Tales of the City Review by Brooke Daugherty
June 23, 2019 9:49 am |
Disclaimer: I have not read or seen any of Armistead Maupin’s previous material about these characters. That being said, you don’t need any of the back story. The series provides plenty of exposition both overtly and covertly. Being Pride Month, I was excited to cover any and all queer content I could get my hands on. I was excited to find out the entire writing team was made up entirely of LGBTQ staff, not to mention the cast list. Laura Linney, Ellen Page, and Olympia Dukakis have 4 Emmys, 3 Golden Globes, 1 Oscar, 1 SAG Award, and a slew of other smaller awards between them. When I looked at the rest of the cast, I saw familiar names such as Michelle Bateau, John Glover, Victor Garber, and Molly Ringwald. I was ON BOARD. Not to mention Paul Gross who I had a major crush on from Due South has now become a silver fox.
Tales centers on a woman returning to a San Francisco apartment complex filled with LGBTQ residents and other social misfits for the 90th birthday of her former landlady. The original miniseries focus on Mary Ann played by Linney moving into an apartment building, 28 Barbary Lane, owned and run by enchanting Anna Madrigal (Dukakis). Mary Ann marries Paul Gross’ character Brian Hawkins and they adopt a daughter. All three actors returned to portray their original characters for Netflix. Mary Ann returns to Barbary Lane, 23 years after leaving to pursue her career, for Anna’s aforementioned birthday. This brings her back into the lives of her ex-husband Brian and their daughter Shawna (Page) causing initial tension in the series. When Mary Ann Singleton decides to stay in San Francisco instead of returning to her failing marriage in Connecticut, she encounters more than she bargained for.
I liked most of the characters in this series, but none were perfect. I realized the only memorable parts I’ve seen of Laura Linney, are essentially the same. Linney went to Julliard, making her much more qualified for parts than me, but I feel a lot of their graduates have aristocratic flair of Shakespearian theater, even on film. It doesn’t always translate well for any sized screen. Shawna is pansexual, but the only time this is shown, she is having a threesome. One of the other two mentions “it’s not all about sex” two minutes before having another threesome with someone else. Speaking of threesomes, the couple Shawna engages in relationships with are in a polyamorous relationship, but they don’t seem to be in serious relationships with anyone else. Otherwise, they are just a couple inviting various thirds for fun and that doesn’t tell the whole story of polyamory. I do appreciate more diverse characters as the original cast was very caucasion and cisgender. Although, two primary characters of the whole series are straight white people.
I thought with the writing staff, the characters would be people first with their genders and sexualities just a part of them. I was a bit disappointed to see some were stereotypes. I was pleasantly surprised to see Daniela Vega from A Fantastic Woman and Jen Richards from Nashville playing the trans woman parts as well as Garcia, who is trans non-binary, playing a recently transitioned trans man. This was a much improvement over the original series which cast a woman as a trans woman.
Don’t get me wrong, the scenery, costumes, and shots are great. It is the writing that has a problem. Yes, I had minor problems with how some sexualities were portrayed, but that is nothing in comparison to the inconsistency of the script. It makes me wonder how the writers decide to distribute the work. For the most part, this series is a straightforward romantic dramedy, but at one point goes off the rails with a batshit crazy plot twist. I won’t spoil it, but it has to do with blackmail and the mysterious blackmailer. Tales would benefit from fewer than its ten episodes and a rewrite or complete abandonment of said plot twist. Don’t binge watch this series, but take it a few episodes at a time so you don’t notice the glaring difference between quality, especially later in the season. The final episode had a longer ending than Lord of the Rings.
If you want a queer Netflix show with intrigue, relationships, diversity, and fully formed characters, may I suggest Sense8 instead?
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Tags: Brooke Daugherty Pop Culture Leftovers, netflix, Tales of the City, Tales of the City 2019
Categorised in: Television Reviews
This post was written by Leftover Brian
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