Bob & Rose

I saw this program at a screening at the NY Gay/Lesbian Film Festival. While Bob maintains that he's still gay even though he's fallen in love and lust with a woman, I seriously doubt that's a concept most people would grasp, let alone believe. Even the British press who covered this program generally called it a "gay man goes straight" show, which I gather is not what Davies had in mind.

I didn't really buy what "Bob and Rose" is selling, but it was better written and acted than expected. What the show depicts may indeed occur once in a blue moon, but I was surprised that "Bob and Rose" painted a rather dreary picture of gay relationships (breakups, shagging in the alleyway) while turning the gay/straight relationship in to a complex, but finally positive and romantic experience. Double-standard, eh? And from a gay man like Davies, you'd expect better.

Back in 1978, there was an American film called "A Different Story," about a gay man and a lesbian who wound up falling in love, getting married, and having a kid. "Bob & Rose" has been called "mold-breaking" in the U.K., but it's not that far from the older film in many ways.

If someone really wanted to break a mold, they'd make a film about a straight male who finds himself attracted to a gay man, and finally falls in love with him. I wonder if audiences would embrace that scenario as readily as they do "Bob & Rose," or simply refuse to believe such things could happen, while more than willing to believe a gay man can "change?"

Bob and Rose is a terrific love story, full of humor, misunderstandings, sex, hurt, and love. Like most relationships. And it's a story that wraps you up in it; you root for this couple. You have to stay and find out what happens to them.

This story was really ahead of its time. Just like true racial equality will come when race is no longer even a subject, sexual equality will come when people no longer use labels and just love who they love, period.

Bob and Rose (as well as many of those around them) go through some confusion about their relationship because it doesn't fit the molds society has created. Their relationship would be much simpler if those molds didn't exist. But right now, they do exist.

What does it mean that Bob has always been gay, but is now in love with a woman? What does it mean that Rose is in love with a man who has always been gay?

It means they fell in love. That's all.

Bob maintains that he is a gay man who just happened to fall in love with a woman. He hasn't become "un-gay" or "changed teams," he just fell in love. This reminds me of what another Russell T Davies character said several years later: when Ianto Jones of Torchwood tries to explain his love for Jack Harkness to his sister, she asks when he became gay; his reply is that "It's not all men. It's just him." He just happened to fall in love with another man.

Would that the world let it be that easy. Hopefully one day it will be.

Bob and Rose is a very good, very real love story. There are realistic conflicts and problems and the solutions are not always clear-cut. It is well worth your time to watch it. And you're going to wish it was longer.

I watched this show with growing horror, the more and more i watched it the more i wanted to turn it off and put on something where it doesn't depict Gay lifestyle as hopeless, and that doesn't show that if the str8 women perserves then she shall recieve the holy grail of marriage and children, this series left me thinking "What the F***"

One of my major complaints is that now you can just hear the thoughts churning in every other gay parents head thinking "Ohhh, that could be our son!" Don't think so! I had nothing against the acting, nor the way the story was presented, i just didn't like the story itself. The idea that a gay man can go str8, and then leave it all behind while his gay friends are turning into old men and still shagging whatever it is they can, is horribly depressing.

I watched this with friends, they both liked it while i could utter what i thought was wrong with it, a gay man, shagging a str8 women in a train? And then he's completely horrible to her afterwards so Christ knows what happens next!

Most of my complaints with this series is that basically it is everything which most gay guys dont' want their parents seeing, we do not want our parents thinking that it just takes "the right girl" to snap us out of being "gay". Apparently it was written, or based on some guy and girl that the writer knew, well... Are you sure he was totally gay in the frist place? Most gay men consider women fun playful things, but never would consider sex with them EVER.

I don't like this series, i personally think that it should have never been made, but, i can't find a fault with the actors, their acting or the way the story is portrayed, it's a nice piece of work, it's just a terrible shame the story has to be about something which makes my blood want to boil.

That rare combination in today's hypermedia, short attention spanned televisual world, Bob and Rose is witty, warm, provocative and honest storytelling.

The ever-prolific Russell T. Davies has delivered a small screen delight with a touching, funny, soul-mate saga that challenges and entertains. The show is awash with superb performances, Davies, Sharp and Stevenson a standout.

I can understand the subject matter provoking strong reactions, but I think that's surely RTD's point. Let's not forget he's the genius behind Queer as Folk - a refreshingly no holds barred writer, inclined to shake things up a bit whatever he turns his hand to.

Upstanding, outstanding television!

So I heard about this little miniseries a few years ago and having seen all the bad press it got I was immediately turned off. How dare RTD write a show about a gay man going straight! Of course, what I didn't know when I was thinking that was that this little gem isn't about a gay man going straight. A few weeks ago I again come across this title and decide to sit down and watch it for myself, or at least try to.

Turns out, the point of this story is not to say that a gay man can become straight; Bob doesn't ever become straight. Throughout the entire series he is constantly trying to explain to others as well as to himself just what the heck is going on, but never does he tell anyone that he has been 'converted.' He's a gay man who is sexually attracted to other men and, for whatever reason, one woman.

The suggestion that the series depicts gay life as horrible and depressing while shining a light of goodness onto heterosexual relationships is also missing the point. The heterosexual dating scene is depicted as being just as fraught with problems as the gay dating scene. Rose is just as unsatisfied with going out on the pull at a straight pub as Bob is trying to pull at a gay pub. In fact there is a scene which closely parallels one with the other.

So don't let your own preconceptions of what this series is about deter you from watching it. Watching it will probably throw all your preconceptions out the window. Really the only reason to not watch this series is if romantic comedy/dramas aren't your preferred genre. And if that's the case, what are you doing reading a review for a romantic comedy/drama series anyway?