You’re correct. It’s just another clear cut case of society and the media looking for “the bad guy”. Rohypnol is a benzodiazepine, not much different than Valium, Xanax or Halcion. Ativan is more potent than Rohypnol, yet it is still widely prescribed today. I also remember a case where a kid brought a vial of GHB to a party and a girl swiped it from him and drank the whole thing. She ended up in a coma. Despite the fact GHB wasn’t controlled at the time, the kid did some hard time and the media vilified him to no end.
I LOVE him! he is totally lickable!
Wait a minute…
You arent talking about the british guy from the Full Monty are you?
Please ignore my other post. Heh heh… I am a moron
Sorry, Davis but…
Pittsburgh has a bigger club scene than New York?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
wipes tears from her eyes
Okay, now that it’s out of my system, no I don’t think da Burgh has such a big club scene. There are a few clubs, I think, like Chauncey’s, but I don’t go there. It’s impossible to get dahntahn most of the time, and parking sucks.
BTW, they should probably have the characters go and watch Three Rivers implode soon. 
sniff sniff The end of an era, I’ll tell ya.
Davis, may I be so bold as to call you that? Thank you. Brian is the slut’s name and from watching the first two shows I take it that he has little if any respect for the lesbians and the child he helped them make. So as far as your questions about him asking about the bris, I think he had more of the who gives a fuck attitude. If I cared little or nothing for you and you invited me to the lovely “shmigglepoof at my house”, I would just show up not giving a rat’s ass what it was just to shut you up and keep you out of my face. Actually I probably wouldn’t show unless a good friend of mine called and said wait…a shmiggle is an erotic dance with naked men covered in oil. That would get my attention and I would haul ass over there. My personal belief being that no man should dance erotically without me there to watch him and drool.
With Ted’s little stud boy, didn’t you catch him looking or trying to look at least a little turned on and giddy at the thought of romping in Ted’s backside? He wasn’t watching him drink and then when he did notice he stopped him which as we know it was too late by then.
About being a Nielson family member, did no one tell you that my name was MamaHen Nielson? Actually what I did was go to SHOWTIMES website and rated it highly. I still say people should watch and do what they can to see that shows of this type continue. I know I for one am on the edge of my seat waiting t see what happens to Ted and see what kind of guy this new gay doctor is going to be. He's the guy from the second Kung-Fu series so this should be interesting. He's supposed to be formerly married with a child, that should make for an intereseting dynamic.
And excuse me for going on about the show. It’s just a great show to me. It’s about time we see gays on tv as something other than just comic fodder or something thrown in to shock the audience. If my son grows up to be gay I have every intention of being a MOm just like Sharon Gless!
Well, I must admit that I know nothing, myself, about where tranny hookers hang out in Pitsburg- but in the 70’s, Hollywood was definately a gay & tranny hang-out, and there were lots of tranny hookers.
Coincidentally, a friend of mine gave me the tapes yesterday, and watched all eight hours of it straight (no pun intended) in a row. I absolutely loved it, although the accent was a bit hard to follow sometimes.
Reading these posts makes me wonder…
Brian?? Ted?? Michael?? WTF?
Pittsburgh??
Is this series just voiced-over, or is it completely remade? Hearing about the bris makes me wonder about the latter, I can’t remember seeing that yesterday. If so, I definately advise you to see the British version. The acting is not that good in the first two episodes, but gets a whole lot better after a while. The story starts to pick up after a few episodes as well.
Perhaps this also explains why some of the plots are so lame. Maybe Pittsburgh doesn’t have the gay scene as portrayed in the American version, but I believe Manchester definately has.
How about the American version of Cold Feet? Or One Foot in the Grave with Bill Fucking Cosby?
The whole point is that it’s about a grumpy old man dissatisified with life who soends his time whinging about it. Richard Wilson will never live down his role as Victor Meldrew, he played the character perfectly and wherever he goes, people will scream " I DON’T BELIEVE IT!". Bill Cosby doesn’t cut it.
Men Behaving Badly was about British Laddism - not something most Americans would have a clue about and hardly transferable.
I shudder to think what will happen if they try to do Ali G or Father Ted.
Do American producers have some problem with decent British comedy? Humour travels, Monty Python is a fine example, so don’t fucking change a programme because you think you can do it better, you just ruin it. You can’t get the casting or production right.Just buy the fucking programme and show it on your fucking network.
Incidently Manchester is the gay capital of the North( of Britain) are therefore is a more realistic setting. It might have been better to buy the British version so the holy than thou section of society can distance themselves from the thought of gays in American and watch some bloody good televsion.
Yes, Manchester has a prominent gay culture which is different than the varied debaucheries of London (not that Manchester isn’t suitably debauched, it’s just different :)), which made it a perfect setting for QAF.
As for Pittsburgh, it’s been about 10 years since I visited, but I remember it being one of the deadest towns at night I’d ever been in (and that includes several years living in Nebraska). Things have presumably moved on since then…
I’m not quite sure why both the British and Americans are so surprised when comedy series rooted in the native culture failed to thrive when transplanted overseas (and the British do it too – “Brighton Belles”, anyone (“Golden Girls”)? “Married for Life” (“Married with Children”)?).
There have been some notable exceptions – “All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son” were US versions of UK originals, but in both cases a combination of competent writers and a strong and distinctive lead character gave them lives of their own. But I digress.
jr8
“Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television’s message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth and fresher breath.”
– Dave Barry, “Kids Today: They Don’t Know Dum Diddly Do”
The recurring line during the premiere was, “And this is supposed to be… Pittsburgh?” Lavish studio apartment, hopping clubs, gay couples freely holding hands in public… that stuff doesn’t even happen in Philadelphia, for heaven’s sake. Pittsburgh? Doesn’t work for me.
Esprix
Ah - so you do see it my way! Now that I think about it, that’s at the root of several of my complaints with this show - Pittsburgh. I’ve been to Manchester, and it does make for a much more sensible location. The gay area is all in one place and it’s called “The Gay Village,” just like the Smurfs all lived in the Smurf Village. I don’t know if a similar situation exists in Pittsburgh. Does it?
No need to be sorry, chicky, that was my point. From this show, one would quite reasonably assume Pittsburgh has a much more lively club scene than New York - or San Francisco, for that matter. Or Ibiza. Having never been to Pittsburgh, I have no personal knowledge, but my guess is that they’ve taken rather broad creative liberties, the same way Joey on “Friends” has had just one paying job in six years but somehow can afford his own room in a Manhattan apartment.
In the same line of translating British works to American ones, along with the trend of every Broadway musical being based on a movie (what, you didn’t learn from Carrie?) - there’s now “The Full Monty,” where everyone is in Buffalo, NY instead of wherever-it-was in the British original. But - and I was surprised - it’s actually a really good show with original songs that you actually remember the next day. So it doesn’t always go wrong. Just usually.
One major reason to remake British shows is that the average American actually can’t understand a British person speaking, especially if that British person is Liam Gallagher. But that’s for another thread, I guess.
I totally agree with you, reason number one being Absolutely Fabulous, but there’s a few reasons that won’t always work:
- Our shows need to be something like 22 minutes in order to fit in the commercials, while BBC shows are like 30 minutes, no commercials, right? So you either have to cut a lot out or fuck up your whole schedule in order to show one.
- American morals are fairly prudish, so a lot of the British shows need to be toned down and covered up or broadcast on something like Showtime, a premium channel.
- Advertisers want the broadest appealing, least offensive show possible, so if people have accents, refer to things beyond the scope of an American viewer, or show their butts, they try to get rid of it.
MamaHen You can call me anything you want, just don’t call me late for dinner!
I’ll accept your explanation for Brian’s behavior. He is an asshole, so I guess that makes sense.
The Ted thing I still don’t get. Maybe I’m misremembering the scene. I thought it was essentially:
Ted: Want a drink?
GHBguy: No, I don’t drink.
Ted [takes beer from fridge, gives water to GHB guy]
Ted [swigs from beer while sitting next to GHBguy]
GHBguy [pulls out GHB vial, randomly slops an indeterminite amount into cup]
Ted: What’s that?
GHBguy: It’s GHB - do you want some?
Ted: Sure! [guzzles GHB, passes out]
Now, my point is that I figured GHB guy should have known that GHB and alcohol don’t mix, hence his refusal of said alcohol, but yet he doesn’t bother telling Ted that, but instead offers it to him, even though he knows Ted is drinking, via the beer Ted is currently holding.
Anyway, I’m mostly disappointed that Ted didn’t get laid when he clearly needed it. Poor little fella…
Sharon Gless is great in that show, though. Any BabyHen would be lucky to have her for a mother, MamaHen!
Suddenly I get this surreal image of little blue men running around shouting “Papa Gay! Papa Gay!”. OTOH, it would explain why they were all male…
Words and/or smilies can’t describe how this made me laugh…
Admittedly, the British version was also on commercial TV (Channel 4), but that still means about half the number of commercial breaks. But are there commercials on Showtime?
QAF was pretty severe, even for the UK, and the first episode or two seemed specifically designed for maximium shock value.
Wouldn’t that cover most Merchant-Ivory films too?
jr8
Ah, but Merchant-Ivory films aren’t marketed for a mass audience. Like PBS, they’re a sop thrown to us overeducated shabby-genteel types, in hopes that we’ll forget about being underpaid, overworked, openly insulted by politicians of both parties, and generally ignored by everybody else.
(Sigh) … pass the rose hip tea, and throw in a shot of Scotch, please – I’ll need it if I’m ever going to get these papers graded…
Actually, Pittsburgh’s not that bad, depending on your tastes. If you’re like me, a Party Hater, Terrified of Crowds and The Club Scene, you’d probably like it-LIBRARIES and museums aplenty. (A history geek’s dream).
(No offense to partiers and club people-I just HATE partying and clubs and stuff like that. I’m a true, dyed-in-the-wool geek girl.)
And if you’re into sports, then Pittsburgh is definitely for you.
But I mean, I don’t know of any big gay clubs in da Burgh. Actually, if they wanted the real Steel City, they should have had them meeting in the little Ethnic enclaves, like Bloomfield (Italian), Polish Hill, Squirrel Hill (Jewish), the North Side (Irish-German restaurants). Or eating pierogies.
And tell me-was anyone drinking Iron City?
The only drink I noticed was that Ted had Sam Adams in his refrigerator, which actually would fall in the realm of gay beer. Actually all beer is gay beer, now that I think about it. Hell, in college I drank Colt 45.
Yes, that’s one of the good points, no commercials. My boyfriend has the habit of switching through each and every one of the 118 other channels during any commercial break on any show, so just the fact that there are no commercials is a big plus for me, since I rarely get to see an entire plotline in its entirety, but rather each of the four minute segments that precede a commercial break. I didn’t particularly like “Sex and The City” at first, except for the ridiculous clothes, but since there’s nothing else on at that hour AND it has no commercials, it’s almost invetible that we watch it. Same for QAF, now that “Strangers With Candy” has been cancelled.
But riddle me this - the show on Sunday was 43 minutes long. I can’t really figure that out. Maybe they just stop when they get bored? Or maybe they’re planning on foisting it back on you guys on Channel 4 when it’s done over here.
Possibly - off the top of my head, you could never show Maurice nor A Room With A View on network television without editing out the penises and…well, the whole plot of Maurice. Okay, to bolster my arguement, I’ve gone to IMDB and found out that Slaves of New York is a Merchant-Ivory film. Who knew? But that’s R-Rated, too, so it would need to be edited. Howard’s End I haven’t seen, but it sounds like a porno - is it the sequel to Maurice? 
Just kidding!
[digression] There’s a scene in Slaves of New York where Bernadette Peters goes to a housewarming party at this ramshackle townhouse, where the door actually needs to be picked up and put into place when you want to use the bathroom, but everyone keeps saying how lucky the couple was to have been able to buy a whole townhouse. When I first saw that movie, living in Minnesota, that scene made me think, “How funny!” Now, living in New York, I think “They’re soooo lucky! Imagine living somewhere with your own staircase! What luxury!” [/digression]