Queer as Folk is an American and Canadian television series co-production, produced by Showtime and Temple Street Productions which was based on the British series of the same name created by Russell T. Davies. This North American version of Queer as Folk used various Canadian directors known for their independent film work (including Bruce McDonald, David Wellington, Kelly Makin, John Greyson, Jeremy Podeswa and Michael DeCarlo) as well as famed Australian director Russell Mulcahy (Highlander) who directed the pilot episode. The head writers were Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman who were also the executive producers of the series along with former Warner Bros. Television president Tony Jonas. Other writers in the later seasons included Michael MacLennan, Efrem Seeger, Brad Fraser, Del Shores, and Shawn Postoff.
Show premise
The series follows the lives of five gay men living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Brian, Justin, Michael, Emmett, Ted; a lesbian couple, Lindsay and Melanie; and Michael's mother Debbie. Another main character, Ben, was added in the second season. Due to tax incentives, the series was filmed in Canada, with frequent location filming in Toronto's Church and Wellesley gay village.
The show was noted for its somewhat frank depiction of gay life, as well as its vivid sex scenes. A disclaimer, "Queer as Folk is a celebration of the lives and passions of a group of gay friends. It is not meant to reflect all of gay society" appeared after each episode on Showtime in the U.S. but this disclaimer was not broadcast on Showcase in Canada (instead, the standard Showcase disclaimer "This program contains nudity, sexuality and coarse language — viewer discretion is advised" was broadcast before each airing and after each commercial).
The title appears to make two references. The show comes from a well-known dialect expression from some parts of Northern England, "there's nought [colloquially pronounced 'nowt'] so queer as folk", meaning "there's nothing as weird as people". (The original series was set in Manchester, in North-West England.) It is also a variation on "Queer as Fuck", which Channel 4 had originally called it, before changing it to its more polite form.[1]
Show history
The show drew strong ratings for both Showtime and Canada's Showcase. In fact, in Canada, the series had such high ratings that by the end of the 5th season so many sponsors had purchased advertising time that Showcase had to air the show in an hour and ten minute time block to accommodate all the ads and not cut out any scenes. This was not a problem for Showtime, since that service is commercial free and no ads were ever broadcast during a QAF telecast.
The series ran for five seasons (2000 to 2005 on Showtime and 2001 to 2005 on Showcase). It was believed by fans that the show could have run for another year (most of the cast originally had six year contracts but according to one rumor the contracts were renegotiated to five years after the first season).
However, Showtime was concerned about the rising production costs due to the strength of the Canadian Dollar. Some of the cast, however, felt that Showtime didn't want to be known as a "gay only" network so they cancelled the show. Publicly, at least, Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman both stated that they didn't feel there were really any further stories that they could tell. Randy Harrison (Justin) was reported as saying that had the series gone into a sixth season, he would not have been part of it.
Canada's Showcase, which was making a great deal of money from the advertising demand, did briefly consider producing a sixth season, but as Showtime owned much of the rights to the series and funded much of the budget, Showcase decided against it.
Another U.S. cable channel owned by Viacom, Logo, began broadcasting edited, commercially sponsored episodes of QAF on 21 September 2006.
As of January 9 2008, Showcase began offering the Canadian version of the Queer as Folk episodes on their website. These Canadian versions differ from the Showtime and DVD versions in that they have breaks within the episodes (where commercials would have been inserted) and make references to "Showcase" and "Temple Street Productions presents" instead of "Showtime presents". Extra special is that, unlike the Season 1 DVDs, episodes 101 and 102 are presented separately and episode 102 is the rare extended version of the episode, created for broadcast during reruns of the first season and not seen since 2002. The first seven episodes were posted on January 9 and one additional episode will be posted each week until all 56 episodes from Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are online by December 15 2008.
Plot
The first episode finds the four friends ending a night at Babylon, a popular gay club. Brian picks up and has sex with Justin, who falls in love with him and eventually becomes more than a one-night-stand. Brian also becomes a father that night, bearing a son with Lindsay through artificial insemination.
Michael's seemingly unrequited love for Brian fuels the story, which he occasionally narrates in voice-over. Justin's coming out and budding relationship with Brian has unexpected effects on Brian and Michael's lives. Justin confides in his straight high-school friend Daphne, while struggling to deal with homophobic classmates and his dismayed, divorcing parents, Craig and Jennifer. Later in the second season Justin and Michael co-create the sexually explicit underground comic "Rage", featuring a "Gay Crusader" superhero based on Brian.
Brian's son Gus, being raised by Lindsay and Melanie, becomes the focus of several episodes as issues of parental rights come to the fore. Ted is Melanie's accountant who once harbored a longstanding crush on Michael. He and Emmett begin as best friends, but briefly become lovers later in the series. Their relationship ends as Ted, unemployed and with a criminal record earned from running a legitimate porn website that was targeted by a Chief of Police running for Mayor, becomes addicted to crystal meth. In the fourth season, Brian, who has lost his job by assisting Justin in opposing an anti-gay political client, starts his own agency. Michael marries Ben Bruckner, an HIV-positive college professor and the couple adopts a teenage son, James "Hunter" Montgomery, who is also HIV-positive as a result of his experiences as a young hustler.
Ted's affair with a handsome crystal meth addict, Blake Wyzecki, sets the pattern for Ted's later tragic but ultimately redeeming experiences with drug addiction.
Melanie and Lindsay's relationship, while on the surface seeming more of a "stable" relationship, is actually quite tumultuous and controversial. Each cheats on the other at various points in the series; both tackle on a threesome shortly after they marry and become separated for much of the 4th and 5th seasons. Melanie is impregnated by Michael (through artificial insemination, as Lindsay was) in the third season, so that best friends Brian and Michael become co-fathers to Lindsay and Melanie's children. Melanie gives birth to a girl, Jenny Rebecca, over whom Melanie, Lindsay, and Michael have a brief legal custody battle following the women's transitory break-up. Brian's new advertising agency, Kinnetik, becomes highly successful both through a combination of Brian's customer loyalty and his edgier advertising. As a result of this, Brian is able to purchase Club Babylon from its bankrupt owner.
In the fifth and final season the boys have become men, and the series, perhaps more comfortable in its role in gay entertainment, tackles political issues head-on and with much more fervor.
A political campaign called "Proposition 14" is depicted during much of the final season as a looming threat to the main characters. This proposition, like so many real-life recent legislative moves that have affected many U.S. states, threatens to outlaw same-sex marriage, adoption and other family civil rights. The many ways in which such a proposition would affect the characters are depicted through nearly every episode. Debbie, Justin, Jennifer, Daphne, Emmett, Ted, Michael, Ben, Lindsay, Melanie and the children are depicted standing up and fighting against this proposition both by active canvassing, political contributions and other democratic processes, but are met with staunch opposition, discrimination, outright hatred and political setbacks.
The show climaxes near the end of the series when a benefit to support opposition to Proposition 14 hosted at Brian's club Babylon (after repeated relocations of the benefit, due to discrimination) is attacked by a bomb that initially kills 4, and eventually another 3 and injures 67.
This horrible event sets the bittersweet tone for the final three episodes, in which Brian, frightened by this third possible loss of Justin, finally declares his love for him. The two even plan to marry, but Justin's artistic abilities get noticed by a New York art critic and the two decide, for the time being at least, in favor of a more realistic approach to a stormy relationship that nevertheless works for their characters. Melanie and Lindsay, realizing they have more in common than they don't, resume their relationship but relocate to Canada to "raise [their children] in an environment where they will not be called names, singled out for discrimination, or ever have to fear for their life."
Emmett becomes a Queer-Eye type TV presenter but is later fired when professional football player Drew Boyd kisses him on the news. Ted confronts his midlife crisis head-on and finally reunites with Blake. Hunter returns and the Novotny-Bruckner family perseveres.
The series came full circle with the final scenes staged in the newly re-built Babylon nightclub. In the final scene, Brian dances to Heather Small's "Proud," a song that accompanied a pivotal scene between Brian and Michael in the very first episode of the series. It ends with a final narration by Michael:
"So the "thumpa thumpa" continues. It always will. No matter what happens. No matter who's president. As our lady of Disco, the divine Miss Gloria Gaynor has always sung to us: We will survive."
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