The American "Queer as Folk" is written by Ron Cowen & Danie

"The American ''Queer as Folk'' is written by executive producers Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, who also created ''Sisters'' and wrote the Emmy winning TV movie about an AIDS death, ''An Early Frost.'' Anyone familiar with those credits knows that Cowen and Lipman prize melodrama and the zippy quip over ambivalence and the belly laugh. Thus the opening hours of their ''Queer As Folk,'' while hewing closely to the actions of its British counterpart right down to certain camera movements, is clotted with yuks that wouldn't have made it out of the ''Three's Company'' writer's room. Bad puns and wheezy references to Judy Garland aside, the new ''Queer as Folk'' lacks a soul at its center. In the Brit version, Brian's character (called Stuart) was played by Aiden Gillen with ferocious intelligence and a profound despair that nevertheless did not contradict the pleasure he took in drugging and fornicating. In our ''Queer As Folk,'' Brian seems merely truculent and, most disappointingly, rather stupid whenever he's not making remarks that don't fit his character.
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Two and a Half Men DVD 1-7
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