“Bodies” - Netflix’s New Series With a Gay Storyline

Nope

Sounds good

Yes, watched the first episode, will watch the rest. It was already #2 on the Netflix Top Ten so you should get more takers here.

I follow Jacob Fortune-Lloyd on Instagram (he plays the Detective-With-Secrets in the 1941 timeline, and was the gay dreamboat in “Queen’s Gambit”) and I’m pretty sure he is gay himself. No woman in sight and he’s no stranger to drag.

I’m mad about blond George Parker (the gay guy who flirts with the gay closeted Detective-With-Secrets in the 1892 storyline.)

I binged it in two days. Incredible show. Really easy to follow. It was a smart, well-constructed sci-fi mystery that was compelling and entertaining. It also had some steamy Victorian-era man-on-man desire.

Is it me or does the closeted inspector from 1892 slightly resembles ATJ?

I watched the first five episodes last night. So far, having the detective have sex with the photographer in the 1890 timeline has no bearing on the story. It appears to be just injected into the show for the sole purpose of letting Netflix say the show has a gay connection. I was multitasking while watching it, so it’s possible I missed something.

Know that you are loved.

I’m not a big science fiction fan, but I liked this a lot. Stephen Graham (the villain) is a really great and versatile actor.

R4 “Really easy to follow.”

Thank heavens!

I like intricate time travel stories, and considering this has four different time periods going at once, it’s intricate. I don’t understand though how Mannix was able to create a cult so easily. Also, I think as soon as there is the slightest deviation in history, everything after would change immediately.

Even given that I failed Physics, the concept of time travel makes no sense whatever, and it makes even less sense here, though episode by episode, I enjoyed this series (and it’s #1 in the U.S. on Netflix).

Spoilers ahead — the provocative naked body found in four time zones and made much of in all of them turns out to be a tall red herring — the thankless character (played by Tom Mothersdale) turns out to be completely unimportant, though we see much of him, usually naked.

Far more inportant is Michael Jibson as detective Jack Barber in the 2023 time zone story. We see a lot of him and he seems like a standup guy but isn’t. But when Elias/The Commander chooses to go back in time, why bother to go back as far as 1890 to insinuate himself into a wealthy family? Why not just go back far enough to keep his mother off drugs and his parents together so he can have a relationship with Detective Barber? The entire scheme is over-elaborate.

The central premise here is the same one as in “Citizen Kane” — if a child grows up unseen and unloved they will have an emptiness that can never be filled. And if that empty person amasses wealth and power — look out, you have a tyrannical meglomaniac on your hands with possibly ruinous global results. As a cautionary tale about the Donald Trumps of the world, I get it.

But I thought it was a given with time travel stories that two versions of the same person can’t co-exist without the universe exploding. Here it’s a piece of cake as Amaka Okafor (at detective Shahara Hasan) embraces her own middle-aged self while Elias (Gabriel Howell) disappears completely.

Also, purely selfishly, I felt bad that detective Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller) merely cruised the real love of his life Henry Ashe (strawberry blond beef chunk George Parker) in 1890 and then went home to his wife and daughter, remaining firmly in the closet. Realistic perhaps, but disappointing. You can tell straight people wrote this.

It’s actually pretty good.

LOVING IT! Must be a gay writer or director in the mix on this one. I am positively mad for Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Kyle Soller and especially George Parker.

I believe Jacob Fortune-Lloyd is openly gay

[quote] Must be a gay writer or director in the mix on this one.

Marco Kreuzpaintner, co-executive producer and director of the first four episodes is indeed gay.

[quote]the thankless character (played by Tom Mothersdale) turns out to be completely unimportant, though we see much of him, usually naked.

Are you sure you watched the show? The whole premise and ending is dependent on him. It's Defoe's time machine and his interactions with Maplewood is what leads her to go back in time and start the chain of events that gets rid of the loop.

[quote]But when Elias/The Commander chooses to go back in time, why bother to go back as far as 1890 to insinuate himself into a wealthy family? Why not just go back far enough to keep his mother off drugs and his parents together so he can have a relationship with Detective Barber? The entire scheme is over-elaborate.

It's a chicken or egg thing. He goes back to that point in time because that's what his past self told him he needed to do to make his present time be what it is. The future Elias has no choice. He has to do exactly what his past self tells him to do or else he would cease to exist.

What kind of psychopath starts a thread like this without a link to anything?

Just finished watching it and I really enjoyed it butttttt the last scene in the taxi...I'm so confused!

I prefer to believe Kyle Soller’s gay cop starts a romance with George Parker’s character. He was smiling as he walked away.

r18, Google is your friend.

Has anyone looked for George Parker on social media? HIs name is too common.

R16: Yeah, I watched every episode. He was merely a plot device who gets dropped entirely in the last episode.

Watched E4 last night. What happened to Elias' adoptive mother who bit her tongue? Is she with the police under arrest? Why is the adoptive father roaming around menacing Hasan?

Loved the forbidden gay romance of the 1800s. Someone mentioned the ending scene in the Taxi. I am also confused by that.

This series is a dumb down version of ” Dark” and thus not nearly as good.

R6, no it has relevance to the story- didn’t occur to you that it might given the time and place ( homophobic Victorian England)- did it?

R26 similar to Dark but it has more of a detective angle.

This show makes zero sense. Why would The Commander go back in time when he has already accomplished everything he wanted?

Daft show but Kyle Soller is gorgeous. He looks so much like a very young Robert Foxworth.

[quote] This show makes zero sense. Why would The Commander go back in time when he has already accomplished everything he wanted?

He has to go back in time to do the things that are required for him to exist. If he did not go back and do that he would cease to exist and never would have existed.

[quote] He was merely a plot device who gets dropped entirely in the last episode.

Defoe was an essential character for the story. He wasn’t “dropped”. The lives of everyone in that timeline, including Defoe’s, were erased when the loop ended. It can be assumed that many people who were living at that time will be in that time again, but will have different lives in a new future timeline,

The concept is intriguing. However, it could fail on poor execution so easily.

R25 looks like Maplewood used the throat to go back in time to stop Hasan from stopping Mannix. Perhaps she really wanted to walk.

Or perhaps time is a loop that no one can change and it goes back to the professor’s speech about free will. It will always happen no matter what you change.

R29 Mannix had to go back in time because he is his own great-great-great(?)-Grandfather. In order to exist, he was required to go back to 1890 and have a son with Polly.

[quote]But I thought it was a given with time travel stories that two versions of the same person can’t co-exist without the universe exploding.

The issue that writers of time travel sci-fi have to deal with is what to do about the expectation that a person meeting their former self would inevitably give in to the desire to have sex with themselves. It's easier then just to keep people from meeting their former selves.

R7 Know You Are Loved (KYAL)

Seeing it typed like that R36 explained the skyscraper in the final scene.

It had Doctor Who/Torchwood vibes throughout, and I kept thinking about the episode where the Victorian lesbian couple dug up Captain Jack. It was adapted by Paul Tomalin who wrote Torchwood's They Keep Killing Suzie.

Jacob Fortune Lloyd, a hot Jew playing a hot Jew, was stand out and Kyle Soller also V good - I've only seen him in Andor and he has amazing eyes. He didn't seem old enough to be the father of Polly but still very good. And Amaka Okafor brilliant too. 3 police detectives ticking the diversity box.

George Parker as the peroxide homosexual was very familiar but I've not seen him in anything.

Stephen Graham was a bit miscast as he's not a charismatic actor and the ageing make up was pure Lucky Bitches.

[quote] He didn't seem old enough to be the father of Polly but still very good.

It seemed to me that their daughter should be a young girl, considering how young the parents look. Then I figured back then the parents were probably 18 or 19 when Polly was born, so we’re now in late 30s or early 40s.

R38 Hillingheand is 40. There is a scene when Hasan is going through the archives that quickly shows the warrant for his arrest and lists his age as 40. Polly is likely early 20s.

What's become of Greta Scacchi???

Greta Scacchi is a naturally beautiful 63 year old woman.

Greta Scacchi is a naturally beautiful 63 year old woman who was briefly Sean Penn's mother in law.

[quote]What's become of Greta Scacchi???

She let herself become old, fat and unattractive.

Just finished E5 and I think I may have seen enough of this nonsense.

I'd love to see a couple of series just based on the 1890 or 1941 detectives, however.

I have seen three episodes and I feel like each time zone is dragging. There are hints in each time zone that furthers each story a little bit but not a whole lot. I'm all about character driven stories, and the show delivers on that. But so far the four stories advance too slowly and are too disjointed for my taste. The only two things keeping me still in are hot jewish cop and hot ginger cop.

I enjoyed the first couple of episodes, but then it was a lot of diminishing returns. I'm no fan of science fiction, so time travel and time loops either make my head hurt (why does Mannix have to keep going back in time when he's already accomplished his goals?) or I can poke holes in them (what if Victorian-era Mannix is accidentally trampled and killed by a runaway horse, ergo end of story?). But I did enjoy many of the actors and the production values, so there's that.

There were bits I didn't understand.

Like Mannix went back in time to have a kid with Gay Copper's daughter who grew up to be Greta Scacchi, and Greta had a ginger son who was a police officer during the blitz and I guess he had a kid who fathered the detective who worked with the Shaheera who was Mannix's dad.

Firstly isn't that incest?

I wonder if the chest tattoo on the gay journalist in 1890 is actually the actors own real tattoo or if it was added on for the character.

Wondered the same, r48, and notice his tattoo has never been featured in closeup.

I thought maybe it was a character choice to make the wrist tattoo on Defoe seem less out of place for the time period.

I struggled through about 6 episodes last night because of this thread and I'm not going to bother with the rest. I found it difficult to follow some of it. It's not light fare. You really have to pay attention to understand the time travel and how the characters come and go into the overall story. Too many holes in the script.

R51 just outed himself as a retard.

So far, I am loving this show.

Just finished episode 6, r51. What are these "holes in the script" you discovered?

I mean, it’s hard to follow if you’re exhausted and just have it on as background filler.

Then don't watch it when you’re exhausted and just have it on as background filler.

Seriously fuck all of you starting at R52. Like I'm now going to tell you dbags what's wrong with the script?

You brought it up, fucko.

R51, you’re allowed to retract your statements.

Just finished it. Really enjoyed it. The cab ride was threw me for a bit, but I guess visits from the future can apparently change the past.

I'm halfway through and surprised to be enjoying it, because I usually hate sci-fi stuff, but this one is more like a Twilight Zone-ish story.

"The love that dare not speak its name" was certainly shouting in Victorian London, wasn't it?

More plot holes than "throats" between times. But some good male eye candy.

If you keep in mind it's based on a comic book, it's good viewing in that context.

The worst part was the 4 episodes spend on most of the cult being so RIDICULOUSLY cagey when asked questions. And the good characters more or less accepting such non answers.

I finally finished all episodes. If there were plot holes, I didn't care. Not that the plot was irrelevant, but it was mostly a character driven show which always works for me.

What I found amusing or astonishing was how little time was spent on explaining how the cult was created. In terms of the movement, nothing major happened for 133 years. Then the 16 year old triggers a big event, and only then within 30 years the world changed. Before 2023, the movement really just seemed to be a small family business. I'm also surprised that they didn't show more about how the cult developed after 2023. Although - I'm glad they didn't focus on that.

Spoilers.

The world did not change. Just the UK changed. It was just the one bomb and not even a million deaths.

So, like the post above, I'm confused about the ending. Why was Iris driving the cab? Was she able to get back from the past, so she knew who Hasan was? Was that 2023 or 2053?

Thanks for the recommendation.

[quote]So, like the post above, I'm confused about the ending. Why was Iris driving the cab? Was she able to get back from the past, so she knew who Hasan was? Was that 2023 or 2053?

Everyone else got their "happy" ending except for her because something so bad happens in the future NOW that she had to come back to 2023 and find Hasan.

It was meant to be a link to Season 2 if it happens.

In the final scene in the cab Sharara asks Iris to turn up the volume on the radio and there's a close up of Iris's wrist - no tattoo.

And when Iris makes clear she knows Sharara the taxi turns the corner and you can see London City in the background - on the skyscraper next to the Gherkin you see KYAL flash up - Know You Are Loved.

So Sharara's future is not Mannix free.

I enjoyed it but I liked Dark, the German time travel series, more.

The actress who played Hasan was really gorgeous -- even with her head covered.

I just started this. Liking it so far.

[quote] Greta Scacchi is a naturally beautiful 63 year old woman who was briefly Sean Penn's mother in law.

OMG!!!! I didn't recognize her at all. She is younger than Sharon Stone. What happened?!

Some Youtube channel created an Alfred & Henry music video.

I'm liking the 1890s part the most so far