I lost interest in reading the Maupin books after just two which I found to be too pat & episodic for my taste. The unsatisfying plots of the followup series are a better indicator of the books helium-light melodrama, so it's a miracle that such a memorable show was generated from them. This is much more enjoyable and intelligent than most TV series. I think what really clicked for me was the characters earnest efforts to find surrogate families... and Mouse.
Marcus D'Amico as Mouse is just achingly sweet. Even though he disappears for a good portion in the middle, his storyline practically carries the show. To make that point, just try to watch the followup series with it's poor replacement of D'Amico with an actor who had none of his natural charm. Zero points there. D'Amico just melts your heart, not in lust (although he's definitely attractive), but in warmth and connection to the audience. I missed Mouse the second the show ended. I loved Chloe Webb as Mona.
I haven't been able to shake Lynney as the square, Midwestern Mary Ann since seeing this. It doesn't matter what she's in; there's Mary Ann smack in the middle of The Truman Show or The Mothman Prophecies, etc.. Maybe she doesn't have much range and keeps getting typecast.
Strangest of all, is that when you learn the big surprise at the end, you realize that you can actually kind of see a man in Olympia Dukakis' features. That was some lucky casting.
At the close of this, the first series, I was grateful to have been vividly reminded of the fun of the 70s, but equally sad to have to say goodbye to it and return to the nineties, which previously I had been so content with. It really makes the two decades we were given afterward look like the short-changed, calculated mess they were. A side-effort to quote Hitchcock visually is handled adequately.
I could do without placing pedophilia in a plot next to gay characters so that the gay characters can, by comparison, be normal. Hasn't Maupin learned that this device is questionable and warped, from observing how narrow-minded straight people (the insecure ones) normalize themselves via comparison to gay people? It reminds me of the pecking order in Shakes the Clown, where the rodeo clowns hate the circus clowns, but everybody hates the mimes.
Marcus D'Amico as Mouse is just achingly sweet. Even though he disappears for a good portion in the middle, his storyline practically carries the show. To make that point, just try to watch the followup series with it's poor replacement of D'Amico with an actor who had none of his natural charm. Zero points there. D'Amico just melts your heart, not in lust (although he's definitely attractive), but in warmth and connection to the audience. I missed Mouse the second the show ended. I loved Chloe Webb as Mona.
I haven't been able to shake Lynney as the square, Midwestern Mary Ann since seeing this. It doesn't matter what she's in; there's Mary Ann smack in the middle of The Truman Show or The Mothman Prophecies, etc.. Maybe she doesn't have much range and keeps getting typecast.
Strangest of all, is that when you learn the big surprise at the end, you realize that you can actually kind of see a man in Olympia Dukakis' features. That was some lucky casting.
At the close of this, the first series, I was grateful to have been vividly reminded of the fun of the 70s, but equally sad to have to say goodbye to it and return to the nineties, which previously I had been so content with. It really makes the two decades we were given afterward look like the short-changed, calculated mess they were. A side-effort to quote Hitchcock visually is handled adequately.
I could do without placing pedophilia in a plot next to gay characters so that the gay characters can, by comparison, be normal. Hasn't Maupin learned that this device is questionable and warped, from observing how narrow-minded straight people (the insecure ones) normalize themselves via comparison to gay people? It reminds me of the pecking order in Shakes the Clown, where the rodeo clowns hate the circus clowns, but everybody hates the mimes.