Gale Harold's Brian took me totally by surprise. But how wonderful to have a show all about gay people where nobody gets killed for being gay, or commits suicide or is in some sort of depression or any other negative situations that have been such a feature of films showing gay characters as life's losers. Sure everyone always seems to be showing up at the big gay club with its go-go dancers and steamy back room. The relationships work beautifully and you see a fairly representative slice of gay life on this series. Their insular gay world in Pittsburgh was refreshing. I found I cared deeply about these characters. But once the first season was half over, I was hooked. QAF started for me as a superficial soap about gay life. My normal reaction is that if a series is good in its original British guise, the Americanization will be awful.
I'm no prude, and thank goodness I've stopped squirming. As an older man (55), I'm amazed at the level of graphic nudity, the frankness of the sexual couplings whether gay or lesbian sex is involved, and it struck me as astonishing that the reason I would sometimes be uncomfortable viewing these scenes, is that there are virtually no images for gay people on TV that are comparable to those in QAF.
