Cucumber and Banana are two new series from Queer as Folk creator Russell T. Davies that premiered Monday on Logo following RuPaul’s Drag Race. The shows take a hard (and often hilarious) look at the modern gay experience, often focusing the spotlight on the fumbling, awkward moments spent navigating the great gay universe.
If you missed the shows, you can check out the first episodes of each below:
Cucumber: Henry Best is disenchanted. All around him, men seem to be younger, smarter, and more attractive. When he gets a taste of the carefree life his younger co-worker and his impossibly handsome roommate lead, Henry’s entire way of life.
Banana: Dean seems to have the perfect life — he’s got a job, good friends, a great city apartment, and all the sex he wants – but his mounting debt and concerned roommate are pushing him closer to a long-simmering confrontation with his parents.
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Cucumber & Banana air Mondays starting at 10 p.m. on Logo TV
MiltonandRobert Appleby
Sounds like another series of cliches.
Aiden
I see they’ve not used the ‘Tofu’ part of the trio in the states then! The entire season (series here!) has already been broadcast in the UK.
MarionPaige
Okay, watch the first couple of episodes of Cucumber and tell me you can’t see an obvious similarity between “Henry” using the police to get back at his lover and the details of the incident that sparked the famous gay civil rights case “Lawrence vs Texas”.
As I mentioned before, the actor who plays Henry in Cucumber played the lecherous boss of one of George the Werewolf’s girlfriends in the UK TV Series “Being Human”. In Cucumber, he comes across more as a straight comedian than a gay man
Sammy Schlipshit
At last, a show (Cucumber) featuring older gay men who are coping with more mature trials and tribulations.
Bananas gives us the viewpoint of the young’uns.
Interesting to see the parallels between the age groups.
The writing is good.
Actors are good.
Plot lines are developing nicely.
I look forward to see where this journey takes me.
Geeker
Can you see this through streaming services?
MarionPaige
The actress who plays an awkward OCD Lesbian in a later Banana episode, played a transsexual in the UK TV Series Misfits who stole “Alex the Barman’s penis (because she identified as male). It’s like there are 20 or so actors in all of the UK and the are continuously recycled over and over again for all tv roles in the country.
jwtraveler
WOW! A TV show about gays with actual black characters and men over 30. Again, WOW!
OzJosh
Attention “Looking” writers: This is how it’s done!!!!
MarionPaige
Oh, and be on the lookout for a later episode of Banana in which the lovely lovely Dino Fetscher literally tells a guy that he’s too ugly, that he (Dino) IS out of the guy’s league.
It’s like the gay repudiation of years of propaganda from Woody Allen.
Bailey Bednar
Anyone who is interested already watched the full series online.. when it was released months ago.
kayakriver
@OzJosh: you must be f*cking joking… Cucumber is decent, but the main character is a horrible guy, the series is stupid as it doesn’t know if it’s serious or a comedy. Looking was waaaaaaaaaaay better than this crap. Everything felt REAL, the plot was believable, Cucumber is a caricature, unbelievable, and plainly annoying.
Ralph Jaeger
Cucumber enraged me. The main character is a vicious, vile, self centred prick. BUT with the exception of the very last episode, Banana was everything Cucumber wanted to be. It was funny and sweet and touching and human.
Realitycheck
Loved funny Banana, couldn’t watch Cucumber after a great start it falls in a
super gay cliche after another…………
Why can’t we have a gay TV series of movie where the gay guys are neither sex maniacs or screaming two dollar bills?
You know an actual good story, with every day gay people, doing what people does everyday.
MarionPaige
I THINK, the economics and logistics of the UK television production business is that the UK market alone isn’t big enough; that the only way to make real money of of a UK tv production is to license a project to other markets or to spin off a project to other markets. In effect, UK TV is mostly pilot material designed to sell a concept to other markets. Davies has made about 9 pilots for gay tv shows: 1 with Cucumber and one each with the eight or so episodes of Banana (as each episode of Banana appears to be a self-contained concept / tv show pilot).
In re Davies vs Looking … the biggest difference appears to be that Cucumber and Banana are designed to be sold to wider audiences than the Gay and UK markets. Looking seemed mostly content to stare at its own navel.
James Hart
These programs stink!
Dean Long
These shows suck