As might have been expected, "Queer as Folk" got mail, and lots of it, in a first season that included sex between young gay men, and lots of it.
Unexpectedly, perhaps, it was mostly fan mail--about 100,000 messages from supporters versus a scant 100 from detractors, according to Showtime's count. That was a pleasant surprise for series creators Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman.
"We thought, 'Oh, my God, they're gonna come after us, there's gonna be real nuts out there coming after us,'" Cowen said. "It didn't happen."
The Showtime series about a circle of friends tracked their freewheeling night life and emotional ups and downs. AIDS, drug abuse and harrowing gay-bashing also figured in the plot.
The fleeting kisses and coy farce of quasi-gay shows like "Will & Grace," sanitized for broadcast TV and our protection, bear no relation to the bold style of "Queer as Folk."
The series became Showtime's highest-rated, doubling the cable channel's prime-time average audience. It was renewed for a second season, which begins Sunday.
The show, based on a hit British TV series of the same name--the U.S. version is set in Pittsburgh but filmed in Toronto--turned out to have crossover appeal.
"We knew there would be an audience among gay men for the show," said Jerry Offsay, Showtime's president of programming. "What we didn't realize is that it would have as strong a following among women as it did."
The audience was fairly evenly split between gay men and heterosexual women; Offsay and others at Showtime have kicked around theories why. (Straight men tended to take a pass on "Queer as Folk.")
"The guys are really good-looking. It's a soap, and women like soaps. It's a story about friends, and that's something that plays well with women," Offsay said. "They came, they watched, they liked it."
Cowen and Lipman, writing partners for 25 years and a couple for even longer, welcomed the expanded audience. But they didn't create or shape the series to accommodate heterosexual viewers.
Lipman recalled one magazine review that questioned the lack of a "straight guide" to the series, and the response a reader sent in: "I don't see a gay guide to 'Once and Again.'"
"We've never written the show to try to guide people into this world," Lipman said. "We've written it very specifically, and if people get things, they get it; and if they don't, they don't."
