"Doctor Who," 2005 Series: Hints, hunks, subtexts, surprise, and off-camera penises

 

Doctor Who has been wildly popular in Britain for 60 years: 26 doctors in 39 seasons (1963-present), plus spin-offs, over 200 novels, and enough tie-in products to rival Star Trek in the U.S.  

I've tried watching at various times, but it's like trying to read a Marvel comic: you're dropped into the middle of a long story, with references to characters and situations from years ago or different series: "But I thought you returned to the sub-galactic empyrion in Episode #1314!  How's Jenna?"  I even bought a history of Doctor Who to try to figure it out, but it was all studio gossip about why this or that doctor was cast.

The 2005-2021 series just dropped on MAX, starring Christopher Eggleston (below) and then David Tennant (top photo and below) as the Doctor (he keeps regenerating). This one is different: most episodes are self-contained, with the occasional call-back to previous series actually explained, instead of assuming that viewers have watched every episode since 1963. We even find out who the doctor is.

The premise: The Doctor is a Time Lord, able to zap through time and space on his Tardis vehicle (which looks like a 1960s British police box from the outside). He has a tragic back story which might be new to this series: he is the only surviving member of his species.  They were all wiped out by the evil ("Exterminate!") Daleks, but he destroyed their species in retaliation (until they return).  

Now he travels around for fun or to seek out and fix time/space anomalies that threaten to destroy London or the universe:

Zombies plague the Victorian London of Charles Dickens.

Evil aliens are masquerading as Members of Parliament

In the year 200,000, an alien is controling the Earth.

The Doctor is in the habit of saying "It's hopeless!  There's no escape!  There's nothing I can do -- we're all going to die!"  Or "the universe will collapse at any moment!  There's no way to stop it!"  Or 'we're stuck forever on this parallel world where Britain has a president instead of a prime minister, and they've invented helicopters but not airplanes!"  Then, after the commercial break: "I've figured it out!  All we have to do is recalibrate the time coordinator and push it backwards through the space-time continnum!"  

I'm reminded of the old Star Trek series, where Captain Kirk says "The odds against us getting out of this jam are a million to one!"  Then he does it easily, and starts deciding what to wear for his promotion to Admiral.

The companion:  In the first episode, the Doctor meets Rose Tyler, a working-class shop girl from 21st century London, and invites her to join him.  Rose has a tragic back story, too: her father was killed in a traffic accident while she was a baby.  Somehow the Doctor's missions often put them in parallel worlds where he's still alive (but she can't see him, or time/space will collapse), or back in time to the moment of the accident (but she can't rescue him, or flying gargoyles will destroy the world).

I don't know if the Doctor fell in love with his previous female companions, or this is a new innovation, but he and Rose are definitely falling in love.  It's a slow burn romance -- we're halfway through Season 2, and they haven't kissed yet.  Of course,  Rose has a boyfriend, and the Doctor is busy falling in love with the lady alien or distant-future babe of the week (even Madame de Pompadour, when he tries to prevent distant-future cyborgs from stealing her brain).   

Occasionally they pick up a second companion, a guy, but the Doctor resents the competition and quickly boots him.

The Guys: While they are in 21st century Utah, investigating an underground museum of alien artifacts, they pick up  "boy genius" Adam Mitchell (Bruno Langley).  He is fired in the next episode, when the Doctor catches him  transmitting technology from the year 200,000 to his Mum's answering machine back home.  Langley also played Todd Grimshaw, the first gay character on the long-running soap Coronation Street, from 2001 to 2003. He is heterosexual in real life.

Next, the Doctor and Rose end up in blitz-besieged World War II London, where alien technology has transformed a dead boy into an "empty boy," wandering around and asking "Are you my Mummy?"  If he touches you, you turn into an "empty boy," too.  During this adventure, they hook up with Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman, left and below), a loveable rogue time-traveler, and openly bisexual, flirting with men and women.  Rose is shocked by this -- apparently LGBT people do not exist in 21st century London -- but the Doctor points out that Jack is from the 51st century, when "anything goes."

More hints and hunks after the break

Peter Kaasa: The hottest man in professional wrestling. With bonus nude wrestlers

The Greco-Roman wrestling of American high schools and colleges, the masked lucha libre of Latin American countries,  and performance-art professional wrestling have one thing in common:

Those blatant bulges in the wrestling singlets. 

Peter Kaasa has been wrestling -- and bulging  -- since high school. 

 

He was born in James Island, a suburb of Charleston, South Carolina, and received a degree in Exercise Science from the College of Charleston in 2008.  Along the way, he excelled not only in wrestling, but in gymnastics, surfing, and Brazilian jiu-gitsu. Finally he decided to train at the prestigious Funking Wrestling Academy in Ocala, Florida. 

In 2012, Peter began pro wrestling as a heel character, Peter Kaasanova (soon changed back to Kaasa).  Less than a year later, he won the TSW Heavyweight Championship.

His professional wrestling career lasted from 2012 to 2017, but during those years he was very busy, competing in WrestleForce, America's Most Liked Wrestling, Dragon Gate, and Evolve.  He drew a huge following, even becoming the subject of fan art and fiction.

 He was named the "The Hottest Man in Professional Wrestling" and "The Most Liked Man in Professional Wrestling"  

Several major injuries, including torn ligaments and a torn groin, forced Peter to retire in 2017, but he drew on his talents to move into an acting career.

More Peter and some penises after the break

Steve Antin: radical gay representation and beefcake, from "The Last American Virgin" to "Girlicious." With lots of bulges and butts

Steve Antin's bio on the Internet Movie Database claims that he "broke all the girls' hearts" in The Last American Virgin (1982).  Same old story: gay people don't exist, so all girls and no boys swooned over his character.

Spoiler alert: Steve is gay.  

Born in 1958, Steve broke into film playing the Jesse whose girl Rick Springfield longs for in "Jesse's Girl" (1981).  Next came The Last American Virgin (1982).  In his first major screen appearance, he plays high schooler Rick, who has sex with dozens of girls, like "every high school boy" in the 1980s -- except for his his buddy Gary (Lawrence Monoson, below), the "last American virgin."  So he and a third buddy, David (Joe Rubbo), strive to get Gary laid.  

This is not the typical 1980s "sex with girls is the meaning of life" teen comedy. Horndog Rick gets Diane pregnant and dumps her, so Virgin Gary pays for the abortion and falls in love with her, but Diane dumps him!  Then Gary dumps Rick and drives off in tears. Rather a downbeat ending. 

But there's a obvious gay subtext relationship between Gary and Rick: Gary seems to like Diane only because Rick was intimate with her.

And there's a lot of beefcake.  Far more semi-naked male bodies than female bodies.  Muscle hunks in their underwear. Jocks stripped down in the locker room. Steve with a boner (left).

There is even a penis size contest, with the boys gleefully evaluating packages while their classmates parade by naked.

When was the last time heterosexual male teenagers were so happy to gaze at a row of naked men?

You might almost think that this movie with a gay star had a gay audience in mind.

Steve went on to play some teenagers on tv, the spoiled rich kid/horndog in The Goonies (1985), and some action/adventure and dramatic roles, all heterosexual.  But when he became the boyfriend of mogul David Geffen, he got some gay-positive roles.

He wrote, produced, and starred in the dramedy Inside Monkey Zetterland (1992), as a retired child actor turned screenwriter who lives with his overbearing mother and wacky/sad relatives.  He's straight, but he is friends with a gay man (Rupert Everett) and a lesbian posing as a married couple.  They are plotting to bomb an insurance agency that is denying coverage to people who are HIV positive. 

It's My Party (1996), although extremely downbeat, was a classic of gay representation.  Nick (Eric Roberts) is dying of AIDS, with only a few days of mental awareness left, so he decides to kill himself.  His family and friends come to his "going-away party," including ex-boyfriend Brandon (1980s tv hunk Gregory Harrison).  Steve plays one of their friends.  Christopher Atkins, one of my friends in Los Angeles, also appears.

Brian To appears nude.

Bonus butts after the break

Revisiting Brideshead Revisited: Does the groundbreaking portrayal of (temporary) gay love hold up after 40 years? With bonus dicks.

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"Solar Opposites": Do Korvo and Terry act like a married couple? Do they call each other 'husbands?' Do they have sex?

Solar Opposites (2020-) is a Hulu animated series about two aliens, their replicants, and their pupa,  who flee from their doomed planet and crash-land on Earth.  During Season 1, showrunner Justin Roiland addressed the question of whether male adults Korvo (Justin Roiland, Dan Stevens) and Terry (Thomas Middleditch, left) were a gay couple.  He said that since their species practices asexual reproduction, they don't have sex, and therefore they can't be gay.  Jerk, thinking that being gay is purely about sex.  What about romantic partnerships? 

Apparently he changed his mind.  The fan wiki states that Korvo and Terry became a romantic couple between Seasons 1 and 2.  But how romantic are they?  Do they say anything?  Do anything?  Or do you have to just infer from gay subtexts? To check, I reviewed some episodes, either because the premise sounded interesting or because there was a hot guest star.

Episode 2.1: The Solar Opposites discover another refugee group from their home planet, living in London!  But it turns out that they have a disturbing hidden agenda.  No indication that Korvo and Terry are romantic partners.  With the voice of Thomas Lennon, the grotesque gay-stereotype cop in Reno 911 (left: his butt)

Episode 2.2: Korvo hates dinner parties, so he declares them illegal and starts a police force to seek out forbidden dinner party paraphernalia.  Things turn deadly: people are turned into wine.  During the denouement, Korvo and Terry kiss.

Episode 2,3: Yumyulack, the "teenage boy" replicant, invents a ray that gives him a huge penis -- not for sex, for the power that goes with it.  He makes it bigger and bigger, until it threatens to destroy the world.  No indication that Korvo and Terry are a romantic couple.

Episode 3.2  Korvo wants to take up a hobby, but everything he tries, Terry is already doing, and doing better.  In frustration, he goes into a toy train shop.  The manager thinks that he's just pretending to be interested in trains to beat his "alien husband."

Episode 3.3 Terry shows Korvo the joy of standing in line, and introduces him to his "line husband," Linus (Adam Pally).  Line husband and regular husband jealously snipe at each other, until Korvo finally wins Terry's heart. (Left: Dan Stevens' butt)

Alien bulge and dick after the break

Fire Island (2023): Myles Clohessy takes off his clothes, erases the LGBT people from a movie set in a gay resort.

  

I'm doing another trailer review, not because I want to see the movie -- the reviews were deplorably bad -- but because I want to demonstrate how deviously they erased the LGBT content.

Context: A 2022 movie, Fire Island, is a romantic comedy about guys looking for love (and sex) at the world-famous gay resort.   In 2023, a horror movie with the same title appeared, for audiences  that have no idea that the 2022 movie exists, or that Fire Island is a gay resort.

The blurb: "The perfect summer vacation quickly spirals out of control for a group of friends on the infamous, picturesque party getaway of Fire Island as they find themselves caught in a web of sex, lies and cold blooded murder."  Any idea that gay people exist here?

First, let's look at the Official Trailer:

Scene 1: A man and a woman in bed together when they get a phone call.  They climb into the car with another man and woman.  Two heterosexual couples, right?  They shriek loudly with excitement.

Scene 2: Establishing shot of the Fire Island ferry, while sinister music plays.  We see an American flag and a Pride flag. What kinda flag is that, Mabel?  I never seen such a thing.  

Scene 3: They move into their house.  More sinister music.  Late at night, Man #2 says "I have to take care of myself.  This is the best way I can breathe.  This weekend is the last fucking thing I wanted to do, but..."  

Meanwhile, Woman #1 and #2 are kissing.  The wives are having a lesbian affair!

Cut to morning, with everyone dancing around the kitchen, overjoyed to be cooking breakfast.  Man #2 and Woman #2 hug and start to kiss.  Man #1 sits on the porch, talking to Woman #1.  I guess the lesbian affair is over.  They're all back to being heterosexual couples again.

Scene 4: Uh-oh, the police find a dead guy (nice bulge in his underwear). Detective (Kresh Novakovic) thinks that it has something to do with the murders "out in the Pines."  That's where the two straight couples are staying!

Scene 5: Night.  Woman #2 awakens to an empty bed and calls for Man #2 (I assume, although the name she calls, Dan, is not in the cast list). Lights flash on and off.  

Cut to daytime. Man #2  and Woman #2 go into a house, yelling "Hello?  Hi?"

Now it's night again. Man #1 looks out the window at something scary.  I'll bet he's responsible for the murders.  

Scene 6: Old guy dressed as a hunter, in the woods, saying "Look at all this fucking b.s." or "these fucking deer." (I can't tell which: the dialogue is very soft, and the sinister music very, very loud.)  

Night again.  Man #2 and Woman #2 are in town. They see a figure in a deer mask.  They run on the beach, then into a house.  The detective, who is there for some reason, pulls a gun. Then it's morning, and they're running upstairs.

Scene 7: A split-second shot of a man and a woman dancing (wait...on pause, it's a butch/femme gay couple).  Cut to the femme one in the bathroom, with his throat slashed. 

Woman #1 wakes up in bed, wondering where Man #1 is.  He's on the beach, looking sinister.  Because he just killed a femme gay guy?  She gets up in her underwear and loads a gun.  The end.

Quick, how many of these people are gay?  Man #1 (played by Conor Paolo, top photo) is married to Woman #1.  Man #2 (played by Jonathan Bennett, second photo) is gay, and overcoming a recent tragedy.  Woman #2 is a lesbian, and in a relationship with someone who isn't on the car trip, so you'd think it was two heterosexual couples driving to Fire Island.  Plus her girlfriend looks like Woman #1, so you can't tell from the trailer that she exists.  You think the wives are having a lesbian affair. 

The Official Trailer tries very hard to make you believe that this movie is about two heterosexual couples at a resort that might have one or two gay people being eviscerated.  

But the Showtime Trailer goes even farther,  It cuts the Pride flag, the "I have to take care of myself," and the dancing/eviscerated gay guys, but adds three shots of men and women kissing.  

Left: Jared P-Smith, who plays the Bartender in a scene that doesn't appear in the trailer.

There are also three shots of a drag queen (played by writer/director Myles Clohessy's father) entertaining an audience of heterosexual couples. Each cuts directly to the deer mask person, implying that the drag queen, not Man #1, is the killer.  

The question is, why?  Why make a movie where 3 out of 5 protagonists are gay, then try very hard to hide it?  

Let's check Myles Clohessy.  He has 16 writing and 20 directing credits listed on the IMDB, but most are "upcoming."  Also 41 acting credits,  but only one gay role, in The Last Ferry.  He plays an ex-Marine who murders his boyfriend during a weekend in Fire Island.

 Interestingly, an interview in The Spirit, a local NYC newspaper, asks how he, a heterosexual, played a gay character.  He explains "I approached (the role) in the same way that I would approach any other character."   Actors used to be asked that all the time, but not in 2020.

But it may explain a lot about this movie.     

Nude photos of Myles Clohessy after the break

"Workaholics" Episode 5.1: Blake becomes a porn star, Ders is into kinky stuff, and Adam is gay. With bonus penises

I'm not posting about Workaholics too much, you're posting about Workaholics too much. But Episode 5.1 is amazing.  There are no gay characters, there's a homophobic slur,  two of the three guys express heterosexual interest, there's a straight porn movie in one scene and two straight people having sex in another.  And Adam leaves his shirt on.  How could all that be gay-positive?

Scene 1: The guys are preparing to watch the "biggest night in Hollywood."  They hope it will be better than last year, when it consisted mostly of people "sucking each other off" on the red carpet.  Hey, it's not the Oscars -- it's the Adult Entertainment Awards!  Adam comes in with snacks -- breast-shaped cakes for the guys, and he gets a chocolate penis.

Scene 2: Discussing the results at work.  Adam guessed right in every category, even Best Dong-umentary (12 Inches a Slave won).  He explains that he has a "pornographic memory" -- he never forgets a dick.  What a coincidence, I like to look at dicks, too.  Do you also like s*king them?  

On to the episode's premise: Ders is being sent tothe North Rancho College Job Fair to recruit college grads (to be telemarketers?).  He can bring some assistants, but Adam and Blake are out -- they'll just bail, leaving him to do all of the work alone.  Of course, they talk him into it, and the moment they hit the campus, they bail.

Ders' Adventure: He starts attracting students by insulting the guys in the Coast Guard recruitment booth: "You're called the coast guard because you coast on the backs of the people who really guard our country."  He also makes a homophobic gesture, "accusing" the coast guard guys of sucking cock.  

Ok, one "gay sex is shameful" joke.  This is mild.  Have you seen anything with Seth Green lately?  He and his best friend reach for the popcorn at the same time, and accidentally touch hands: "I need to shower and cry for three hours!  I've never been so disgusted!   If anyone saw us, they might think that we're -- oh, I'm going to be sick!" 

Finally the coast guard guys, led by Brock (Pete Ploszek), have had enough of his jibes, pour Big Red soda into his butt hole, and have their dog mascot -- um --- you know.  But Ders likes it!

Later, Ders pretends that he wants to apologize, but he tells a dirty joke instead.  The coast guard guys chase him.  He climbs a ladder and escapes into a dorm room....

Adam's Adventure:  He suddenly realizes that this is the campus where they filmed his favorite porno, Dorm Daze.  He looks around until he finds Room 18, where they filmed the gang bang scene.  Wait -- the direction of the "semen sprays" isn't right.  He is creating a diagram, when the room's occupant, Danny (Peter Ngo), comes in with a girl and orders him out. 

When Adam sees a girl carrying a texbook on Female Sexuality, he thinks she's going to a class on porn, so he follows her into a giant lecture hall -- occupied entirely by women!  Score -- dozens of future porn actresses learning about the trade.   Maybe they'll even use him to demonstrate their techniques!

The professor calls him down.  He's thrilled!  He just wishes he wore his "big dick jeans" to show off his huge cock.   It's really a Women's Studies class about women's objectification by the patriarchy!  Run!   But he digs himself in deeper and deeper, discussing how much he likes porn: "the gentle cupping of the balls....they caress the shaft....and then gag..."  Do you like getting them or giving them, Adam?

Time for the lambasting:  the women are being exploited. Many are confused actresses lured in with the offer of a legitimate movie role, given drugs and alcohol to lower their inhibitions, then forced to perform.  Many are single mothers. What if your mother was in that situation?   

"My Mom?"  Adam seethes.  Converted into an anti-porn advocate, he and the students rush to the dorm room used for filming pornos, and shut it down!  Except it's a  regular dorm room now, occupied by Dominic (Seth Ginsberg, top photo), having consensual sex with his girlfriend.  Wait -- Adam uses logical deducation to determine that the real porn room is....

Blake's Adventure:  He is pretending to be Australian, so when he sees a sign announcing open auditions for Hamlet, he auditions with a fight scene from Crocodile Dundee.  The director chastises him: "You're a very bad actor," but Crystal, a girl in the audience,  offers him a role in a short film.  

She leads him to a dorm room. He wants to know about the characters, the plot, and so on, but Landon, the director, gives him drugs and alcohol and tells him to whip it out. Blake catches on that it's a porno, and tries to leave, but Landon yells at him and threatens him.  "I just wanted to act," Blake whimpers. "So go in the closet and grease up your hog."    Notice the beat-by-beat reflection of what the professor told Adam.  Not understanding, he comes out with his body greased. Crying, humiliated, he can't bring himself to take out his dick.  

Tying the Plot Threads Together: Adam and the students burst in to save Blake and "this poor, innocent girl."  Crystal points out that she's a producer, she owns 40% of the company, and besides, she enjoys performing.  Whoops, there's another side to the story.  It's not all about exploitation. 

But they still need someone with a penis to do it on camera.  Not to worry -- Ders bursts in, chased by the coast guard guys, who are all interested.  We cut to them waiting in line to do a "Coast Guard Gang Bang" movie.  Wait -- twelve guys and one girl?  Some of those guys are going to be banging each other.  The end.

Beefcake: Blake and Dominic the Dorm Guy.

Gross-out humor: Ders enjoys the dog-sex thing. In the kicker, he suggests that the guys get a dog.

Heterosexism:  The coast guard guys complain that they've been chasing Ders all over campus. "We should be chasing chicks, not dudes."

The professor who describes porn as solely about women being exploited by men gets her comeuppance: sometimes male performers are being exploited, too.

Homophobia: One reference.  Interestingly, when Crystal tries to humiliate Ders into performing, she says "Don't you like sex?", not "Are you gay?"

Gay Subtext: Except for one or two lines suggesting an interest in women, Adam presents as gay.  His favorite porn scene involves guys jizzing.  When he describes what he likes about porn, it's all about giving a blow job. 

My Grade: A

I could hardly post on Adam's penis expertise without some penis pics after the break.  Caution: some arousal.