Netflix "Tales of the City" Thread with spoilers

Thank you. I forgot. Watching right now. OD looks great but feeble. Ellen Page looks cute but she appears before Michael. Now Michael with a beard like every bozo in the US. Not grabbing me yet.

OD looks good as does Laura. After that 'gay" episode on Blaclk Mirror I doubt we will se e hot young Male gay Forget about nude Ellen looks cute. They seem to be pushing young cast. Olympia gets a big entrance. I'm not liking it so far.

Three minutes into the first episode... is that Bob the Drag Queen?! Or am I just super racist? Page calls him Ido but there's no one under that name in the credits for the first episode.

Mary Anne actually bought Michael a blanket/hoody kinda like a caftan/blanket. Any self respecting gay man would have slapped her.

I always liked Paul Gross. I'm sad to see him as a handsome almost elderly man.

Olympia is 88. I can't imagine she being an active cast member.

Not liking this guy as Michael. I wonder if either actor who played him before was asked.

Are all of you familiar with the source material and the earlier adaptation? I'm going in completely blind.

Murray's Russian Doll guy is pretty young. Wonder what's going on there.

Eugh, that electric blue blanket-hoodie hybrid is everything. I want one right now.

Michael's young boyfriend is 30 if he is a day. He should have been nude also. We are not getting the brave full frontal nudity of the other installments.

I like the cliffhanger in the first episode.

Not telling someone they are adopted. What is this 1920 ?

First episode was okay. Very charming. The younger actors (except for Page and Zosia) are obviously not as strong as the older ones, though no one is aggressively bad. Page also has the tautest abdomen ever.

Jake the trans boy is so cute, I just want to eat him all up. What a doll.

Ah, I see now that Bob The Drag Queen is credited as Caldwell Tidicue. That clears it up. God, I love him. My favourite living drag queen.

Old guys should top but this scene reminds me of QAF in its heyday.

I don't remember Marianne being such a bobblehead.

Seems like everything I watch lately is filmed in San Francisco.

Wow! A mock documentary = lazy writing. By the 3rd episode I'm liking it wait. Waiting for some good gay content. Michael getting fucked by younger boyfriend ain't it. I think Ellen and Asian lesbian and two different storylines. I ask again. Where is the young Male storyline ? Why would anyone be attracted to that girl from Girls. I prefer Lens.

I meant bubble.

This "older guys should top" stereotype bullshit needs to stop. Besides, we've seen that a hundred times before; I want something new and unexpected.

I could understand faking being trans now but why do it 60 years ago ?

I'm rather glad they didn't hew very closely with the final set of books, apart from some of the new characters.

Damn, Murray Bartlett looks good.

And Laura Linney looks fantastic.

How does a 90-year-old woman manage those steps?

Did they say her character is 80 ?

No, 90. That's what was on the cake.

And I'm going to be mocked for his, but watching Mrs. M and Mary Ann reunite actually got me close to tears.

I would have choked up to but don't remember MaryAnn being such a dingbat.

Well, this the same woman who spent one of her first nights in San Francisco trying to pick up a gay guy.

One of my favorite shows of all time. Can’t wait for this!!

Where’s Jesse Helms to rail against gays trying to push their agenda??!

Oh he’s dead

I’ve lived here in San Francisco since the mid-80s that trailer made me nostalgic for a city that will never be again. I have never seen such unglamorous young people in my life they’ve got all the money in the world and they’re boring as hell.

So how was it DLers?

It's nice to see they used some of the original PBS cast. There would've been a sequel made immediately after the original series, which broke records for PBS viewership, but the religious right had raised a stink about it so the sequel plans were dropped. I know it had one later on some cable channel, but it sucked, as far as I'm concerned.

The one with the great Mary Kay Place wasn't so bad.

Today we’re going to rap...about rape.

I love that the #1 song in America was Henry Mancini's Love theme from “Romeo and Juliet”

[quote]So how was it DLers?

I'm only two episodes in, but I'm really enjoying it.

I think I am the odd man out here. I so wanted to like it as I did the first. I am three episodes in and I can't get past the above-mentioned Mary Ann being so ditzy this time around. Also, the weird stupid twins are so cliche with their lingo and hip act. I can't pin it down. Certain scenes and actors are great. But the ones that are not are over the top bad. And finally, this fucking deification of Anna M. You'd think she saved the whole fucking city. The fawning over her is insipid. In the old one, she was respected and loved but not fucking worshiped to.

[quote]Also, the weird stupid twins are so cliche with their lingo and hip act

Isn't that the point? They're absurd.

I guess it is r36 but they seem to firmly enmeshed in the Barbary gang. How did they get in right w them? And why? And why deedee rich wasp lady go to their bargain basement show? Not trying to be caustic here, I'm just trying to find the groove here.

In short, I feel like armistead maupin believes his characterizations are so amazingly iconic, exalted, mythological that he can have them doing anything and we will eat it up.

^ sorry for the typos.

....because they're DeeDee's kids?

Ahhh well fuck r39. My bad. I forgot that.

Anna at the end of episode three: I AM SELLING BARBARY LANE.

And the whole world stops. If that isn't a slip pale full of cheese I don't know what is. Ugghghhhh

[quote]Ahhh well fuck [R39]. My bad. I forgot that.

Well, the show (to its credit, I think) just jumps in and assumes that the view has familiarity with the world. I like that.

One of the big changes from the books that I really endorse is that it doesn't seem like Michael and Mary Ann ever fully drifted apart.

The fourth (I think) episode, where Michael and Ben went to a dinner party hosted by a bunch of DLers surprised me.

R43, had Michael and Mary Ann drifted apart, she really would have no reason to return to Babary Lane, given the hostility her ex-husband and "daughter" have for her.

The young actors, with the notable exception of Page, are just dreadful. The actress playing the Asian lesbian with the trans guy is so wooden she belongs up in Muir with the other redwoods. And the instagramming twins are a terrible idea - millienials as imagined by eldergays, with no depth.

It's nice to see these characters again, but some of them are paper-thin, the dialogue is neither sharp nor deep, and the series as a whole is not terribly compelling.

[quote]The actress playing the Asian lesbian with the trans guy is so wooden she belongs up in Muir with the other redwoods.

I loved her naked in the hot tub flirting with DeDe. But she's hardly at Barbara Garrick's level.

By the way, the timeline makes no sense. The original series, like the early books, took place in the 1970s. Mary Ann, Mouse and Brian would be pushing 70 by now, at least, and Mrs. Madrigal would've long ago been a centenarian.

I don't think you're supposed to think too hard about all the timeline stuff.

Very excited to start watching. I’ve looked for the original series everywhere, but I can’t find it.

Yes, what’s up with the timeline? Was there an issue about the cost in setting it in the correct historical time period? How much more would have needed to be budgeted, they needed costumes and sets no matter what. Was it a bid to make it more interesting to young people who would need phones and IG?

I think they're about ten years further forward than they should actually be. This is drawing from the final three books, which came out about ten years ago, so Shawna being in her mid twenties would have been about right for someone born in the late 80s.

Shit, that dinner conversation with the old white gays in the fourth episode was like watching DL being brought to life. Truth stings, doesn't it?

Love the nuance in the trans storyline as well - exploring how transitioning affects other people. And the queer/lesbian stuff - not everyone needs or wants to be fluid or queer; it's perfectly fine to "just" be gay and lesbian. It's just so incisive, which I hoped it would be.

The only thing that didn't scan was that convo the married coupled were having while Page was observing them. Married folk don't talk like that, period.

I wish there was more of Bob the Drag Queen.

I hated the smug look on the older gays faces. It was a nice gay couple stepped into Boys in the Band.

I did appreciate the number of "Hey, It's That Guy" openly gay actors they had in the scene.

And I'm fairly certain the actor who played Harrison also played a guy who fucked Dom on Looking.

Oh, my god, it's Michael and Ben watching Murder, She Wrote. They're living my best life.

Ellen Page is playing the Ellen Page Character™️

TALESH OF THE SHCITY!

Not very realistic that a birthday party for someone 90 would be mostly people less than half her age.

Well, r58, it's also unrealistic to think that a birthday party for someone 90 would be mostly people around their age.

I think I'd rather climb up onto the roof and throw myself off before watching this.

I want to do some serious cuntbone kicking. Mary Anne first. Then the Ellen Page chick. Then those idiotic Asian twins. Then whoever green-lit this fiasco.

I do not care about Shawna!!!

Remind me, was Shawna a rescue baby from the Jones Town massacre?

It seems like a "very special episode" of Tales of the City.--over-amped vibe and boring new characters. The production values are better, but the plot seems ridiculous. Nice to see Murray Bartlett but he doesn't have much to do besides fuck his bf. Mary Anne just seems confused and confusing.

I cried during the opening scene - driving down outer Market. The countless times I staggered up that slope and down to West Portal, after last call. Lived there 1970 - 2014

Hoping the rest gets better. No wonder Armistead left for London...

First, Armistead left for New Zealand

Then he came back to SF.

Next he left for Taos

Then he came back

Now he's left for London?

R56 I recall Ellen being a good actress before she came out, now she seems to be playing the same trademarked flat character.

No, R63. That was DeDe's biracial twins who went to Jonestown with Dede and D'Or.

Shawna's mother is Connie Bradshaw. Connie was an air-headed flight attendant. IIRC, she wasn't sure who the baby's father was. Connie died shortly after giving birth to Shawna, asking Brian and Mary Ann to raise Shawna for her.

I always thought Connie was sweet. The first sign (in the books) of Maryann's true character was how she treated Connie.

Yeah, the Asian twins are annoying, but the guy one is hot as fuck. Who is he? Is he naked in later episodes I hope?

The stereotypes in this are unreal. I'm shocked that w all of the gay talent in front of and behind the cameras, they wound up with what feels like a hetero's view of gays circa 1980. I just watched the leather wedding scene. Ughhhhhh. Drag queen as the preacher. Harrison and his fiancé brought big cock rings out when the preacher queen said to. Flash to audience in leather. And a "sex tent" at the wedding.

This is just one of so many cheesy old fashioned , going for the easy laugh with old tropes about gay men.

Sorry. I can't sleep and have been watching it all night.

I'm confused about what happened with Jake and Flaco. I wish their story got more screen time. It's actually the storyline I liked the most, so fucking typical. The one storyline I like and it's underdeveloped. Ugh.

Smarmy and arch is a terrible combination. Every actor looks inordinately pleased with themselves. And the direction is terrible. The production design makes it feel like one of those old Fireball XL5 marionette tv shows.

If this show was just entirely comprised of Murray Barlett sex scenes with his Russian Doll boyfriend in dozens of different positions, it would've been 69x better and more enjoyable to watch.

It's embarrassingly bad.

Though the DataLounge dinner party had me screaming.

I’ve only seen a few bits of the previous series but Singleton was code for Simpleton, yes?

So far after the first episode, opening with Olympia talking to some documentarian’s camera about the good old days had a Titanesque vibe to it.

R74 YUP! Not enough gay sex imo. Also, wasn't this season supposed to be about his character getting comfortable with fucking his boyfriend without a condom? WHET to that storyline? I was waiting for that scene, but it never came. Fucking bs!

The Barbary Lane set is weird. It looks nothing like an actual location. And the lighting employed on the set exacerbates that problem. Lighting like that being used on this set is not ever seen in nature. Too bright. Too warm. Often too focused. The bar where Shawna works has much the same problem. Oddly designed and the lighting works against it.

It is difficult to see Mary Ann and Robert together. Ever. For any reason. That they are married is inexplicable. That they travel together to San Francisco because she wants him to meet her family, but their marriage is clearly awful and they sleep in separate beds is also poorly thought out. Obviously, she would have just gone alone. Once she is there alone, why on earth is this financially well-off woman walking all over San Francisco dragging a broken suitcase? Hop in a taxi. Check into the Fairmont. Drop off the bag. That small problem should not be difficult for a writer and a director to figure out, but is terribly difficult for the audience to ignore.

Barbara Garrick is spot on as DeDe Halcyon Day.

[quote]That they travel together to San Francisco because she wants him to meet her family,

I think the implication was that he'd gone because she wanted to keep up appearances.

[quote]Barbara Garrick is spot on as DeDe Halcyon Day.

Yes. She's been in it more than I would have expected, and she's also been one of my favorite parts.

Anyone else bothered by how many green screen scenes there are in this? Even the main garden looks like it was shot in the studio most of the time. Really takes me out of the show. I know it's expensive to shoot in SF, but still...

Any work on sets was shot in New York.

Yes, I should have said "on location", not in SF. Of course it wouldn't be shot in SF in any case.

Hello full frontal Micah Stock! You were the most exciting thing in Bonding, good to see your sexy body in the all together here if only so briefly.

Ellen Page in that dumb hat. She is always one dimensional and seems to play herself. So boring.

r84 I actually think she's miles better in this than most recently in The Umbrella Academy, where she was truly ennui incarnate. And good for her for going topless.

[quote]She is always one dimensional and seems to play herself.

She realistically appeared to be interested in men, so that's at least one difference.

I never saw that r86. She has the acting range and believability of Chevy Chase.

She's pretty good and believable operating within the limited range she has, in my opinion. Nothing wrong with that.

The Mamet girl is ugly as hell. Just vapid. I don’t think actresses should be lauded for taking off their tops, r85

Speak for yourself. I see it as an empowering act.

I don't recall ever thinking until this Laura Linney gave a bad performance. I guess we can blame bad writing /directing but has that ever stopped Bette Davis or Meryl Streep ? Does Netflix give this people free reign ? That is only good with truly great ones.

If Stranger Things 3 stinks I'm gonna cut someone.

Ellen Page, although playing herself, acts the rest of the younger crowd off the screen. The focus on the Millennial/Gen Z characters is what lets this series down.

Mamet is the worst thing to happen to television ever.

Her too dark eyebrows and she is an unattractive brooder. I don't see why anyone would be attracted to her. It is bad when Lens has more charm then you do.

The Mamet kid can act but needs a decent director and script, so....her sight gag makeup aside, I think her performance is a sign of the writing & directing. Linney seems to be trying to channel the original Mary Anne and it doesn't work---even when she's putoff by things, she doesn't channel someone who has lived in CT for many years. In the original, she was no Clevelander (I'm one and should know) but she did well giving life to a Midwestern stereotype in the original.

The Asian twins seem to be in this to give it "relevance" and are un-necessary although the transguy would make sense if he had more scenes with Madrigal. The mystery twist (I won't do any spoilers seems more in common with "As the World Turns" rather than the original.

Granted, I've never kvelled over Mauphin in the way that others I know, but I think this really sucks and ultimately is his fault. I'll probably finish it just to see how badly it's been fucked-up.

Ellen Page is simply annoying, btw. The whole poisoning the well thing re: Mary Anne is over the top, although there is a plot twist that promises to make this a little more interesting.

It's possible to remember things from age 2 but the trauma aspect would require other people in her environment making it traumatic rather than caring about her. OTOH, this is SF, the self-involvement capital of the world, but that's not an aspect of SF that people like to examine and doesn't fit the romantic view of SF in the series. OTOH, SF Bay folks generally are annoying af in any kind of collective situation like working groups.

Ugh, who did that truly awful cover of Landslide in the last episode? It sounded like a dying animal that needed to be put out of its misery.

R90, and actress showing her titties for the camera is never empowering.

An actress telling the director that she's not going to show her titties and he can go fuck himself.... that's empowerment.

R96, no surprise for this show, it is a transwoman, Anohni.

R83, I couldn’t agree more. Micah Stock is just lovely and his nude self didn’t disappoint.

R78, if she took a taxi and went to a hotel, we wouldn’t get the suitcase wheels falling off as a metaphor for her life.

R40, that part was very strange. Of course, the Asian twins should be DeDe’s, but she acts as though she doesn’t know them and they make a production of gaining access to her guest house. It’s a little creepy that DeDe would start fucking an Asian woman who is not only friends with her Asian children, but also is the same age. Either they’re supposed to be her adopted children and that reveal would come in a season two (despite being called limited), they’re one of those wealthy families where children fend for themselves or I missed something. I mean, DeDe was all about those children and Maryann aided in their rescue in the earlier series.

R35, given that the OITB writer wrote this, I get the impression that Armistead gave her wide latitude. The final three books were tight, fun and logical.

R5, I thought he still looks sexy. I don’t understand the dark brows with the silver hair up top. Which is the natural color?

Overall, I did like that they attempted to bring Tales hallmarks—twists, disparate characters intersecting, a mystery with Maryann as Nancy Drew. I do wish they stuck closer to the source material. Also, I missed the trademark TOTC music. I wish they’d had used it here—even updated.

I thought Jen Richards, who played the younger Mrs. M in the flashback episode, was smashing.

[quote]Anyone else bothered by how many green screen scenes there are in this? Even the main garden looks like it was shot in the studio most of the time. Really takes me out of the show. I know it's expensive to shoot in SF, but still...

YES. God, that's my major complaint with this. The garden party was the worst. So was the shot of Linney hosting "Mary Ann in the Morning."

And when Linney and Page went on the roof, all I could think of was "The Room" with Tommy Wiseau, with the horrendous green screen background of San Francisco.

Somehow CGI actually looks worse than it did 10 or 15 years ago.

The orignal Barbary Lane set was worse than this one...it looked much more "set-ish" (and the lighting then was dreadful too).

Book readers: I thought the twins were named Anna and Edgar? Why don't they have the Halycon name? Beauchamp's last name was Day, so who's Winter?

Time-liners: yes I am confused, but it's like they placed all of the kids' births at the time of the last miniseries instead of real life.

I don't hate it as a whole...I like they got most of the original cast back. Why isn't Barbara Garrick listed on IMDB? Neither is Bob the Drag queen or any of the old queens/Dataloungers at the party.

[quote]Book readers: I thought the twins were named Anna and Edgar? Why don't they have the Halycon name? Beauchamp's last name was Day, so who's Winter?

Apparently they're not actually DeDe's twins. Although why they'd bring in a pair of Asian twins who aren't from DeDe's last hetero affair doesn't make sense.

That Landslide cover was horrible, but I have to admit I cried anyway.

I almost never enjoy Ellen Page but I'm liking her in this.

Are people who haven't read the books enjoying this? I've read the first 6 books so I know who everyone is even though the storylines are new. Maybe having read the books isn't crucial, just an added bonus.

Who were the Asian twins? They aren’t DeeDee’s kids? Who are they then?

[quote]Are people who haven't read the books enjoying this? I've read the first 6 books so I know who everyone is even though the storylines are new. Maybe having read the books isn't crucial, just an added bonus.

The final three books really didn't have all that much to do with the mini. Ben and Jake were introduced there, but their biographies were very different. Also, Mrs. Madrigal had sold Barbary Lane well before Michael Tolliver Lives! started.

There were parts of the books that I liked better, but there were things about this that I preferred too.

This series of it was awful. I didn’t care about any of them.

I cried during the last episode. I thought of how I first saw the series on PBS in NYC. September 1993. I watched this show with my husband. We were together 20 years. We loved the series. He died in 2008. I miss him so much.

Is it like A Tale of Two Cities

r108, I'm sure watching this brought back the memories in force. I hope some of them were good ones under the tears.

Benjamin Thys is all sorts of delicious. I wanna lick his droopy brows.

Eugh, he's so gorgeous.

The problem with the show is the same problem the book had.

It is fun, but none of the dialogue sounds like conversations real people have. It's all stagy.

Either setting up a punchline or a punchline, or clunky exposition, or a sentiment from a Hallmark greeting card.

Poor Laura Linney. Her talent is enormous and her emotion wanted to make this better but it just didn’t land.

Mouse’s boyfriend is sex on a stick though.

Of course Ellen Page ate Pussy in episode 2.

I hate you, OP.

Because I saw this thread a few hours ago and was moderately curious, I just binged all 10 episodes. Thank god that fast forward works on Netflix to skip the boring parts, or I'd still be watching it. I didn't find this story nearly as compelling as I remember the original being. Then again, it could just be the absence of Billy Campbell's nekkid glory. It felt more like Looking meets Queer As Folk than it did Tales of the City.

The upside was that my takeaway was that whoever wrote it is moderately unimpressed with being woke or non-binary queerness.

My two criticisms are that there was something wrong with the pacing and the balance between the narratives was off. These in turn threw basic issues of dramatic tension and escalation of stakes off so that we never got to feel like there was a climactic scene. Mary Ann returns is the inciting incident, but there's never a question that the reader wants answered that arises from that. Instead, we got a weak, poorly executed detective mystery that failed because that subplots never converge toward the reveal of the villain.

Struggling uphill with a beat up suitcase is a reference to the first episode in the 1994 TOTC. I couldn’t help smiling when I recognized it. I love this series and am grateful that Netflix made it

I wish they'd given some closure for Jake and Flaco and Michael and Ben.

I keep expecting Mouse to whip up some peri-peri chicken

Hey, as far as we know, Looking takes place in the same universe.

I hate it, so disappointed as a fan of the original series.

REALLY hate the younger characters.

Jake is FUGLY as FUCK!

When Michael Tolliver Lives came out in 2005 or so, people were saying that they did not care for or about the new characters, or how many of the older characters evolved, but the latter changes were just what had happened when the gang was caught up in this Brave New World....

Mary Louise Wilson!

I liked Anna’s backstory/flashback episode, puts things in perspective.

I thought her cop bf looked familiar, turns out he was the curly haired Angelo in Mambo Italiano about 15 years ago.

I'm up to episode 8 and so far all the drama has come from the characters reflecting on their ageing, identity, choices, desires, etc. It's like the writers decided to ignore the whole screwball, plot twisting nature of the books and make it just a character piece. It's boring.

I am so confused by the twins. If they aren't DeeDee's twins, how the fuck do they know her and why would she come to their stupid show??

DeDe's twins were small children at Jonestown. The mass suicide that ended Jonestown occurred in 1978. Those kids are about 45 today. The Asian twin performing artists are not good candidates to be Dede's twins.

DeDe fully explained why she was at that performance. Just go back and watch that scene again.

[quote]DeDe's twins were small children at Jonestown. The mass suicide that ended Jonestown occurred in 1978. Those kids are about 45 today. The Asian twin performing artists are not good candidates to be Dede's twins.

Michael, Mary Ann, Brian and DeDe all being in their mid-50s doesn't make sense either. Everyone is younger than they're supposed to be. Except for Anna, who for whom the math more or less works.

They seem to have removed about ten years from everyone.

Agreed. But the Twintertainment twins are not 36. They're barely 26.

The Twintertainment twins are the worst thing to happen to anything ever.

Wouldn't it have been easier to make DeDe's twins the same age as Shawna and just say that they were estranged--which DeDe said anyway? Regardless, the guy twin was really hot.

The show has 8 executive producers and more tellingly, multiple editors, with each episode having a different writer and directors. It makes sense that the whole thing is a mess.

Last night, I watched the episode with the 'Data Lounge' dinner party. That was a great monologue delivered to Ben by one of the Chris's. I suspect it lands profoundly for all of us that age who share that history. It really needed to be included in this series.

And what a great job Stephen Spinella did delivering it. It was a brilliant choice to hire the actor who created the role of Prior Walter in the original production of "Angels in America" to deliver the speech about knowing no more of gay history than what was picked up watching "Angels in America."

Good to see Sal at that dinner party, too.

Bryan Batt, Stephen Spinella, Malcolm Gets, and Dan Butler, and that's just who I caught.

Is that not Charles Busch in that group, too? The one with the shaved head.

R131, it certainly would, and I suspect that was the original plan. Perhaps, they liked the pair, developed them as characters, thought removing 20 years from the Halcyon twins was a bridge too far, and then made them unrelated.

All I recall from the books is the boy twin is a happily married gay guy, and the girl is okay, too but how, I don't remember.

Why do new shows these days always have to be so superficial? There's hardly any depth to them any more. Is it because of social media?

I'm only on episode 4 but I like Jake and Margo. I thought that I'd hate them but their storyline is really compelling. They're not the world's greatest actors but they're doing a good job.

I also don't hate Zosia Mamet in this. What is happening to me? I usually hate everything....

Does Murray Bartlett really work out 2 hours every day to maintain that body? Damn, that's a lot of time in the gym.

[quote]Does Murray Bartlett really work out 2 hours every day to maintain that body? Damn, that's a lot of time in the gym.

Aside from making peri-peri chicken, what else does he have going on?

He's just as busy as Joe Manganiello. Same body type.

Enjoyed the miniseries but I'm also confused about the timeline. I suppose it could take place a decade ago, but most modern references wouldn't fit.

The twins seem like the product of a group-think in the writers' room. Someone asked, "well, this is San Francicso, and social media is the prime mode of news/entertainment for 20 year olds so how do we speak to that?" Then they just went off in left field and these idiots were the result. Almost like a bunch of 60 year old were writing it.

Same thing with the leather wedding (where you can spot Armistead and his husband in the front row in a cameo). So cliche. And so weak, creatively.

No one has mentioned that the dinner party is a call back to when Mouse went to one at Jon’s and was derided for being a stripper. So it was putting him in the opposite position some twenty-five years later. It too had some prominent gay actors as the dinner guests the only one I remember being Ian McKellan. Who were the others?

I find the constant use of cutesy nicknames like "Babycakes" really annoying.

Who does that?

Michael Tolliver does, if you've ever read the books.

Luke Kirby is sizzling hot. What a beautiful man.

That Datalounge Dinner monologue was pretty much the gay version of Jack Nicholson’s “You can’t handle the truth” tirade in A Few Good Men.

[quote]That Datalounge Dinner monologue was pretty much the gay version of Jack Nicholson’s “You can’t handle the truth” tirade in A Few Good Men.

It also reminded me of the "sad and pathetic man" speech by Leonard Frey in The Boys in the Band.

San Francisco should thank the universe for this show. Whatever soul or heart the show has, the city does not. It’s been overrun by “1s and 0s” aspies dorks who design social media platforms that are RUINING our lives. So fuck you, san francisco. But thank you, tales of the city.

Luke Kirby deserves a bigger career than he does, he’s a standout in Maisel and Deuce too. Hope there are great things in his future.

R150: Even before the the bubble burst around '00, SF was full of self-absorbed assholes and they weren't a bunch of techies.

I read the books and recall the "A-Gay" dinner scene that was dramatized in the previous series starring Ian McKellan.

In this new Netflix show scene, which side of the argument is Maupin on? The old gays who "deserve respect" for fighting the civil rights war or the young SJW gay?

The ambiguity was interesting to me (a relatively elder white gay myself) but I'm curious to learn others' reaction: In the dinner party fight, which side was right? Both?

R153. I watched a few interviews w Maupin on YouTube after watching this latest version. He seems much more old guard, in that he doesn't like labels and preachy politics. Sort of live and let live. I think he eschews the current LGBTQIAXYZABC of it all. Imo.

Doesn't like labels, blah, blah, blah. He has all that old South crap behind him. I'm sure he's plenty judgey.

Mother Jones

WEHT the storyline about being comfortable having sex without a condom? The whole season led up to that moment, then nothing. This whole series felt like a mess. Like... they didn't know what to do with the characters. Also, I missed the younger gays. I assumed there would be a subplot about younger gays and their struggle with coming out. The closest we got was that trans character, but it's not the same. I wanted to see younger GAY characters, not trans.

I'm not sure why they just didn't set it in the 90's?? That would've been kind of fun and nostalgic. Instead we have the Salesforce tower and people shitting in the streets. Good times in old Babylon by the Bay.

R157 I think we’ve had sufficient on coming out stories, let’s see people living their lives. If you want those go to Youtube and dive in.

The dinner monologue was fucking fantastic, and Stephen Spinella deserves an Emmy on top of his Tony.

The last three books were a depressing mishmash. I’m glad this series tried to turn that around, although it lacked the heart and wit of the original. It was nice seeing Linney playing the role so happily. She’ll always be Mary Ann. I thought she was terrific. Disconcerting to see an aged Olympia Dukakis, she’s always seemed ageless to me. I know she’s 88. She did a lovely job. Thought Murray was a good Mouse, not great. Still miss Marcus D’Amico.

Armistead looked to be in pretty good shape in the front row of the sex wedding on the Hudson.

Yes! The sex wedding on the Hudson. That is exactly what it looked like.

Too bad 'the River' was supposed to be the Russian River and the guests were supposed to be in Guerneville, not Hyde Park,

Really enjoyed spending time with these characters again. Fast forwarded through the stuff with the new characters. The DL dinner party was spot on. Murray was sex on a stick. Loved seeing Broadway's Micah Stock and Collin Baja in all their glory. Of course after the credits, the trannie Anna left Barbary Lane to shows up and evicts everyone.

The twins referred to Boomerang videos. Boomerang was launched in late 2015 and the first TOTC was set in 1976. If Michael was supposed to be about 20 years old in 1976 and the new series takes place no earlier than 2016, then he would, at a minimum, be 60 years old in the current series. So they've shaved 5 to 10 years off him.

DeDe would be in her mid to late 60s.

[quote]So they've shaved 5 to 10 years off him.

I want that exact same razor.

I cant stand Ellen Page

She was better in this than she was in The Umbrella Academy R166

I stopped watching Umbrella Academy .... too dreary ... and yes, too much mopey Ellen Page ...

About the original miniseries, does anyone know why they replaced the actress who played Mona in the original with a new actress in More Tales of the City? The first actress, Chloe Webb, I thought would have a huge career; after the first Tales, she just vanished instead.

It gets more interesting after about episode 5. I'm watching the last episode which has some un-needed tying up of losends. Mamet's kid reverts to sight gag.

I wish Shawna didn’t wear that fucking cap all the fucking time.

Since production of the sequels moved to Canada, a lot of the actors were replaced with Canadian actors R169

She eventually takes the cap off and, unfortunately, her top follows.

Shawna is supposed to be 25? Ellen Page is what, 35?

I’m tired of hearing Anna call Jake “handsome.” He’s the fugliest thing I’ve ever seen, like Marc Anthony had a baby with a lemur.

I finally got to the flashback episode, and the actor who played young Anna Madrigal's Hispanic friend delivered one of the best performances so far in the series.

That sad: it just feels like a time capsule, and not in a good way. It's been 40 years, and all the characters still seem to live in an LGBT ghetto in their own heads. If anything's changed since the books, it's that gays and straights (especially in a place like San Francisco) intermingle socially without a second thought. The wedding audience of all gay men really capped it.

That whole wedding scene was so cringe.

r169 On Armistead's audio commentary of "More tales of the city" he states the actress that played Mona in the original mini series, Chloe Webb, asked for considerably more money than Olympia Dukakis, Laura Linney and the rest of the cast.

Thank you, R178. That's a shame.

I lived in SF for two years (2015-17) and never ONCE did I see a drag queen in full drag in the daytime!

[quote]That whole wedding scene was so cringe.

When the drag queen minister was performing the ceremony and the leather queens got out their ring boxes, I thought, "Oh, no, they're not going to — "

Sure enough. Cock rings. Isn't that HILARIOUS.

I lived in SF for six years 1989 - 1995 and, on occasion, I was a drag queen in full drag in the day time.

Yeah, the whole gay wedding was as bad as the one in Sex and the City. Really disappointing in its tired gay stereotypes.

Sad that this shit fest will likely be Olympia’s last work.

But thankfully, there probably will be no more sequels.

It seems pretentious and full of itself. Just like San Francisco.

The last two episodes were just too much — part Nancy Drew, part schmaltz — and (spoiler)

.

.

.

how they could issue a demolition order for a historic building with residents in it AND have it set for 24 hours after the notices were given was ridiculous. And how did Anna get it back after signing it over? There's some suspension of disbelief that's necessary, but the last two episodes were way, way too much.

Well, the last two were actually more in like with the spirit of the original. There was always a jokey Nancy Drew mystery element in the stories. This showrunner and writers just don’t know how to strike that tone.

Did we ever find out how the Mamet creature got the goods on Anna to blackmail her?

R189 the Maet creature had talked to the old Hispanic woman during her documentary and discovered the secrets...Anna actually says that that was how she knew, which is the guilt she felt leading to the blackmail, and why she eventually left it to her (which was the biggest crock of shit in the story line)

Don’t get the hate in some of the earlier comments here about the “Tales of the City” continuation, I think it’s terrific. I mean all it ever was was a gossipy slice-of-life soap opera about living a sexually free life in one of America’s most unique and beautiful cities. The books and first two series were very humane entertainments. As this is. While S.F. has changed beyond recognition in many ways, I was happy to revisit the S.F. of “Tales” and to be back with those characters at that apartment complex.

Also, it’s pretty funny to have read all the (undeserved) hype about the Egerton-Madden sex scene in “Rocketman” and then to see the far hotter, far more explicit sex scenes with Murray Bartlett (as a bottom in both). Also liked seeing NY actor Micah Stock fully nude, front and back, dick swinging. Though his natural body was soft and vaguely pear-shaped, I’ve developed a big sexual crush on him (he can also be seen in Netflix’s “Bonding” but not in the nude). He’s very tall, with good long legs, a big dick and a big, soft ass. Wanna fuck him bad.

[quote]Wanna fuck him bad.

Well you certainly have the permission of the Datalounge.

Hands down, the worst part of this mess are the twins. So fucking annoying.

Is there an actor alive who can suck more energy/interest out of a scene than Ellen Page? Insufferable

R193 Shawna’s stupid cap is a very close second

What was with Victor Garber's bad British accent?

I was waiting for the reveal that, even though he wasn't a scammer and was just an old gay man who was fond of Anna, he was faking being British.

I do hope John Glover got him to try the sequins.

R196. If I'm not mistaken, I think you are the first post (after 195!) to bring up Victor. He was profoundly bad. I guess there were just so many other faults, it took this long to bring him up. I was shocked he couldn't pull off the accent or the character more effectively.

The Garber storyline was so lame. Did they just create a part for him so he could be included?

R194 Why does she play the same character on every show? Vanya in The Umbrella Academy was basically the same, sad, boring and depressed.

OMG I was looking up the cast list — did you all know Bob the Drag Queen’s real name is:

Caldwell Tidicue

?????

Marianne is SO annoying in this one. I don’t remember her being so in the original; was she?

I’m on episode 1 and this makes Queer as Folk look like high art. Is there a zlist gay actor that didn’t get a part in this obviously Canadian-tax-break-funded POS? Ellen Page and that fucking hat.....

R203 not a fan either but this was filmed on location in SF and in studios in NYC

Agree about that fucking hat

LOL R204

I probably should have sat thru the credits... It’s got Canadian production written all over it.

Love the hat.

This is pretty bad. I’m on episode 7 and committed til the end, but wow it’s bad.

Although... at the scene now where that Micah Stock actor is naked —NICE! But don’t blink, you’ll miss it.

Shawna is insufferable. They all are.

The leather queen wedding is truly vomit inducing.

The melodrama, the mysteries, the reversals, secrets and reveals — frankly, they are not much different here than they were in the first PBS “Tales” all those years ago. If you hate this so much, you would probably hate those too if you were to revisit them. Maybe you’d even find the books naively bad now if you reread them. So maybe the fun and affirmation and humanity that many of us gleaned from the novels and (the first two) TV adaptations, were inspired by the still homophobic times we were living in. Maybe some of you have outgrown it. Maybe some of you lionize the past eps because they meant more to you then than they possibly could now.

Me, I’m loving it, and think it’s a very apt updating of the feeling, atmosphere, world of 28 Barbary Lane that Maupin created. If a lot of you don’t need to escape to that place for a few hours anymore (or can’t even if you want to), good for you. But it’s pretty faithful to Maupin’s comic universe. And I’ve been happy to go back there.

They really have fucked with the timeline, it’s 10 years off. In one scene, Ben reminds Michael that he is a 54 year old man (who can’t afford his own apartment).

Assuming it’s 2018 in the show, that would make Michael born in 1964. The first Tales book was published in 1978, so Michael would have been ... 14?

I’m ok with plausible deniability, but this is just messy writing.

Between Dee Dee Halycon and Allison Perkins on "One Life to Live", Barbara Garrick is going down in soap history as one of the great character actresses, even though "Tales" is basically a soap mini-series. When she first played Allison, Eileen Heckart had a guest starring role as her mother. I saw her in a play Off Broadway a year ago with Laurence Lau (Greg Nelson, "AMC", et al).

I wonder why Netflix doesn't have the first two series streaming?

Somehow, the writers and the directors of this current iteration have forgotten to make these characters engaging. I remember actually liking Jake from the later books. The young man playing Jake in this series has one earnest little bag of acting skills and hits them again and again and again. Granted, the later books are a fuck of a lot more earnest than the first three, but gah! There was some lightness to them and some charm to the characters. Instead, we are now given a lot of archness and earnestness and smug judgments. It's not making anything better.

One major welcome change from the later books is that we don't have to all go to fucking Burning Man with these losers. Actually recreating Burning Man would have been prohibitively expensive. Green screening it would have been ludicrous. And the event is insufferable anyway. We are all lucky to have dodged that bullet.

There were three prior mini-series: PBS did one and Showtime two follow ups. Very surprised Netflix bothered to do this and not secure the rights to the others.

Ugh. Just learned the name of the actor playing Jake is just “Garcia.”

As in one name only, like Madonna.

Gurl, please.

[quote] Just learned the name of the actor playing Jake is just “Garcia.”

How perfectly San Francisco.

I really enjoyed episode 8, which is entirely devouted to Anna’s past and takes place in 1966.

I want Tommy Nelson in me quite deeply!! So HOT as that cop.

Jen Richards looks like Kamala Harris.

Jen Richards looks like a DUDE

I'm only on episode 4, and although I'm not loving it, I don't hate it either. Does the acting get any better? The actors playing Margot and Jake are terrible. I like their storyline, but the actors are having a hard time selling it. I cannot stand Margot's monotone drone of a voice. And the actor playing Jake is simply not good at all. They also have zero chemistry and seem to be uncomfortable with each other, not in the service of the story (because they are angry and resentful towards each other), but in general. It's a weird dynamic to watch.

I'm sticking it out though, because I want to see how the story all wraps up and I want to watch the magnificent Daniela Vega in a later episode. It's also nice to see San Francisco, which is a city I still love and will always love, despite how it's changed.

Margot and Jake really had no chemistry. It's hard to believe they ever dated (even pre-op) and I was glad they broke up.

Margot & Jake, as well as the twins just seem like plot devices. The leather wedding seems like something leather queens of that generation (which my generation) might have dreamed up but also does seem more Sex and the City (first season when Carrie was more of an amateur anthropologist) than Tales of the City. The dog watching them have sex was a good touch, though.

Just finished last episode (SPOILERS AHEAD) . . . . . . . WTF with that Scooby Doo ending with the filmmaker?? It was really ridiculous, like they realized they needed to wrap it all up and just threw it together.

And that “documentary” she made was supposed to be a masterpiece but instead looked like a community college film student project.

I think they exaggerated Anna’s “crime” against that trans woman and friends 50+ years ago. I really thought the fraud was going to be that she was only pretending to be a trannie, and was just a masculine looking woman.

Giving Barbary lane to some 70+ year old trannie was a mistake, she’s just going to turn it into housing for the homeless she cares for. Would have been a better ending to leave it to the main characters (FUCK OFF TWINS) so they could continue living there and keep the history running.

I know why they wanted to go through for the feel-good (?) ending of her leaving the house to Ysela, but dramatically, leaving it to Mary Ann or Shawna would have made more sense.

The nonsense about the legitimacy of the money was poorly thought through. The flashback episode specifically included a shot of the cop taking protection money from the barkeep. The protection money that Tommy had stowed away undoubtedly came from a lot of sources in San Francisco's demimonde. If the money was to be returned to its rightful owner, a lot of interested parties would end up owning a small percentage of Barbary Lane.

If it was stolen from anyone, it was stolen from the wives and children and of closeted homos burning up the grocery money in gay bars. Which is the same thing Ysela was doing with her street walking. Anna had a problem. Tommy gave her the money she needed. She did what she had to do. And that's life. The writers of this sub-optimal series hinged the entire plot on a made-up problem that doesn't bear up to any examination at all.

And how dare Ysela chastise Anna for anything, really. Anna gave up that hot cop in order to be safe and secure, at the insistence of said cop. I’m sure Ysela would have been invited to live at the newly purchased Barbery Lane, but no, she had to make such a stink about it.

Poor story.

Is the actor playing Jake (the trans man) actually trans in real life?

I'm loving the pure nostalgic trip of it for myself. Grew up in the Bay Area, read the books and saw the original series as a young man....I just like being in this world again.

Trying to watch one episode per week so this doesn't end too quickly for me. Nostalgia has me turning a blind eye to the inconsistencies.

R227. Yes

Luke Kirby is the handsome, sexy actor who plays the cop with bent ‘proclivities’ in episode 8, the flashback to Anna Madrigal’s first year in San Francisco. He has also played Lenny Bruce in both seasons of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”

He’s Canadian, looks better now than he did as a skinny young actor and apparently dated Katie Holmes at one point so he’s clearly very fucked up, ambitious-but-stupid-about-it or both.

Also enjoyed seeing Micah Stock’s swinging dick and big, fleshy ass in episode 7.

Yeah, the original was full of dumb plot twists and was basically a soap, although at least no one had amnesia and their were no prolonged trials. OTOH, the original had charm and captured the quirkiness of SF past. Now, of course, it's also so self-conscious and self-involved as to lack charm. Moreover, the acting is all over the place--you had the annoying twins, Jake and his whatever who had no chemistry, Olympia with out much energy and Linney not sure if she should be the old Maryann or something else. Some of the peripheral characters like the cop (Luke Kirby), the documentarian's mother, and Maryann's lesbian friend were fun. Maryann's ex really did not come alive as a character until late in the show and Ellen Page was really just too much Ellen Page. Mamet's kid was good in some scenes but not others--she seems to need strong direction. She also comes across as a sight gag--it happens often enough that I wonder if she like it that way---she'll discover that the novelty will thin and the aging process won't be her friend.

Has the aging process been your friend r231?

The actress who plays Maryann's "daugher" is so smug I almost turn away when on screen. Either bad over acting a character poorly written or both. I'm two episodes in and thinking to myself that I do not really know a gay male, lesbian, trans, drag, straight community that mixes like this anywhere. It's trying too hard to be hip so far and just looking phony- flat. I'll give it a couple more episodes.

R180- you can see hundreds of them in the Fire Island Grove and during the invasion of the Pines on the 4th- all in one place dressed to the nines! All sizes, shapes and ages.

[quote] It's trying too hard to be hip so far and just looking phony - flat.

That's San Francisco, perfectly described.

R233 that was just Ellen Page, basically playing herself

Is it as dreadful as the trailers made it seem?

Worse.

The writing is fine, it's just that the pacing is not what we're used to with these Netflix shows as it's more soapy in nature. But I haven't seen the first two adaptations, so I can't judge if it's different in that regard. It's a warm, cosy show, exploring some ideas that get bulldozed over in other modern queer shows because they're seen as too traditional. I respect it a lot for that.

More than 30 years after it was published, Armistead Maupin's Letter To Mama is still so powerful that Laura Linney, Ellen Page, Charlie Barnett, and their Tales Of The City co-stars can barely get through reading it without crying

R240 thanks for that.

Weird to hear Murray Barlett’s Aussie accent.

And wow Olympia, way to chew the scenery

Didn't watch the video as I'm not good with sad stuff but Murray Bartlett is Australian?!

Also, did Charlie Barnett blow up big within months or what? What was he doing before Russian Doll, anyway? Theatre?

This is a total shitfest, sorry to say.

"So, like, our entire character outline is this: We're Asian and we like social media! Sounds like an exciting multi episode story arc, does it not?"

Wish DeeDee's gay deaf worker got more screen time.

R245 agree, he was hilarious. Would have rather seem more scenes with him and done away with the stupid twins

I love whenever sign language is used in shows, so that was nice. And it felt so casual as well.

I hoped the brother twin would be shown dating a guy but no, those two seem to be completely sexless. They did entertain me, I have to say.

I was almost afraid they were going to introduce an incest angle R247 but thankfully they didn't.

"watch soon because netflix will decide soon if there's a season twooooo"

fuck no.

I want to see that Latina trans woman take over Barbary Lane. She seems like such fun!

They'd probably just give us a trans prequel series

Was the guy who played Harrison in one of the originals? He looks familiar.

r252 He's done Looking, Bonding, How to Get Away with Murder... Perhaps you've recognised him from those shows?

Forgot to add that no, he wasn't in one of the originals.

Matthew Risch is 37 years old. He was not in the originals

What happened to D’Orothia

The trailers made me fear that might be so, R243. Thanks, I’ll take a hard pass.

Tales is getting more interest than the new season of Big Little Lies.

That Mamet creature is horrid.

R256 I think she was killed off in one of the later books? Maupin is notorious for creating plot holes then just killing people off to explain it away.

In the later books, DeDe and D'Or had gotten married.

DeDe and D'or went with their kids to Jonestown in Guyana (Jim Jones' church was in San Francisco before the move). DeDe and the kids got away. D'or didn't.

This was a profound disappointment. So badly written. Mouse’s boyfriend was such an asshole.

Stop lying, R258. Big Little Lies is getting a huge amount of attention. I’m not seeing anything about this on social media, leading me to believe that many agree with my previous post.

[quote]Mouse’s boyfriend was such an asshole.

Um, what? Mouse - a 54-year old guy - got fucked mere hours after breaking up with Ben. So much for love. It was one of the most pathetic displays I've ever seen.

Ben is OCD and I disagreed with his decision not to let Mouse move in with him, but Mouse is just completely immature for his age.

I enjoyed Molly Ringwald as crazy’s mama. It was fun seeing her.

I liked it at the beginning, but it turned out to be a big, sloppy mess.

The plot with the documentary girl villain was straight out of Dynasty.

And the parade of stereotypes who protested to stop the demolition was laughable.

The whole thing was twee and rang false. All the dialogue and plot twists were so fake.

And all the younger characters were, clearly, written with stupid condescension by old people.

I ended it feeling as if it was strenuously insulting my intelligence.

[quote] DeDe and D'or went with their kids to Jonestown in Guyana (Jim Jones' church was in San Francisco before the move). DeDe and the kids got away. D'or didn't.

No, they both made it back and I'm not sure they ever even broke up in the book series, but the new TV series is a pretty big departure from the books.

I enjoyed the show, especially the flashback episode (ep. 8) and and the main actors in that episode: Daniela Vega, Jen Richards, and Luke Kirby. Barbara Garrick as Dee Dee was also a standout. I also liked Brian's gal pal.

But the weaknesses of the show overshadow the good parts. I felt tired whenever Ellen Page showed up onscreen, like she's a human energy suck. May Hong and Garcia were awful, especially when acting opposite each other, which is most of their scenes. Mary Ann was never that ditzy and annoying in the original, and it's sad to see her character regress socially as she got older. The younger characters were written as insufferable snobs. I welcome storylines that explore generational differences, but the writers cannot write well for characters under 25.

I really don't know how to describe this show. It was a heartwarming and cozy, but it was also a complete mess. If there is a season 2, I hope they get writers that can write for people under 30, and I say this as a 40+ year old. I also hope they get better actors, especially if they do a pre-quel set in the 60's.

I ended up enjoying it. Starting around ep 5 it got really good. But the ending killed me. I bawled like a baby, because I love those characters so much.

R253, Matthew Risch assumed the lead in the most recent Broadway revival of Pal Joey when Christian Hoff was replaced. He was the director Joe Mantello's boyfriend for a while.

R271, He was also the "bartender" on Andy Cohen's WWHL last Monday night.

There won’t be a Season 2. Laura Linney is moving on to other stuff, like a one woman play on Broadway.

Ellen Page is an energy vampire like on What We Do In The Shadows

Tales Of The City aired in the UK when I was 18 and it was the most life affirming tv show I'd ever seen. Read all the 6 books immediately afterwards, having to stop for a day to get over Jon's death, watched the second series, waited until Torrents existed to watch the 3rd series with Sandra Oh as it never aired in the UK, and then read the 3 follow up books over the last few years or so.

Enjoyed this a lot although the ages of Mary Ann, Brian and Mouse irritated the hell out of me, especially when Ben found Mouse's letter to his 30 year old self, which going by Mouse's age would have been written in 1996ish, the era of the Spice Girls, Celine Dion and Backstreet Boys. And Michael Tolliver Lives confirmed Mouse was Maupin, it was off seeing Mouse as this super hot muscle daddy when the original characters should all be in their early 70s. As others have said the dinner party scene was electrifying..

I couldn't remember everything from the books but assumed the twins were DeDe's and remembered the trans guy from MIchael Tolliver Lives. The relationship between him and Margot was initially good and I loved the delivery of the line "I know I'm not allowed to, but I miss her", It was flat but really emphasised a point I've not seen on tv before and was the most moving element of the 10 episodes,

Overall the kids were really irritating, the sort of narcissists who put "she/her" on their Twitter profiles to make a point. The thought of going to that queer co op bar fills be with dread.

Loved the 1960s flashback episode too - two amazing performances from the trans actresses but didn't appreciate the ageing make up in the final episode.

Over all 7/10.

I really don't wanna see modern kids in this. UGH. Everytime I see the previews I am turned off more and more. I've watched all the other series and it's all been kinda bad I guess. Love the first one. They captured it there. But after reading this thread...

I disliked all the young characters quite a lot. I found them unbearably self-involved and, as was noted, obsessed with labels. I'd be curious if anyone on this thread is in their 20s and if you feel this is an accurate portrayal of your generation.

I did not connect with May Hong as Margot. Not for the first few episodes, anyway. I think her lack of chemistry with the actor playing Jake really brought down their scenes. But as the series developed, my appreciation for Hong grew. She was really quite elegant and beautiful in her own unique way. I came to like her presence here a great deal. She may be an actor who benefits from a good director. These 10 episodes had 6 directors. That must have been maddening.

I loved the first Tales of the City but didn't see the other two. Does it make any sense for me to watch this latest one, or do I need to hunt down and watch the others first?

Not a fan of Ben, Mouses boyfriend. He's a goofy looking dude.

In the books, D'orthea is still around, spending money on weird art.

Was Paul Hopkins offered the chance to do Mouse again before Bartlett was cast?

I remember when the second "Tales" came out, Paul Hopkins and Billy Campbell did the most obnoxious interview with OUT magazine (of course) where they kept telling us over and over how straight they were and the women they've fucked.

The male twin is adorable.

The male twin is the worst thing about it.

I liked the newest season of Tales. The fucking twins were so annoying and stupid. And Shawna was a grumpy bitch the entire series. Overall I liked it but I hated at the end when Anna died that she gave the deed to Barbary Lane to that street whore Ysela instead of Mary Ann or Shawna. So stupid. There were some hot naked scenes with asses and cocks showing. So even for that it’s worth watching. Lol

It was a big mess.

I found the extended flashback the best part.

Even though it brought the whole show to a stop, the '60s were a welcome relief from the nonsense going on in the present. And the actress playing young Anna was much better than Olympia, whom I thought was awful in the role.

I’m watching but not living it. The new characters don’t have any gas.

[quote]The new characters don’t have any gas.

Antacids are always a blessing on any set.

Only halfway through it but god is it dreadful. Perhaps I would have lowered my expectations had I known beforehand that it wasn't going to be an actual adaptation of the later books but why even include the original characters when they are all so off model? Reboot Mary Ann is a rube again after all these years? The sixty something man child Michael is now a hot daddy in his forties who still managed to win a dance competition in his underwear in 1976 at age four or five? Anna, despite protestations from the script, reduced to an aphorism delivery system, an Obi Woke Kenobi wheeled out now and then to encourage Jake to feel the trans force and so far showing no signs of having any real relationship with the characters she has known for the best part of half a century. The weird nods to characters in the books like Wren - ah Brian is fucking another fat girl called Wren - and the Asian trust fund twins - these are not the Asian trust fund twins you are looking for - just add to the confusion. As for the rest, the youngsters are dreary queers down to a T - a mix of bad acting, dull writing and sheer unattractiveness. Ellen Page is egregiously energy-sucking and there is so, so much of her scowling away beetle-browed under that hat. I know Maupin has an executive producer credit on it but hopefully he just took the money and ran.

I just binge watched it and love pretty much most of it.

Usually I hate Netflix Originals doing this "very special episode" that breaks up the flow of the show, but in this case it worked perfectly.

Though I do find it really hard to believe that Anna, Ysela (bish is still alive????), and Tommy live in the same city for several decades and never ever attempted to sort things out with each other.

The younger cast grew on me later on. IMO the lack of chemistry between Jake and Margot worked since their story was about breaking up without turning it into a classic melodrama with dishes being thrown through the room and lots of crying and screaming. The twins were just bizarre and yet genius in a comic relief kind of way (they start with being two months behind in rent and then become the latest art sensation in San Francsisco and social media? WTF?). I love Mary Ann's kind words to the new generation in the final episode at the outdoor dinner.

The "Datalounge Dinner Party" was fucking intense. Any place else the eldergay would have apologized and side-eying Ben for the rest of the evening.

I am sad that they killed Anna off and turned the mystery into a cartoon with a cartoon villain at the end.

Loved the relationship drama with Mouse and Ben.

The gay wedding was hilarious. Groom and groom wearing assless chaps and a sex tent. Loved that, at the reception, you could see a master and his sub, on a leash, casually walking in the background.

Love the frontal nudity from two guest stars (NDQ!). Loved Shawna's couple that moved to NY.

It was such fun to see Olympia Dukakis, Paul Gross, Barbara Garrick, and Laura Linney play these iconic characters again.

They should have edited out the twins.

Loved the twins. Every time they appeared, something happened. Half of what happens in this sluggish adaptation is instigated by the twins. Without them, the writers would have spit up an even bigger hairball of cultural stereotype and psychobabble.

R291 is either a frau, or stupid, or both

I agree with r291 and am emphatically not a frau and definitely not stupid.

We will be the judge of that, R295.

Love - in the first episode - how Anna drops Mary Ann's present on the floor like it's total garbage and Mary Ann doesn't even notice.

R290 Everything you wrote was perfection.

Fuck. Only when I saw the year book pic I realized who Connie Bradshaw was. I have not seen the series in ages.

^^^ Speaking of that, could they really have gone to such a small school that Bradshaw and Singleton would be on the same two page spread? I would have no problem with Shawna flipping a few pages to see Maryann and it wouldn’t have broken my logical skepticism.

Love the subtle shade Dickie Hearts (Mateo) throws at Grizz from The Society (another Netflix show) doing the "bullshit" sign after he is outraged that the twins want him to teach them curse words in sign language.

{r277} I’m 30 and I thought the portrayals of the youths were decent. Yes the political correctness is over the top and largely performative but I don’t think most people of any age are that self-absorbed and pretentious. And I hope they aren’t that dismissive of what the elder gays endured in the 70’s and 80’s.

Question. I’ve never been to San Francisco. Are people that tiresome there? It looks like Williamsburg on steroids.

Oh! And although I liked Ben and Michael’s relationship, I hated what Ben said to him during their breakup at the wedding. That was harsh.

I guess I have a soft spot for my elders. Gay, straight, or whatever.

What was the deal with Plant Parenthood? Do Michael and Brian own it together? Does Brian own it and Michael works for Brian or vice versa?

I think Ben had a point that Michael was just too dependent on others (Anna, Brian, Mary-Ann, Harrison) and couldn't be independent. To be honest I was surprised that Michael and Ben's relationship worked so well with Michael being so childish and needy and Ben being so OCD and obsessed with independence.

It was interesting and addictive for the first 7 episodes, a series soap opera (though I like those): people always show up unannounced (without calling first), but I guess telephone conversations on film are dull. I think it started to fall off a cliff, starting with episode 8 (a cop still wants Anna, when he finds out she's a man?!). No way. I do like the serious heartfelt conversations between characters, comic scenes don't jell.

R302 - I've lived in SF for 25 years and the characters seemed exaggerated, but you do find plenty of tiresome people here. There are a lot of techies here and homeless people everywhere. I work for the government and most of the people I come in contact with at work are pretty run of the mill.

I don't think Olympia Dukakis is a very good actress.

I never bought that Anna was close to any of those people.

Of course, she was written really poorly, which didn't help.

How is Ricky A. Schroeder aka Jerry Mitchell’s kept grandson in the role of Rory? Is his red hair entrancing?

I know he was in it R308 but I honestly can't remember anything about him or his character.

R308 the only ginger I recall was the tall Grindr trick Michael and Ben phase come over to their place, where he dropped trou, showed peen, and ran away screaming when he thought Mary Ann was a drag queen.

Also had sex with Michael at the wedding

Throwback to last August

R302, San Francisco is a world apart. And while not everyone in San Francisco is depicted in these 10 episodes, everyone who is depicted can be found in San Francisco.

It is the most self-absorbed and self-congratulatory place I have ever lived. I don't live there any longer. But for those who love it, they reeeeeally love it. As a friend there told me, "San Francisco is a city utterly lacking in irony." All the craziness you hear there... they mean it.

I think most of us have become too cynical to really appreciate things unironically.

[quote] Are there parts of Michael that have stayed the same?

[quote] He’s still a boy at heart. He’s got a boyish spirit, and I don’t think that will ever change. And it could have. He could’ve become cynical or been crushed by all the death that was happening around him during the AIDS crisis. And feeling like that was going to be his fate as well.

R302 A lot depends on what you do for work and who you hang out with. I work in a public school, so the people I know are mostly teachers, school admins, social workers, and people who work for non profits, city government, etc. I don't know a whole lot of techies, believe it or not. The people I know are cool people. Of course you can find annoying people here, but you can find them anywhere. I've lived here for 13 years and am happy. I'm happy enough that I have no plans to leave.

I loved episode 8, which was really pretty terrific. Great acting in that episode.

Otherwise I found the series pretty meh. Out of the main set of characters Ben was the only one I liked. And I’m a big fan of the books and the previous series.

(I read the first six books and saw the PBS and Showtime presentations. I haven't read the latter books).

I loved the Netflix series. It wasn't perfect but I really enjoyed the Brian/Maryanne/Michael relationships. I liked Margo and Jake and while I hated the twins, they didn't ruin it for me. Ellen Page was fine. The Zosia Mamet character and storyline were dumb but I really liked the flashback episode.

It was nice to see a 50something gay man character who doesn't have his life in order. Most elder gays onscreen are either rich or on skid row so Michael's situation and storyline was interesting to me. I'm sure that there are lots of Michaels out there yet we so rarely if ever see them on TV or in movies.

It's interesting that Murray Bartlett's Michael was basically Dom, ten years on.

[quote]Matthew Risch is 37 years old.

And I found this fact very distracting. I just finished episode 4 with the fabulous Datalounge dinner party scene, but what really distracted me is that Harrison is presented as being a contemporary of Mouse and others in the dinner party.

Lots of emphasis was placed on how Harrison thinks Ben is "so young!", and Mouse even jokes about his "young new boyfriend and his old ex-boyfriend".

Is the audience supposed to be blind? Risch who plays Harrison is in his thirties and is closer in age to Charlie Barnett at 31 than Murray Barlett at 48 (whose character is supposed to be 54).

At the dinner party he hosted, Harrison is obviously way young than all the guests, but it seems like we were supposed to pretend he isn't. I guess they just really wanted a hunk for the role, and then just pretend he is older than he is. I guess Hollywood used to do that with women, cause these mom characters were the actress is absurdly young for the role.

I thought Harrison looked like Michael's age - good casting.

[quote]I thought Harrison looked like Michael's age

Gee, you know how to make a guy feel good.

Don't back down so easily, R320. The producers of this series made a lot of horrible choices regarding age, much of which has been detailed above. Murray Bartlett has a lot of grey hair. Matthew Risch has none. If I wanted an audience to accept them as contemporaries in age, I would probably go out of my way to make that suggestion. If it pertained to a significant plot point, as it is in Tales, I would make sure of it.

Maybe the two actors look the same age, and maybe they don't. But given the relationship of the three characters, and the importance of the age difference in Michael and Ben's relationship, there should not be any ambiguity on the characters' ages.

I know.

I thought most of these characters moved to SF as adults in the 1970s.

Should they ALL be very old now?

Risch's Harrison looks like a daddy. Bearded guys are either Daddies or Hipsters. How many guys with a heavy beard are considered twinks or jocks?

Lumberjocks...

EWWWWW that cuntless rapist Jen Richards is shitting this up? Hard Pass, he is fucking foul

Laura Linney is 55, so I can accept retconing Mary Anne and Mouse as being mid 50s instead of mid 60s. It's an obvious retcon, but I'll go with it.

But don't cast a 37 year old as someone who lived through the AIDS crisis.

[quote] Laura Linney is 55, so I can accept retconing Mary Anne and Mouse as being mid 50s instead of mid 60s.

How old was Ben's character supposed to be, late 20s / early 30s? Which would make him roughly half Michael's age. And then Ben accusing him not to be an independent and mature adult? Yikes!

Their ages were stated as 54 and 28, so yes Ben was supposed to be almost half his age.

And Michael isn't mature adult, that's part of character. Never left Barnaby Lane, never wanted to "grow up".

I can't judge Michael for never wanting to leave Barbary Lane. With San Francisco rents as they are now, his rent must have been soooo below market rate, I can't even imagine. A lot of adults in SF, with regular non-techie jobs, planned on continue renting forever, as buying a place was cost prohibitive. Now we all know what a huge mistake that was, but nobody foresaw how massively rents would increase in such a short amount of time. Michael staying at Barbary Lane so long was probably a good economic decision while it lasted. I think it's good that they have a character like Michael, because so many people are facing this problem.

In the books he moved out in Book 3 0r 4, he had been out of there for decades

It was a nice moment when Michael was touring and realized that now he could afford nothing halfway reasonable in San Francisco. That definitely captures the modern bay area.

LOVE that moment where Michael realizes that the rent is for the bathtub only.

They say that Michael first came to Barbary Lane after responding to Anna's ad, but wasn't he originally just crashing with Mona. I forget now.

So the dick count was two, correct?

There were some genuine laughs in this which I didn't expect.

Where?

Loved this.

What? The show? This thread? R337's reply?

The whole thing was so stuck in the 70s gay ghetto -- only with tons of trans people.

That parade of gay stereotypes on parade marching to Barbary Lane smelled of mothballs.

It reeked of a time gone by -- and not in a nostalgic way, but in an out-of-touch way.

[quote] It reeked of a time gone by -- and not in a nostalgic way, but in an out-of-touch way.

Such a shame that your remote was apparently so out of touch that you had to go through the entire show until the bitter end and these stereotypes stink up your place. The true tragedy is that you can't open the windows to get that stank out since the windows are out of touch, too!

[quote] But don't cast a 37 year old as someone who lived through the AIDS crisis.

Murray is 48, but yeah, Michael needs to be at least late 50s for the timeline to work. Murray may not be all that far away but he reads younger on screen, for sure.

Hi, Armistead at R341!

Where were the laughs?

[quote]The nonsense about the legitimacy of the money was poorly thought through. The flashback episode specifically included a shot of the cop taking protection money from the barkeep. The protection money that Tommy had stowed away undoubtedly came from a lot of sources in San Francisco's demimonde. If the money was to be returned to its rightful owner, a lot of interested parties would end up owning a small percentage of Barbary Lane.

Yes, the twist about where the money came from to buy Barbary Lane was pretty weak to me. It was supposed to be some big scandal that was a lifelong secret, but I just shrugged, okay, it came from protection money that got paid to cops.

Also, even if you buy a property you have to honor the rights of the tenants that live there! Barbary Lane immediately getting demolished was impossible.

Still I really enjoyed this show. I was surprised how good Ellen Page was, a night and day difference from Umbrella Academy where I thought she was a weak link.

And this show is so damn gay and just a celebration of queer culture, can't deny it puts a smile on my face and that I hope Netflix renews it for another one.

The show would have been great if it had aired in the 1980s, but it just seemed stale and out of touch, even with all the trans pandering.

I liked the showrunner's interview on the KeepIt podcast this week. She seems like a good cookie. Some of the questions were exactly what I wanted to ask myself, e.g. how to write dialogue for gay characters without it coming across like you're educating the straight people by dumbing it down for them.

And she said Barnett and Bartlett gave their own input for their sex scenes, stemming from their real-life experience. So that was kinda hot to hear.

Better than I thought. And better than the last two series. It was mentioned upthread about how it sometimes looked like CGI/green screen and it was. My friend worked on the show. It was mostly filmed in the Bronx in a studio. The set was real but everything outside at barbary lane was CGI. The sky was CGI and sometimes the people like Laura Linney and stuff were in front of a green screen for close ups with the extras already filmed dancing so it was imposed in the back. Other outside scenes were CGI too. All indoor stuff and the exterior of Barbary Lane were a set on the lot. I can't believe how cheap the movies and TV have become.

Who sang the godawful version of Landslide in the final episode?

II liked the version of Landslide. But then again I like Antony's voice.

This really sucked. It lacked the charm and whimsey of the original. Plus the timeline was fucked up and it bothered me.

Plus, not enough penises. God. Netflix, let them hang!

R350 I’m the person who earlier in the thread pointed out how horrible this cover sounded, like nails on a blackboard. I waited through the credits to see who this was, but it wasn’t listed, so thank you for posting it here. I guess they used it because she’s a trans performer and actually now goes by another name, see wiki below.

I find the voice very affected and strained, it reminds me a bit of Billie Holiday, whose voice I never warmed up to either. Don’t know much about music, but what I’m hearing to me sounds like a voice that is forced singing falsetto in a lower register. It seems to be purposely theatrical, could this really be this person’s natural singing voice? It’s more like something done for an animated sequence character’s sound in a song.

I thought she had perhaps ruined her voice from the transitioning and hormonal changes, but her earlier male voice doesn’t sound much different. Anyways, I think this is a very much an acquired musical taste, and at least the Glee Goop/Santana version no longer remains the worst cover of this beautiful song for me. I wished they would have used the Dixie Chicks version if they couldn’t afford Fleetwood Mac.

R352, not to derail this thread, but I also love Billie Holiday. À chacun son goût, I suppose. Now back to our regularly scheduled programme bitching....

To me, Antony of Antony and the Johnsons sounds like a slightly more palatable version of Sam Smith. I wonder if the people who don't like Antony's voice also don't like Sam's voice.

I loved the series and would love it if there is another season but I'll share a quibble: Bob the Drag Queen is too young for that role. It's a shame that they couldn't find an older SF Queen to play that part and instead went with a popular RuGirl. Bob is fine, I'm not a hater, I just think there were probably better options for that role.

Love Anohni's Drone Bomb Me.

On the final episode Anohni's cover was followed by SOPHIE's It's OK To Cry.

Just finished watching all 10 episodes and I have to agree with a lot of people and say it was "meh." It was really uneven and just felt like all the charm. quirkiness, and humor that had defined the other mini-series were taken out to create a more contemporary sombre character piece and it just didn't work. To me the only real standout episode is the Anna flashback one that takes place in the 1960s. In fact that episode was so good and so well acted I actually think a prequel set in the 60s would have been a better way to go.

One of the issue was I think there was too many episodes which caused the story line to stretch out to long. I really feel like they could have written a tighter story over 6 may 7 episodes. I bet part of this had to do with the fact that Netflix rushed production on this.

I also didn't like how they left too many stories line hanging. My guess is they are leaving it open in case they do another one, but I want to know what happens to all the characters. Do they stay at Barbary Lane? So, overall it's kind of I wish the hadn't bothered.

[quote]o me, Antony of Antony and the Johnsons sounds like a slightly more palatable version of Sam Smith. I wonder if the people who don't like Antony's voice also don't like Sam's voice.

Not much of a fan of Sam Smith's voice either. I actually thought it might have been him singing. Just not a fan of that quivery, falsetto style of singing. It doesn't even seem like vibrato as much as singing in an unnatural voice and he can't hold the notes.

You call that singin'? They won't even hear him in the front row of the mezzanine.

I agree too many episodes. Mary Ann met Michael Tolliver originally at Safeway briefly, yes. BUT, that would not have been sentimental to her because of him. She didn't really meet him until he moved into Barbary lane to stay with Mona in the original series. She met him in passing and didn't even remember. She was with Connie Bradshaw. Maybe that should have been her reference considering she died and the show is about her daughter. The writing did get annoying sometimes like all shows today pushing the agenda.

Ii would have liked to have seen more nudity and fewer sex scenes.

That ain't the half of it, R360. In this series, Mary Ann waxed nostalgic about the wrong Safeway.

At the top of the second episode, she and her husband are in the cab, heading downtown on Market Street and she sees the Safeway there, the Mint in the background. She gets very excited and tells her husband that she had gone there with Connie Bradshaw and tried to pick up Jon and first met Michael.

But she met Michael and cruised Jon in the Marina Safeway on Marina Boulevard. The Market Street Safeway would not have been a good place for straight women to meet straight men. The Marina Safeway would have been.

If you know these stories, it's just a huge, stupid, unnecessary, and glaring mistake. If you're in San Francisco anyway, shooting location footage, shoot the correct goddamned location. It really took me out of the story and at that point I started looking for what else they would get wrong. I am sure I'm not the only one who saw that and reacted adversely.

[quote]To me the only real standout episode is the Anna flashback one that takes place in the 1960s.

I agree with this completely. I think it had a lot to do with the actress playing Anna in the flashbacks being much better.

But that was the only part of the show I was getting into.

The season works as some sort of "Christmas Special" where we catch up with some of the characters after the initial run of the series.

R362 haha. TOTALLY agree. And what was up with Ellen Page in that goofy hat? Did I miss something?

One of the issues I had with the show was moving it from a "period piece" and moving into the present day.

My big issue with the flashback episode is how did the uptight Donna Reed-wannabe version of Anna Madrigal transform into the Bohemian pot-smoking free spirit Anna from all the other series?

My big issue with the flashback episode is this crooked cop finds out they were duped into dating a bio-man in the 1960s, and is totally cool and supportive about it.

The whole thing felt as if it were written by a Gay Pride committee.

And anyone who has been on one of those knows this is no compliment.

This is probably why

[quote]Lauren Morelli hadn’t heard of ‘Tales of the City’ before Netflix asked her to write a new series

^^^See, that's sooo messed up. The whole thing is pro trans. Like extreme. The guy from grindr who met the trans and the trans didn't tell him beforehand that she was trans. He reached for the dick and then barely reacted and was TOTALLY cool when the trans revealed her deception. He just HAD to see the lying trans person again. Come on dude.

Sexy in the city

Anna Madrigal is a core character who is trans r371. Not shit the books/show are "pro trans". She was a trans leading character way before trans characters were "in". You seem slow.

What's the episode number in which Micah is full frontal? Too lazy to scan through the entire series.

o lordy that laura linney soooo boring, aint watchin it

Episode 7, r374. He plays an actor friend of the married couple that Ellen Page has fucked and is staying with in NYC, he comes over and fucks them that night (Ellen just goes to bed). At one point he walks naked into the kitchen to get some water, and we see his big swinging dick.

[quote]My big issue with the flashback episode is how did the uptight Donna Reed-wannabe version of Anna Madrigal transform into the Bohemian pot-smoking free spirit Anna from all the other series

Well, if you were paying attention, it shows her experimenting with, and liking, pot with the "ladies." And it also seems clear that she became a free spirit in retaliation against what happened with her fiancé, and the women she had to betray.

I loved it (I've seen all the episodes now). The ending is quite touching. And Jen Richards is a marvel as young Anna Madrigal.

R373 And you seem delusional, ignorant, AND foolish. Not everybody is ok with a trans person lying to them. Get a grip weirdo.

ellen page is another actor who screams AVOID AVOID

If you've read the books, you know that Anna Madrigal was raised in a brothel in Winnemucca, Nevada. Her mother was the madam.

I had difficulty connecting her upbringing to the prim school teacher type that this series created for young Anna to be. She seemed as if she had just stepped out of William Inge's PICNIC, and not a Nevada whorehouse.

R381 This latest series, clearly, exists in a vacuum.

worthy of only pbs the first time around....

hope this is better,

weak casting tho….

Ellen Page is the Duchess of Downbeat.

The Diva of Drear.

The Empress of Ennui

The Maharincess of Mediocrity!

The Countess of Cuntiness!

R373 Anna Madrigal is scum, his name means 'A Man And A Girl', how DARE he admit he is not a real woman and always has been, this is a betrayal of trans activists. Anna Madrigal is truscum trans and must be written out of history

Why did they keep referencing Tolliver's ugly stank face boyfriend as hot and young when he was neither. That actors face is busted and dried up. And they really had him say the line, "I'm black but I'm not THAT black." Seriously? WTF.

[quote] I'm confused about what happened with Jake and Flaco. I wish their story got more screen time

I would like to have seen more of Juan Castano (Flaco) period.

Those of us who saw his horsecock in the Public Theater's OEDIPUS EL REY know HE'S the one who should've been nude.

[bold]Lauren Morelli came out writing Orange Is the New Black. Now she’s adapting a queer classic.[/bold]

[quote]Morelli infuses Tales of the City with her own optimism and wonder around the possibility of queer kinship. She felt welcomed by the queer community after she had her own very public coming-out. When she was a writer on Orange Is the New Black, she wrote a personal essay about how writing Alex and Piper’s relationship allowed her to consider her sexuality deeply for the first time. She realized she was gay, divorced her husband at the time, and fell in love with one of the actors on the show, Samira Wiley. They got married in 2017.

she is the dyke of downers....

[quote]Barnett and Bartlett gave their own input for their sex scenes, stemming from their real-life experience.

Pics please gentlemen, from your real-life experience.

Any gratuitous gay sex scenes so far? Not really interested otherwise. 😜

r395 I swear I could see Charlie Barnett's hole in one of them.

[quote] I know Maupin has an executive producer credit on it but hopefully he just took the money and ran.

Maupin appears in the front row at the wedding. He looks like he was having fun.

R362. I caught the Safeway error right away too. Not sure what they were doing driving down upper Market in the first place if they were staying at a fancy downtown hotel and were headed to the airport.

But then San Franciscans have been chucking for decades over movies that have chase scenes where they turn a corner and end up in a completely different part of town (see: WHAT'S UP DOC?).

(At least it wasn't like that ridiculous Netflix rom-com with Randall Park ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE where Vancouver unconvincingly substitutes for San Francisco).

Bad substitutes for urban settings are always unacceptable. A few years ago, that shitty movie CAROL asked us to accept Cincinnati as a stand-in for New York City. It didn't look anything like New York City. At all. Not in any way. It made watching the film nearly impossible. Taking it seriously was absolutely impossible.

I find Ben absolutely adorable and want him frankly deep inside me!

[quote]And what was up with Ellen Page in that goofy hat? Did I miss something?

She was paying homage to PJ Soles in Carrie.

Watching the last episode now, wanted to like it but it was a mess. Only intersting episode was the flashback episode as already mentioned, but most of it very contrived, poorly written, cheap production, and most of the characters annoying.

[quote]This latest series, clearly, exists in a vacuum.

Complain to Armistead Maupin. He's the one who came up with the new plotline, and approved every word of the scripts.

Maybe he realized in retrospect how awful that whole "Mother Mucca" crap was and that it should be swept under the table. HOWEVER - it does not necessarily disconnect from the current version. When he left his Mother's dive, he got married and had a daughter (Mona). That much was a given. It actually makes sense that, in realizing he was always really a woman, he would reject the example of his own mother and go for a Donna Reed type of existence (at least initially).

Cliche, stereotype, trend....this show was not written it was a paint by number of dreadful ideas.

I watching the original on Netflix and it's a bit of a mess too. The acting is uf and the script is cringy at points. The actress playing Mona is dreadful.

I think we have to face the fact that the books have sentimental value -- because they were very gay when that was fresh and unusual -- but that Maupin is not a very good writer.

He does not develop characters and writes them like soap opera gimmicks.

Just started watching the original. It’s pretty sappy too lol

This was so disappointing on so many levels. In fact, it was kind of awful (save for a few moments and the flashback episode). The original was so good, especially for the time it aired. I was 14 and it was probably the most gay-centric thing I'd ever seen on non-cable television up to that point. Another great thing about it is that because it was set in the 70s, it was able to show gay life as fun and ebullient and not saddled with a heavy specter of AIDS that most of the few gay themed films, "very special" TV episodes, and movies-of-the-week were about in the late 80s and early 90s.

There was just too much rewriting of history and incongruous timelines to make this new incarnation compatible with the modern setting. For this to have made some semblance of sense then the events of the original would've had to take place ten years later than it did (mid-80s) and that sort of obliterates the entire fulcrum of the origin story, which was San Francisco in the 1970s. This was not worth the effort given the logic it had to sacrifice.

Netflix is showing the version from the 90s. It is better written.

But what God awful production values. It looks as if it was filmed on an old webcam.

While I was perfectly happy to spend time with the actors from the original series (and only a couple of the new actors -- Charlie Barnett and DeeDee's housekeeper come to mind), this was largely a mess. Where was the charm, the joy, of the original books? I don't think I laughed more than three times at this. Apparently, the writers room was solely LGBTQ+ so the whole thing came off as a TED talk on sexuality when it should have been a screwball mystery. Agreed with everyone above that the flashback episode was a high point. The last episode was especially bad in that the mystery, such as it was, was clunkily resolved in the first few minutes, followed by a death and then it was the last hour of The Return of the King as we say goodbye to all the hobbits, dwarves and elves. (And Michael, Brian and Maryanne should have inherited Barbary Lane with the proviso that Ysela got an apartment there rent-free for the rest of her life.)

I live in San Francisco and know this wasn't a documentary and that it's cheaper and easier to film on a set, but so much what was supposedly San Francisco was just wrong. Every time the characters would go out on the roof at Barbary Lane there would only be the merest suggestion of a breeze instead of a roaring, foggy gale. (The memorial scene with those floating candle kite things especially made me laugh. They would have blown back into the building and set it on fire.) The leather wedding in no way whatsoever looked like the Russian River; it was clearly filmed on the Hudson. I don't know where DeeDee and Claire's houses were, but they weren't in the Bay Area. I could go on, but I won't. And I hope Netflix doesn't go on with another series. Thanks for trying, though.

R409 I hated it, too. Completely devoid of the charm of the original TV show AND the books. It was just terrible soap opera. And, why set it NOW? The original show was set in 1976 with Mary Anne and Mouse being like 25 then. If it's supposed to be 2018/19 the characters would be 68ish which doesn't work because Laura Linney is a cute 55 and Murray Bartlett is a hot 48. Why not just have set the show in 2005 or so? They could have got away with that.

Oh, and the music was shitty. To go with the awful writing and direction.

What a disappointment. I love the books and the first series.

The original Tales of the City wasn't that much of a masterpiece either. It was just one of the very, very few early gay themed entertainment drama shows.

R411 Well, I'm gonna disagree with you. While the two sequel series were rather cheap and Canadian looking, the original "Tales" was very well written, directed and produced. They got the tone right...a bit campy and over the top but with a wink to it all largely aided by the clever use of the Hitchcock references to give the mystery a bit of depth and heft.

And, that terrific theme song.

I don't have any deep emotional connection to the books or the earlier series. I watched the first one but didn't think it was interesting enough to continue beyond that and the books got tiresome pretty quickly beyond the first couple. That being said, I just watched the 2019 series and enjoyed it. Sure, some things were irritating, like buzz-kill Ellen Page and her ever-present cap, anything to do with Zoysia Mamet, and the worthless twins storyline. But I enjoyed Murray Bartlett and his sex scenes, Brian with his platinum hair, Anna's origin story and Luke Kirby as the cute cop.

Loved the Datalounge dinner, especially since it was a callback to the first series, when it was Michael who was basically shamed by the snobby elitists. That gay wedding was awful, though. Totally crass and every cliche in the book.

I don't know the fates of Billy Campbell's or Thomas Gibson's characters, but it might have been nice to have a reference to them and/or some similar younger eye candy in the new series. Ben didn't cut it for me. I was glad he and Mouse didn't end up back together.

Luke kirby was painfully cute

I almost done with this series. It's good but focuses so much on all possible types of sexuality. The original was more about camaraderie.

Murray Bartlett plays a good older Mouse but no one compares to the first. Even when Bartlett says Mouse's signature "babycakes," it doesn't come out as naturally. His scene where he explains to his bf the pain of everyone dying from HIV was heartbreaking as was his "I love you" moment.

Mrs Madrigal continues to be a model for me. The Tales of the City are a holy text. Yes, I'm a silly sentimental old queen. Accept yourself Marys!

I thought the two of them were great.

I liked Murray Bartlett much better than the one from the first series, which I just watched. The original guy was about as amateur an actor as I've ever seen and was no great shakes in the looks or body departments, either.

I just rewatched the original series and follow ups. Was it common for miniseries to not resolve storylines back then or did they know they expect to film the sequels?

I’m rewatching the miniseries

It’s kinda cringe worthy with older eyes

Did Parker Posey make an appearance in the new one?

R21, No, her character, Connie Bradshaw was killed off. Mary Ann and Brian adopted her daughter Shauna, which becomes a plot point in the new series.

[quote] almost done with this series. It's good but focuses so much on all possible types of sexuality. The original was more about camaraderie.

Appropriate for the times. True ride or die friendship seems to be a rarity these days.

[quote]No, her character, Connie Bradshaw was killed off.

So she doesn't even get to come back as a ghost while Mary Ann is practicing TM?

[quote]I don't know the fates of Billy Campbell's or Thomas Gibson's characters, but it might have been nice to have a reference to them and/or some similar younger eye candy in the new series. Ben didn't cut it for me. I was glad he and Mouse didn't end up back together.

In the books Gibson’s character dies in a drunken car crash in book 2; Campbell’s Dr Jon dies from AIDS in book 4 or 5.

I just can’t buy the Anna/Tommy story. The actor playing young Anna looks like, well, a man. Which I guess she is. But it seemed absurd that the cop didn’t know. Sorry to the actor but no amount of surgery can disguise your sex.

Fairy tales aside, Anna being trans would’ve been a dealbreaker. Tommy would not have returned. You can love someone sure, but you can’t just flip your sexuality on a dime.

I thought the actress playing young Anna was great, that was one of the most moving and well-done episodes of the series. I thought she was perfectly cast.

[quote]In the books Gibson’s character dies in a drunken car crash in book 2

IIRC, the second series shows this - shows him leaving to get in the car, drunk, and then shows the moments after the crash, with his car wrapped around a telephone pole or something. It doesn't show the body.

Nah, it was in a tunnel and no one said anything about Beauchamp being drunk. Right before the fatal accident he humiliated and cursed out Maryann. He sort of earned that fate. He was sort of an interesting character ala Rhett Butler

Loved the books and only recently saw the original series. The new series is terrible. Too earnest, too “correct” and too happy and perfect. The great thing about the books was the camaraderie (as someone mentioned upthread) and their social lives. They just went to each others’ apartments and hung out together and built a family because they were all so young, there was a huge youthquake in the 60s and 70s and SF was the place to be. It captured a really interesting time in every country.

The Asian woman and the trans man were so bad I was embarrassed for them. Every time they were onscreen it was horrifying.

I also can’t believe you fat whores don’t remember that Dede fucked the Asian grocery delivery boy when Beauchamp was off screwing around on her and she got pregnant. She raised the kids w D’or. I can’t remember if they broke up in the books but they stayed together for a long time. The books even do a salute to Michfest.

In THE country*, not every country.

Stupid phone.

[quote]I also can’t believe you fat whores don’t remember that Dede fucked the Asian grocery delivery boy when Beauchamp was off screwing around on her and she got pregnant.

We remember how racist it was.

Dede is at a party and tells her friend she's pregnant. The friend asks what color the baby will be and Dede points to a yellow painting (in the book Dede points to the woman's yellow dress.)

Yeah, it was pretty bad. R431. I remember being surprised that people from California were that racist. Of course they were old money Republicunts, so I guess it was in character.

The person playing young Anna was trans or male?

The person playing young Anna is a transwoman. So male but identifies as female.

Right, r428, it's right outside the tunnel. But the car is a mess and has crashed into something. It looks like the Broadway tunnel that goes to Chinatown and North Beach from the mid-Van Ness area. And there is a light pole right outside the real tunnel.

This new series erases just about all the goodwill created by the original series and the books.

Where to begin?

Constant gushing about the 28 Barbary Lane "family". What a bunch of emotionally-stunted adults. Their psychological dependency on Anna is downright creepy.

Everyone catering to the foul moods of bratty only-child Shawna. Does this spoiled bitch bring anything of substance to the table?

Michael losing his Southern accent? Blasphemy.

Disposable new generation characters with zero personality.

Brian's fat fuck-buddy/friend/neighbor person. Stupid character; poorly performed.

A few decent things:

I did sort of like the non-binary lesbian-ish queer feminist performance art bar co-op thing, although they didn't take the performances far enough.

DeDe was sublime in all her scenes.

Brian looks hot with gray hair.

The flashback episode with Anna in the '60s was good. Maybe they should have fleshed that out and made it the entire season. It was far more interesting than anything in the present-day story.

What is this show even about? I tried watching it with zero context from the book.

It’s unwatchable.

^ You really need to watch the previous three series. The first one is on Netflix and Acorn TV; the other two are on YouTube.

I'm watching it now and I'm loving it for nostalgic reasons, wokeness and all. It's like QAF: not Ibsen by any stretch, but soapy comfort TV.

I'm up to the leather wedding—Ben's rejection of Michael hit me unexpectedly hard and made me tear up.

One of the funniest moments for me so far: DeDe's NICE WHITE LADY (okay, BEST WHITE ALLY) sweatshirt.

Body Politic, the insufferable queer burlesque bar, reminds me a lot of Aunt Charlie's, the infamous divey drag bar in the Tenderloin.

[quote]Body Politic, the insufferable queer burlesque bar, reminds me a lot of Aunt Charlie's, the infamous divey drag bar in the Tenderloin.

That is, the space, not the performers ...

[quote]Old guys should top but this scene reminds me of QAF in its heyday.

Ageist much? That's why they flipped the stereotype for people like you.

Curses!!!! Why didn't I know about this!!!!!