Tales of the City thoughts.

At the moment, I have Logo, the gay network, so I've been catching up on the Tales of the City miniseries which they've been showing recently. Am watching them out of sequence which of course doesn't matter as I've seen them all. I remember watching the first eps. at home in 1993 and getting into it and being pissed that the local PBS affiliate was so square about some of the situations. (Okay, it was a small-town in Pa, but still) My father, not surprisingly, didn't quite appreciate it. He thought it was a soap, which it is, definitely. I read the second and third one. I leant my then friend Ellen the second one and I'll probably never see it again. He has good stuff, but he does tend towards the gothic and long arm of coincidences. You know, the anchor that Mary Ann needs to keep quiet of course worked for the mother of their landlady who used to be male. But I enjoyed the first one very much with Mouse, Mona, Mary Ann, Brian and all.

When I watched the second one, it wasn't the same. They'd replaced three major roles with bad actors. Mona, played by Chloe Webb, Nancy from Sid and Nancy, Michael, played by Marcus D'amico, and Brian, played by Paul Gross of Due South fame, were all played by lesser actors. The most jarring ones were Michael and Brian as the first Michael was just so well done, sweet and even his Southern accent was charming and Paul Gross made Brian sexy, kinda sleazy, but still charming. The guy who played Michael had the cheesy seventies' moustache which I can't forgive. Supposedly, that there had been issues with some of the actors. You can read about on Maupin's website. And there was heaps more controversy than I remember. Apparently, Marcus who played Michael split due to concerns about his sexuality and Paul was caught up in Due South. I've gotten to the last one which is my least favorite anyway and the new actors are starting to improve slightly, but it's just not the same. I would've cared if the first Brian and Mary Ann marry; Brian 2.0 and Mary Ann not so much.

Apparently, I'm not alone. Was checking out imdb and this is what Seb Chen says about the sequels: "And where sweet and emotional dialogue exists, the sentiment is marred by three vastly inferior "replacement" actors. The much beloved Michael "Mouse" Tolliver is played by the excessively smirky and over-doing-the-gay-bit Paul Hopkins. His performance is unnatural and devoid of Mouse's innate, lovable charm. Nina Siemaszko's performance is brittle and uneasy, lacking any of the spunk and charisma befitting the quirky Mona Ramsey. Whip Hubley is just plain uninteresting as the (supposedly) handsome, disillusioned Brian Hawkins. I had the opportunity to go back and re-watch the first series and was surprised to discover just how naturally and unaffectedly Marcus D'Amico, Chloe Webb, and Paul Gross inhabited Mouse, Mona and Brian. I had been unaware of just how good they were since I merely considered them as being the characters.

So, have checked out the last ones of Maupin's series to finish them off. I figure they're mostly fun, good bedtime reads. I picture as the main characters the people who did them on the first miniseries, because I saw them before I read them. And Michael is definitely one of my fav. characcters, though I love Mona as well. Maupin still has the "long arm of coincidence" tendency sort of like Short Cuts or Playing by Heart where he finds connections between the characters. Some work better than others, in my opinion.