalounge over the years, they stop at nothing--attempting to contact friends, relatives, co-workers, high school classmates, attacking women they think he might be dating ,showing up at his house or a restaurant they think he might be eating at.

It's one thing to have fans, another to have stalkers.

But even today if you go to Twitter, you'll find many fraus still obsessing about him on almost an hourly basis (the link works, ignore the "No results for "gale harold" in the preview photo)

^^Sorry. It did work until I hit "POST". The CMS on here is interesting

[quote] The idea was that they were always in awe of Brian's ability to score precisely because he was an 8 or a 9 ,not a 10.

[quote] Wouldn't Brian be considered a PIttsburgh 10?

Exactly. There was the storyline where Brian was planning on leaving Pittsburgh to for a bigger career in some big city, but then found out that he'd no longer be the big star he's in Pittsburgh and just a small fish. So he stayed.

There's one early episode where a drag queen at the CLUB tells Justin he could GET ANYONE. HA! Justin was so QUEENY that's silly to say that Justin could get anyone. The Justin character on the British QAF was much better looking and far less QUEENY.

Randy never did anything for me. Buck teeth.

I don't believe this has happened under Alex, but under Art Fleming there was an episode where all three contestants wound up negative. I always remember because the AF show aired around noon, and I was so shook up I had a wreck that afternoon. So if that ever happens , be extra cautious.

[quote]Randy never did anything for me.

Same here. I always thought he looked like a blond monkey.

They treated poor Scott Lowell as being so hideous he shouldn't go out in public, but I thought he was quite handsome.

r182-BLOND MONKEY. That's why I always said to myself. In the real world Ted Schmidt would have no problem getting good looking guys.

The only time Justin might have been considered anything near 'attractive' for me was in Season 4 when he shaved off that atrocious Meg Ryan hairdo in the hilariously bad 'Pink Posse' storyline.

He'd be a total SJW if his character was re-written for today.

r184-Meg Ryan hairdo=LOL

R184 You've clearly never been in a gay club if you think a blond, passably attractive, barely legal twink wouldn't be pushing them away.

I know... that's why I made sure to include the phrase "for me".

It's shocking how actors from UK version prospered, while US version's... Pretty much disappeared.

Reboot? Why? Gays are mainstream now. We can get MARRIED, for chrissakes!

What's next, a remake of "Boys in the Band"?

Any reboot is doomed to fail because they can't follow the original, it'll have to be a complete rewrite since the original had no POC or trans and you know if you do that again in 2019 there'll be riots on the streets for lack of 'representation'. So I expect any reboot to fail miserably.

R188 why is that shocking when most of the US cast were terrible "actors."

No other minority group would consent to having a slur against them as the title of a show about them. You don’t see TV shows called [italic]The Jigaboos[/italic] or [italic]The Gooks of Hazzard[/italic], so stop tolerating this glorified hate speech. I was an out gay teen when it was new; I was offended then and I am even more offended now. Glad to know other gays can recognize bad writing and acting and offensive stereotyping when they see it.

[quote]It's shocking how actors from UK version prospered, while US version's... Pretty much disappeared.

I’ve seen better acting on [italic]The Brady Bunch[/italic].

R192 Mary !

R192 anyone who gets offended by a word like queer is a cunt. Full stop.

Love the idea of a reboot. Don't love the idea of it being on BRAVO. Though Imposters, starring Parker Young, is pretty decent.

Lol.

The new Queer As Folk is going to be SJW genderqueer/trans central.

True.

If the anti-trans vermin are coming out of the woodwork, it must be early Monday morning on DL.

R200 anyone with a brain is anti-trans, scumfucker.

QAF was produced at a time when the Manchester gay scene was at its height. Canal Street was THE destination to go to. Today it's a pale shadow of itself. The characters were interesting. The times were totally different to today.

I would worry that any reboot would focus on Trans and Prep issues. Here in the UK there isn't any gay rights to fight for really. We can sue our employers for discrimination in the workplace, in provision of services and we have gay marriage. It's difficult to see the edgy nature that this programme could bring, plus isn't Charlie Hunnan a bit old to play a twink?

R202 how do people hook up in Manchester these days.

[quote]The producers never hid the fact that the talent agencies refused to let their clients audition for this subversive gay show.

The US version was about as subversive as a margarine commercial.

Aidan Gillen's tongue running down into the crack of Charlie Hunnan's young arse five minutes into the first episode -- THAT was subversive.

And NOTHING in the US version came anywhere close to Gillen's electrifying dangerous anger. My God -- it made you sit up your chair!!!

[quote] NOTHING in the US version came anywhere close to Gillen's electrifying dangerous anger. My God -- it made you sit up your chair!!!

mte. Stuart is a scary man because he walks into a room and you never know what he's going to do. He's an antihero, greasy & selfish with no regard for ramifications but also endlessly charming and occasionally tender. He had a grudge to bear against everyone and let that be known but still didn't let it get in the way of his heart & soul. He's not so much conflicted as he is just confrontational - he wants everyone to slap their hand down on the table and call decisions RIGHT NOW because Death is literally riding up behind him in a cooler car than his. There's an urgency to Gillen's performance. You can understand an unsure teen being magnetically attracted to someone like Stuart no matter their age.

Brian Kinney in his biz-caz cashmere coats is just so milquetoast by comparison, with his whispery voice and his shifty eyes and his apathy. He always came across bone-tired and depressed, which as an Exec in a mid-tier city Corp position of responsibility he likely was but that isn't interesting, is it? His fear of mortality made him sad and his anger just made him frosty & dismissive; that's why he would sneer at men like Ted, because in their less triumphant moments they remind him of himself. Justin was sufficiently awful all by himself but still I wouldn't have wished Kinney upon him.

R205 where did you cut and paste that bullshit trying to mythologize the horrid British QAF. Manchester is the asshole of England. Everyone hates them and Liverpool. Their accents are hated by everyone.

I actually liked the show for the same reason so many upthread did, for the way male friendships were portrayed. It seemed to make a soap opera less so. It was nice stumbling across this as a reminder of a series I did really enjoy and that was quite groundbreaking in some ways for its time.

As I had/have never been to a circuit/meth bonanza, I remember the Ted storyline where he got involved with this to be quite jarring. Ted was always my favorite character

I always loved Hal Sparks as the super bottom Mikey.

I loved the original but thought the American version was one of the worst things I've ever seen on TV.