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josephblowhardthefirst
Reviews
Star-Crossed (2014)
Not well thought out
In the very first episode, the plot becomes clear, fighting racism. This is of course an honorable endeavor to be sure. The problem in the following episodes is that the preponderance of needles and simplistic stereotypes overpower any good in the plot.
The idea that the government would put a group of young aliens in a school so full of xenophobia is completely unbelievable. Anyone with half a brain would know that a school and community selected to be a place to try to integrate two species would have been well vetted and prepared before throwing the two groups together.
The thing is, the over the top tension, distrust and violence portrayed in this series is so unnecessary. Exploring xenophobia is a good thing, and this series could be great, but the bad writing missed the mark. I started watching Star Crossed because I think Jesse Luken is...well...yumm! I saw him in an episode of Mom where he plays a vulnerable bad boy, and did it very well. His voice did me in. Not even the prospect of falling in love with his character, Roman, could help me look past the painfully bad writing.
Eastsiders (2012)
Ouch!
The production quality is standard and I like the short episode format. That's about the best thing I can say about this mostly unrealistic "day in the life of" 21st century gay America. The juvenile dialogue is often disjointed and shows no relation to the age of the actors/characters. Having come of age in gay Toronto and Miami Beach in the 80's and 90's, I find this portrayal of gay men in their 20's and 30's heartbreaking and irresponsible.
There seems to be a disconnect between the inferred college level education the characters portray and the poorly developed ideas that come out of their mouths. The characters are way overly contrived.
For a more reasonable and realistic portrayal of gay life in California try the 2019 version of Tales of the City. The characters here struggle with all of the same things as do the characters in Eastsiders, but the characters in Tales of the City are much more believable and relatable, even if the story line is somewhat implausible.