Joel Fry: Gay-vague at the Time Hotel, gay subtext in 1950s London, "not gay" in ancient Rome. With lots of butts, but are there any dick pics?

 

Last night we watched the Doctor Who 2024 Christmas special, "Joy to the World." 

It started out fine: In the 45th century Time Hotel (with portals leading to different historical periods), the time-and-space jumping Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) flirts with security guard Trev (Joel Fry).  They notice a guest with a briefcase chained to his wrist.  

While the Doctor is off somewhere, we learn that whoever has the briefcase is compelled to pass it on to someone closer to a mysterious goal.  Then they disintegrate!  

You guessed it -- Trev gets the briefcase, passes it on to Joy, and dies.  

The Doctor spends the next year working at a 2024 London hotel (for reasons too complicated to explain) and falling in love with Anita, the manager.  Then he returns to the Time Hotel (where only a few seconds have passed) to solve the mystery with Joy.  Who lives. 

Why on Earth couldn't he have had the adventure with Trev?  Why does it always have to be a woman?  Especially since this version of the Doctor is supposed to be gay -- a gay guy who flirts with someone for five seconds, then spends a year in a heterosexual romance?    

Since Trev seems to respond to the Doctor's flirtations -- during the two minutes before he is disintegrated -- and we have some buns and dicks of actor Joel Fry available, I wanted to see if he has played gay characters before, or is gay in real life, or both.

The graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts has 60 acting credits listed on the IMDB.  Searching for "Joel Fry" and "gay character" yields six possibilities:

Our Flag Means Death (2022-23):  Many of the characters in this historical comedy are gay, including "gentleman pirate" Stede and his boyfriend, infamous pirate Blackbeard.  Joel Fry's Frenchie, who describes the pirate adventures in song, has no specified sexual identity, although he shares a a cabin with Wee John (Kristian Nairn), leading to some shipping from fandom.

Cruella (2021):  In a prequel to 101 Dalmatians, the Disney villain teams up with, then betrays, two "honorable thieves," Jasper (Joel) and Horace (Paul Walker Hauser).  They have been "companions" since childhood.  Neither engages in a heterosexual romance: a gay subtext couple.  

Benjamin (2018):   Struggling filmmaker Benjamin (Colin Morgan) is having an off-on relationship with Noah (Phenix Broussard), stymied by his penchant for cheating, notably with Henry (Jack Rowan, below).  Stephen (Joel) is his best friend.

 Stephen tries to spin a stand-up routine out of his childhood trauma, and ends up having a mental breakdown.  Maybe he's gay, too, but probably not, and the film itself is stuck behind paywalls and 7-day free trials.

 

Plebs (2013-19): A Britcom about three dude-bro roommates in ancient Rome, like Workaholics with togas and no gay subtexts.  The only gay-themed episode is 2.4, "Patron."

In the public toilets, an older man named Gaius (James Fleet) seems to be picking up the aspiring chariot-racer Stylax (Joel),  sitting too close, complementing his grip.  He offers to become the boy's patron (paying for his training).

Cut to a montage of Gaius dining with Stylax, buying him a gift, training him in charioteering, and making a lot of sexual double entendres.  The roommates think that Gaius is gay, and interested.  Sylax scoffs -- impossible!  Gay people do not exist!  -- but eventually agrees with them, and decides that if he wants the patronage, he'll have to pretend to be gay.

"Your training is coming along.  In a few weeks, I'm going to enter you...in a race.  But if I'm going to be your patron, you have to go all out.  Do you understand?"

Stylax nods, and tries to kiss Gauius.  He's horrified!  "I have a wife and kids!"

"I'm not gay!" Stylax clarifies.  But Gaius is already running away.

More after the break

Lenny Rush: Doctor Who's buddy, the Artful Dodger's boyfriend. a gay-vague vampire. With a lot of acting awards and co-star d*cks

In the 2023-24 season of Doctor Who, Episodes 1.7 and 1.8, the time-and-space zapping Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his latest companion Ruby Sunday visit UNIT, the time-and-space anomaly-investigation agency, to solve two mysteries:

1. Why does an elderly woman pop up in various guises in all of their recent adventures?

2. Ruby's mother left her on a church doorstep on Christmas Day.  They want to go back in time to discover who she is, but the Doctor can't use his regular time-traveling power, for reasons, so they use one of UNIT's experimental devices.

Things go terribly wrong, of course, and they release Sutekh, the Great Beast, the Abomination, the Destroyer, the Bringer of Death, the One Who Waits...who actually looks rather like a giant dog.  He intends to destroy all life in the universe.  Well, it's better than yet another visit from the Dahh-leks.

UNIT is staffed primarily by the Doctor's retired companions, all ladies, but there are a few hunks wandering around: 

Tachia Newall (left) as Col. Chidozie, who gets sanded to death by the Giant Dog

Alexander Devrient as Col. Ibrahaim, whose muscles are praised by the Doctor (bisexual this season): "You've been working out!"

 Aneurin Barnard (butt in candlelight, left) as Roger ap Gwillam, who will become the most evil Prime Minister in the history of Britain.  

And a cute kid: Lenny Rush as12-year old super-genius Morris Gibbons, who runs the time-travel device, fights the Giant Dog, gets dusted and resurrected, and after the Dog's demise, invites everyone out to a pizza party.

Lenny was originally cast in Episode 1.1, as one of the sentient babies running an orbiting space nursery, but he was so great that they decided to cut his scene and cast him in this much bigger role.

As of this writing, Lenny is 16 years old and looks a bit younger, so I won't be searching for beefcake or n*de photos.  I'll post some of his co-stars instead.

But at  3'2" he's a perfect addition to the Short Guy Brigade, so I'm going to research the other usual questions of a profile:

1. Has he played any gay characters?

Lenny has 14 acting credits listed on the IMDB, beginning with 4 episodes of the animated Apple Tree House (2018-19) and 7 episodes of The Dumping Ground (2021-22), about children "dumped" in a foster home.

There were two lesbians in The Dumping Ground, but no gay boys.

Dodger (2022-23) featured the Victorian-era pickpocket Artful Dodger (Billy Jenkins, left) and his mentor Fagin (Christopher Eccleston) before their adventures in Dickens' Oliver Twist.  Lenny (right) played Morgan the Crossing Sweeper, the Dodger's gay-subtext boyfriend.

More after the break

The New Doctor Who, Season 2: The gay doctor fights robots and cartoon characters, and gets a girlfriend. With bonus Groff and Projectionist penises

The latest Doctor Who, that  time-and-space faring adventurer from the planet Gallifrey (played by Ncuti Gatwa), is the first to be black, and although there have been bisexual hints in the past, the first to be gay.  In Episode 1.6, he even gets a boyfriend, an interdimensional bounty hunter named Rogue (Jonathhan Groff, left).

At least, he was gay in the first season. 

I watched the first two episodes of Season 2, and I am sorry to report that the gay guy has turned straight.

In Episode 2.1, "The Robot Revolution," the teenage Belinda Chandra receives a gift from her sort-of boyfriend: a star.  It seems that you can "buy" a star and get a certificate stating that it's yours.  They break up soon after.  

17 years pass, and one night gigantic robots arrive to force Belinda to become the queen of "her" planet.  Apparently the certificate was a binding contract.

Left: Robert Strange plays the head robot.

To complicate things, the robots have taken control of the world.  Humans are forced into smiling servitude.  

The Doctor, stranded on the planet for the last six months, is starting a revolt with a squad of hunky humans, including Caleb Hughes and Max Parker, left.  

Soon into the revolt, the Doctor's girlfriend is killed.  Grieving, he explains that when he first arrived on the planet, she took him in and explained the situation.  "She took care of me.  She was wonderful."   The other freedom fighters tell him to buck up, they have a world to save.

The robots announce that Belinda is to marry the great AI Generator, who turns out to be the ex-boyfriend (Jonny Green, left), merged with a machine.  Belinda dumped him due to his controlling behavior, and this is the only way he could think of to get back together again. Maybe send her flowers?

So this was all about heterosexual romance?  They had an episode with an astronaut and his husband.  Two of the Doctor's companions have been lesbians.  How the mighty have fallen.

The Doctor and Belinda save the day.  Belinda asks to be taken home, but his space-and-time ship, the TARDIS, refuses to go to the day she left.  Maybe the next day?

In Episode 1.2, "Lux," some people are watching a movie in 1952 Miami.  Before the main feature, there's a cartoon featuring Mr. Ring-a-Ding, whose catchphrase is "Don't make me laugh!"  While he is busily romancing Sally Sunshine (yes, another hetero-romance), he jumps off the screen to scream at the audience.

Enter the Doctor and Belinda, taking a detour on the way home.  They notice that the theater door is chained, as if there's a wild beast inside.  

More after the break

Ten Dudes from Rejected Reviews: From Matt Bomer to Tom Goodman-Hill

I find potential movies and tv shows to review on my streaming service recommendations, the social media of actors I follow, and if I have just completed a profile of someone, like Cory Chapman or Michael Provost, their work on the IMDB.  If the premise is interesting, or there are two guys together on the icon, I might just click "play," but usually there's some research involved.

Do the episode synopses mention a same-sex friendship or rescue?  Is there minimal man-woman kissing in the trailer?  Are there any beefcake or nude photos of the male cast members?  

Sometimes I collect nude photos for illustrations, and then decide against the review after reading a plot synopsis or Rotten Tomatoes score, or after watching for a few minutes.  The result is a folder full of naked guys from rejected reviews.  I hate to delete them, so I'm posting them for their aesthetic value.

1. Adam Rayner in Tyrant: An American family drawn into the politics of a fictional Middle Eastern nation.  A gay guy eventually comes out and finds a boyfriend, who is killed,  I don't do the Bury Your Gays trope.  Next!

2. I was planning a review of "The Unicorn and the Wasp," a Doctor Who episode with gay characters, so I searched for "Christopher Tennant." 

"Christopher Benjamin" popped up,  nude on stage doing The Fairy Queen. But the full-sized photo was behind a pay wall, so I tried someone else in the cast, Robert Burt.

Except this isn't Robert Burt the stage actor. The link goes to a set of pictures illustrating the works of poet Robert Hamberger, models unknown. 

3. Turns out that the Doctor I was looking for was actually played by David Tennant.  A new search on "David Tennant" yielded Harry Lawtrey in Industry.

The British drama about job applicants in a finance firm had two gay characters, but the opening sequences were boring, so no review.  Next!

4. A reader recommended The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare for its buddy-bonding and beefcake.  As of this writing it's in theaters only, so I scanned its cast list and found Hero Fiennes Tiffin -- great name -- which led me to The Loneliest Boy in the World.  The boy appears to be falling in love with a boy zombie.   But it's not available on any of my streaming services. Next!

5. Depressing disease-of-the-week medical dramas are usually a resounding "No!", but The Good Doctor had a gay character played by Noah Galvin, so I researched him.  A former Hasidic Jew, conflicted, confused, self-doubting, guilt ridden, who finally gets a boyfriend -- only to have him killed on the day they become engaged.  

Before I noped out of there, I found some nude photos of Noah Galvin's real-life boyfriend, Ben Platt

More nude dudes after the break