Tom Berklund: Bodybuilder and "Modern Family" cop stars in gay tragedies and poses n*de, but what's with all the lady friends?

 

Link to the n*de photos

We've finished Modern Family, but I forgot to research a bodybuilder who appeared in Episode 10.5, "Good Grief" (2018): as the family gathers for Halloween, Jay gets the word that his ex-wife DeeDee (Shelly Long) has died.  Dressed in wacky costumes, the children and grandchildren try to process their grief in different ways. Phil and Cam drive into West Hollywood for a convoluted reason, and get stuck in the Halloween parade.  As they are honking, a cop tells them to give the horn a rest.  The parade will be over soon.  Then he swishes off in his very tight chaps.

Phil: "I don't get to this part of town often.  That's not a real cop, right?"

I was annoyed that Phil says "this part of town": West Hollywood is a separate city.  But I wanted to see more of the hot cop, Tom Berklund, and his tight chaps.

I checked his Instagram first: "Real estate developer, bodybuilder, spiritual growth."  That's not an occupation, buddy.

 Some nice muscle shots, but the mixed signals made it impossible to determine if he is gay or not.

"Had a great time with Sarah and Teddy," a lady and a dog.  You're dating a lady, got it.

"Dinner and theater night out with my famous friend" Ryan Hadad, a queer disabled playwright.  Is it a date or a friend hang?

"Ali, Joey, and me."  Ali and Joey are a woman and a baby.  So is this your wife and son?  

"Post dinner sunset stroll with the one and only Tucker Breder," an actor whose Instagram is private, but he poses with a woman on Soundcloud.  Now you're dating a straight guy?

"Charlie got the lead in Once Upon a High School."  Posing with a woman and teenage boy.  But if this is your wife and son, who's Ali and the baby?   

Heck with it.  Let's look at his biceps and body parts, and see if he's been in any gay-themed movies.

Tom was born in Middleton, Wisconsin, 15 minutes from Madison, and got his BFA from the University of Michigan.  He then moved to New York, where he won the part of Gregory Gardner in the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line.  

In his monologue, Gregory talks about getting a (censored) in class, and realizing that he was gay.  Not a bad start.

Tom has 25 acting credits, but mostly parts like Dancer, Gym Attendant, Spin Instructor, and S*xy Santa (left, on Ray Donovan).  I found a few gay roles:

More after the break

"28 Days Later: The Bone Temple": A cured zombie, the Devil's son, a Jimmy cult, musclemen, d*cks, and 8 gay actors.

  

Link to the n*de dudes

We just saw 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026), the sequel to 28 Years Later, with 14-year old Spike (Alfie Williams) swept away from his island haven into a mainland Scotland ravaged by a zombie apocalypse.  He unwillingly joins a cult run by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Josh O'Connor), who fancies himself the son of Old Nick.  His Satanic Majesty has given Sir Jimmy the task of roaming his countryside and eliminating the remaining humans.  After torturing them, of course.

Very graphic torture. He begins by forcing Spike into a fight-to-the-death with Jimmy Shite (all of the followers wear blond wigs and are named Jimmy, after early 2000s tv personality Jimmy Saville).  Spike wins by stabbing him in the thigh; the others laugh and jeer as blood spurts out like a fountain.

Then the Jimmies invade a farmhouse, string up the occupants in a barn, and skin them alive.  But a woman who escaped returns, sets the barn on fire, and we see people burning to death.

Meanwhile Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who is building the Bone Temple as a monument to the dead, pacifies the gigantic zombie Samson (Chi Parry-Lewis) with morphine and befriends him.  They even dance together.  The gay subtext is so overt that one suspects that it's intentional.  Finally Kelson figures a way to restore Samson to sentience with anti-psychotic drugs.

Spoiler Alert: The Jimmies stumble upon Dr. Kelson, and seeing him surrounded by bones, red in color, and dancing with a demon, assume that he is Old Nick.  Sir Jimmy soon discovers that he is not, but insists that he pretend to be, so he won't lose face with his followers.  So Kelson puts on a sound-and-fire show to Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast."  He's about to let them leave, but he sees Spike as a Jimmy hostage, and changes his mind: in the old order, God sacrificed his son, so Old Nick wants the same.  Sir Jimmy is crucified upside down.

Bone Temple was definitely made with an eye for masculine beauty.  There are several shirtless musclemen.  Chi-Lewis Parry's prosthetic p*nis is  much more visible, and in some scenes his incredibly muscular body is not covered with muck.

We see some other p*nises, including Dr. Kelson's (but to be fair, name one of Ralph Fiennes's movies where he doesn't show his d*ck).

I was worried that Spike would get a girlfriend.  He bonds with a girl, but she is much older, and treats him as a little brother or son rather than a potential boyfriend.

In fact, there is no hetero-romance anywhere, among anyone, except when we get a close-up of a photo of Dr. Kelson's long-dead wife, to heterosexualize him.

And so many of the Jimmies are played by gay actors that one suspects a deliberate casting decision

The Jimmies:

Jack O'Connell as Sir Jimmy Crystal.  Straight, but has played gay men several times (n*de on RG beefcake and Boyfriends)

More after the break

The Weird World of Gumball: Definitely weird, but is it adequately gay? With Jordan's junk, Kwesi's d*ck, and Alkaio Thiele

  

Link to the n*de dudes

After identifying Alkaio Thiele of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place as probably gay due to his many male friends, his romance with Kayden Koshelev, and...well, just look at him, prancing with his mom (the butch one)... I've been going through his work, looking for gay subtexts. 

I don't have any n*de photos of Alkaio, since he's under 18, but I put a random Greek guy on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

 

He is currently the star of The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball (2025-), the latest in the franchise of animated series featuring a catlike being (Alkaio) and his adopted brother, the evolved goldfish Darwin (Hero Hunter).  They have ordinary middle school adventures in a world populated by an assortment of humanoids, animals, inanimate objects, gods, and spirits drawn in various conflicting styles.

Fans have been claiming that the new series is "super gay" and "insanely gay."  and pointing specifically to Episodes 1.13, "The Letter," and 2.8, "The Diary."  So let's take a look.

Episode 1.13, Scene 1: After school, Darwin is cheerful; Gumball is suspicious.  Finally he comes clean: He wrote his girlfriend Carrie (right) a love letter, and he's going to slip it in her locker.

"But Carrie is a cursed specter from the Underworld. She might not approve of love."

Then the ghost-being Carrie and her friend Penny, a glowing peanut, appear.  Gumball and Penny rub their faces over each other and smoochy-woochy. Two boy-girl romances.  It's not looking good for the "insanely gay" advocates.

Ghost-being Carrie icks.  She explains that she's dead inside, so she finds physical displays of affection "cringy and gross."  That's why she and Darwin get along so well -- he's not "a mewling puddle of mush."  

Uh-oh, she opens her locker, and her monster-knapsack absorbs Darwin's love letter!  

"But what if you get a cute 'I wuv you' letter?" Darwin asks, grasping at straws.

She possesses Gumball and makes him announce that the dead are deprived of love, so when a ghost hears "I love you," even when addressed to someone else, the hunger makes them lose control and devour your soul.  So is it that you don't like physical affection, or you don't like romantic love?  Make up your mind, lady.

Scene 2: At lunch, Ghost Carrie, Peanut Penny, and a cloud-being are discussing the circumstances under which a boy might say "I love you" and not get eaten. They specify a boy, assuming that all romances are boy-girl.  Things are not looking good.  

Gumball sneaks under the table, where the monster-knapsack eats him.  But it spits him out, and he brings the letter with him, along with Ghost Carrie's book of magic, which they can use to destroy it.

Scene 3: Gumball can't read the arcane language, so he tries conjuring at random.  First, a refrigerator.  Then a love spell. Gumball already loves Darwin, but "You really look like a snack right now." Ok, a reference to gay romance.

The dimwits finally realize that they could just throw the letter away, but as they toss, the giant ape Hector Jotunheim jumps in front of them, and it ends up in his backpack. Now he'll think that Darwin is in love with him!

Scene 4: Gumball suggests that "a sweet and chill partner" like the Giant Ape is a better match than an emo ghost, but Darwin insists that he loves only Ghost Carrie.  He doesn't assume that Darwin's romantic partners can only be girls. 

Whoops, the Giant Ape returns the letter -- during class --- and the teacher forces Darwin to read it aloud.  Now Carrie will know the truth! 

Wait, it's not his letter after all!  It's from the Giant Ape, explaining that he is not romantically interested: "I've tried dating people your size before, and I've been hurt."  Chances are they'll be hurt, too. Giant Apes have giant....you know.

Scene 5: Uh-oh, Carrie thinks that Darwin was trying to cheat on her with the Giant Ape and goes berserk, turning the hallways into a Lovecraftian hellzone, with eyes and tentacles everywhere.  Darwin tries to explain that the Giant Ape was responding to a letter to her, but instead of saying "I love you," he says "Eat my face."

Carrie rushes back into the school, possesses Gumball, and returns to kiss him.  "Thank you for understanding," Carrie/Gumball says.  They hug, and Carrie lets Gumball go.

Gumball is happy that he could help his friend, and imagines being there for him "all day, every day."  Well, maybe not all day, like on his wedding... he retches at the thought of watching Darwin's wedding night.  The end.

Gay Representation: Various allusions to people being pansexual, and no disgust over same-sex acts, but the main romance is between Darwin and Carrie. B+

Another random Greek guy on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

The diary and n*de black guys after the break

Chicago Party Aunt, Episode 1.5: Free-spirit Diane tries to help her gay nephew get his first kiss. Will it be with his dentist?

 

Free spirit paired with stick-in-the mud, "life is a banquet" paired with "that's not a good idea", "it's only 2:00 am" paired with "I have a big test tomorrow," has been traditional comedy since the days of Laverne and Shirley and The Odd Couple, In this case, it's Chicago Party Aunt on Netflix, pairing the free-spirit middle-aged Diane with her stick-in-the-mud 18-year old nephew, Daniel (Rory O'Malley, left). 

 I watched Episode 1.5, "Halloween Circle": Daniel tries to get his first kiss at a Halloween party.   No hope that either of the two regulars will be gay, but there might be some gay friends at the party.

Scene 1: Diane takes Daniel to get his first fake id: you have to order "two Chicago hot dogs" at a restaurant, then go through a secret door through the kitchen, a meat locker, another secret door, and into the basement, where a gangster-type offers the id for "his usual fee": a kidney.  Just kidding: $200.

Scene 2: Breakfast in their apartment. Oatmeal for Daniel,  Kahlua for Diane.  They discuss the upcoming Halloween party at Roscoe's, the best gay bar in Chicago.  Daniel is excited about his "first queer Halloween."  Daniel is gay!  I'm speechless!

Turns out that Rory O'Malley  is gay in real life.  I could have gotten that from the IMDB, which notes that he married Gerold Schroeder in 2014.

Daniel wants to get his first kiss from a random hot guy at the party: "I'll go up to him and say 'Would you like to kiss?."  That won't work, dude.  

Diane gives him some cruising tips: open with a joke, then a compliment, then a smouldering look, then the kiss. 

"I can't stay out late because I have a dentist appointment tomorrow.  Ugh!  I hate it when Dr. Gluck make jokes with his hand in my mouth."

"Cancel it!  Tonight you're going to get more than a hand in your mouth!"   

Scene 3: The hair salon where Diane works. Everyone wearing Halloween costumes. Diane bursts in and asks if they are going to the party tonight.  No, they have other plans.  

So who will Diane party with while Daniel is cruising hot guys?  "Why not ask Gideon?"

"Gideon??? That boring wet blanket?  No way!"  

Gideon, the salon manager (RuPaul), happens to be standing behind her, and criticizes her for her substance abuse and reckless behavior.  Hey, he sounds like Daniel's type.  Hint, hint.

Scene 4:  Daniel working at a coffee shop that sells beet juice and green algae.  I thought he was a teenager?  He tries cruising a hot guy, and fails miserably.   

Meanwhile, Salon Manager Gideon is on a lunch date with a guy he met on a dating app, who is discussing his bizarre diet, then: "So, any fun plans for Halloween?"  

"Face Time with my Mom back in Georgia," Gideon says.  His date is not impressed.

Back at the coffee shop, the manager asks about Daniel's lame cruising attempts.  He says that he's hoping to kiss someone tonight.  Manager advises against taking cruising advice from raunchy Aunt Diane: "She calls me Vanilla Lice, and I'm pretty sure she crop dusted the nut cheese aisle."  I don't know what that is.

More after the break

Gavin's hunky dad, brothers, and cousins show their stuff

    

Link to the n*de photos

Gavin Munn (Jonathan on Raising Dion and Abraham on The Righteous Gemstones) is lucky to have two supportive parents, willing to drive him as far as Atlanta, six hours away, for auditions and scenes. 

1. Dad Johnny is the president of Coastal Built Construction an aviator, an avid fisherman and motorcyclist, and an actor.  His screen credits include two locally-produced Pirate Kids movies, an episode of Good Behavior,  Domestic Disturbance with John Travolta.

Did I mention that he's also a mega-hunk?

2. Here he is starting to do a backflip into a very rocky pool.

3. Fishing.  You can see the family resemblance: Gavin is a freshwater fishing champ.

4. A few years ago. 

5. Gavin's brother-in-law.

6. Not sure

More after the break

Oliver!, the Boy with Soft Hands, and glorious c*cks

 

 

When I was growing up in Rock Island, Huey (not his real name) was one of my brother Kenny's friends.  Short, brown-skinned, a rarity among the pale Swedes and Germans of Rock Island, chubby, with black hair and soft black eyes, soft all over.  I especially remember his square soft hands with stubby fingers.

My brother was 2 1/2 years younger than me, and three grades below (so in 9th grade when I was in 12th).  His best friend was Todd, a sports nut with sandy brown hair and blue eyes.

Huey was in a grade below them, so three or four years younger than me, a kid who they tolerated because he was funny.

He told knock-knock jokes.

While eating orange sherbet, he stuck out his tongue to demonstrate that it had turned orange.

He made his belly talk, long before Jerry Seinfeld did it.

On cool autumn afternoons they played baseball in the school yard, and then burst into the house for snacks and sodas, sweating, laughing, gossiping.

At least once, maybe more, Huey exclaimed "Feel how cold I am!", and lifted my shirt to press an icy hand against my belly.  I jumped back, and he laughed. 

Once I tried to retaliate by tickling him.  He grabbed my hands with his hands, and we did a sort of struggling dance.   Suddenly we were rolling on the living room floor.  But the dog started barking, thinking that I was being attacked, so we had to stop.

I remember them pretending to do kung fu moves. Huey was shirtless, his belly bouncing as he jumped around yelling "Hai-ya!"   It must have been during a sleepover, but I don't remember the rest.

One spring when Kenny was in high school but Huey was still at Washington Junior High, the whole family went to see him in Oliver!  He was in the chorus of orphanage boys.  During "Food, Glorious Food," his comedic mugs and pratfalls stole the show.

Food, glorious food!  Hot sausage and mustard!

While we're in the mood, cold jelly and custard!

Peas, pudding and saveloys!

What next is the question?

Rich gentlemen have it,  boys:  Indigestion!

The whole family went to see Kenny's friend, who was just in the chorus, not even one of the stars? Why?

Was he closer to Kenny than I thought?

The full story, with n*de photos and a lot of references to c*cks, is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

See also: The boy on the Prospect List

Kayden Koshelev: Alkaio's Other Half plays a zombie, a drag boy, and a nonbinary firefighter. With Dornan and twinks

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

Mark Lester after Oliver

Drake Bell: A lot has happened since "Drake and Josh," including some gay videos

   

Link to the n*de photos

    

You probably remember Drake Bell from Drake and Josh (2004-2007), the Nickelodeon teencom about mismatched stepbrothers, with Drake the schemer ("let's break into the school and stack all the desks upside down) and Josh (Josh Peck) the stick-in-the-mud ("but we have to study for our math test").   It was loaded down with gay subtexts, including an nearly-out gay couple, Craig and Eric.  (Dudes even hold hands during a crisis).

You may have gone to his first post-Drake movie, College (2008), where he and his three friends head for a "college weekend" (a weekend of fun activities to convince high schoolers to apply).  Theirs involves nonstop shenanigans, all intensely heteronormative. At least Drake is taped to a statue of the founder with his backside exposed to the world. I think it's supposed to be humiliating.

Drake was 24 years old when he filmed the scene. 

You may have watched A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner (2011), to see how Nickelodeon would handle the gay-subtext classic.  They flubbed it.  Timmy is absurdly hetero-horny. 

And then you probably relegated Drake to nostalgic memories, not paying a lot of attention to what he's been doing for the last few years.

I checked.  Brace yourself.  It's a lot.

More Fairly Oddparents movies.

A lot of stuff with former coster Josh Peck 

A lot of voice work, especially Spider-Man in various cartoons, even Phineas and Ferb, and a video game.

An Elf named Snowflake

Ben the Wizard in Bad Kids of Crestview Academy

The reality series Splash, where celebrities dive for charity.

The paranormal series Silverwood

Damian in American Satan

A career in music, with six studio albums, eighteen singles, twelve music videos, and sold-out concerts.  Some songs in Spanish that top the Mexican charts. 

Drake's personal life after the break.  Warning: it gets rocky.  

Gemstones Episode 1.6: Kelvin sees Keefe's d*ck, and gets a big head. Sounds like a fun evening. With bonus Kenyan men

 

  
Link to the n*de dudes

Title: "Now the sons of Eli were worthless men." From 1 Samuel 2:12.  Eli was a high priest during the era of the Judges. His two sons did not perform the sacrifices properly, and had illicit sexual relations, so the Lord punished Eli by killing them. Uh-oh, Jesse and Kelvin are doomed.

Keefe's Mushroom Head:  After their Friday night encounter with the blackmailers, Jesse has their van towed to Kelvin's garage, talks to Kelvin, then fetches Judy. Jesse is wearing the same clothes, but Kelvin has changed out of his Faith Factory t-shirt. 

As they are talking, Keefe comes out of the house, wearing only a shirt and socks, eating cheese.  "What's going on?" he asks.

Jesse: "Sickening!"; Judy: "Cool mushroom tip"; Kelvin: "That shirt's not as long as you think, Bud.  Just go back inside."  We see his mushroom tip peeking out from below his shirt, and then his back side as he turns around.

Structurally, this seems to be a joke on Keefe being drug-addled, combined with a view of his privates that leads us to ask "are they or aren't they?" But in- universe, it becomes much more significant. 

First, notice that just a few episodes ago, Kelvin was terrified by the sight of Keefe's junk.  Now he is embarrassed but not alarmed.  He is used to seeing Keefe.

Second, why is Keefe wearing only a shirt and socks?  Was he in bed?  No -- when you get dressed, you put on your pants first. Getting ready for bed?  No, when you get undressed, you take off your shirt first. 

A likely scenario: After the Club Sinister rescue, the guys drop Dot off, then go home and change clothes.  Some time later, Keefe decides to move forward with the relationship that Kelvin has been suggesting,  Since he rejected an offer of bedroom activities earlier, it makes sense that he would want to start with them.  He takes his pants off, and his shoes have to come off, too.  Kelvin is so overcome by passion that he doesn't have time to take his clothes off -- he just drops to his knees.  

As they are getting busy, there's a knock on the door.  Keefe waits for Kelvin to return, gets bored, goes to the kitchen, gets some cheese.  Then he hears everyone talking and, assuming that his shirt is long enough to cover his privates, investigates.

It makes structural sense: Keefe looks for love in Episode 1.4, rejects the Satanists to follow Kelvin, and ends up in Kelvin's bed.  If Kelvin's "celibacy promise" was real, tonight he broke it, thus making his later despair more realistic.  And it would lead into the isolation tank rescue.

And it gives the siblings definitive proof that their brother and Keefe are boyfriends.  Notice that the gay implications immediately cease.

Saturday or Sunday: Rev. Seasons announces that his church is closing due to losing members to the Baby Billy's Locust Grove church.  We cut to Eli, Baby Billy/Tiffany, and BJ/Judy playing golf.  Wait -- shouldn't they be in church?  Or is this Sunday afternoon?

Baby Billy gets BJ's name wrong, and then offers Judy a job singing with him. Since he was unsuccesfull in drawing Aimee-Leigh from Eli, he's going to try it with Eli's daughter?

"This isn't normal":  Meanwhile, at Jesse and Amber's house,  Gideon comes down to breakfast with a black eye.  His parents are upset, but they don't make the connection to the car chase last night.  So it's Saturday morning?  Was the Rev. Season scene a flashback?

These timeline inconsistencies are annoying.  Let's just think about Keefe's mushroom tip again.  

More about Keefe: Kelvin's garage, several days later (queer code: there's a neon picture of a flexing bicep on the wall).  

Kelvin tells the silings that Keefe ran the van's plates -- stolen -- and got fired for it.  So he was living with Kelvin before he got fired?  Maybe he just spent the night of the Club Sinister rescue, because it was late and they wanted to be intimate?

Kelvin brags that the Nancys gave him a soda machine to thank him for bringing Dot back to the church.  Judy criticizes him for "getting all cocky," and Jesse agrees" "you have had a big f*cking head lately."  Both are double-entendre call-backs to Keefe  (unintentional in-universe, or are the siblings hinting?).  So, where did Keefe put his big f*cking head, Kelvin?   We're getting more and more structural evidence that the guys have been intimate.

They are very rude: Since the van is gone, Scotty has to live in a tent. Why doesn't Gideon spring for a cheap hotel?   Gideon tries to help him set it up, but he goes dark again: "I'm tired of this shit, and I'm tired of your f*cking family! They are very rude people!"  But at least he looks hot in a black vest with no shirt.

"It's in my uncle's garage," Gideon tells him.  Completely ransacked, with all of Scotty's stuff taken.  Scotty is irate: he needed that stuff!

Cut to Jesse and Kelvin informing the crew that they have the van. Inside they found a sleeping bag, tongs, a copy of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics (so Scotty is a Scientologist?), some potato chips, some beans, soiled Q-Tips, and yellow, crusty paper towels. Conclusion: the blackmailers are "f*cking amateurs."

Suddenly all of them get a phone call from Scotty.  He wants his van and his stuff back, or "I'm a f*ck your life in the *ss."  I'm surprised no one riffed on that.  "I'm a release the video."  Scotty and Gideon clasp hands.

Jesse doesn't think he has the video, and refuses to return the van.

More after the break

Timothy Colombos: The WITS wizard in training grows up to a world of masculine beauty. And real estate. And d*cks.

  

I started this research with just a photo of two muscular, shirtless guys and the name "Timothy Colombos." 

Colombo is the capital of Sri Lanka, so maybe he's South Asian.  

Left: n*de Sri Lankan guy on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

It's not hard to find photos of Timothy surrounded by muscular men.  In this case, nine of them.  But he's never alone, so I still don't know which he is.  Maybe the one on the far right?

Timothy's Instagram contains 12 photo dumps. He visits Greece, the French Riviera, Dubai, Morocco,.  Every photo shows men, in pairs and groups, or sometimes a roomful. 

Here he visits the Cabana Beach Bar in Thessalonika.   

Ok, there's no doubt that Timothy is gay, but what about his acting?

According to the IMDB, he's actually of Greek ancestry,  born in Manhasset, New York.  He studied at the Actor's Garage and did some commercials before being cast as Ethan in WITS Academy (2015), a sequel to Every Witch Way.

WITs (Wizards and Witches in Training) attend a standard post-Harry Potter magical academy, but with a slight difference from Hogwarts: here every WIT is paired with a Guardian:

Focus Andi (a girl), the first human Guardian: Jessie (the Chosen One) and Ben (Jailen Bates).

Andi's boyfriend Luke (Ryan Cargill, left): Sean (Andrew Ortega, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) and Gracie.

More after the break

The Tripods: John Christophers teen dystopia finds a home on British tv

John Christopher's Tripod series (The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, The Pool of Fire) was one of my childhood favorites, so I eagerly watched the 1984-85 British TV series when it appeared on PBS, part of the British invasion that also included Doctor Who, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Tomorrow People, and The Prisoner).

The plot was about the same: in a dystopian future, people live under the thrall of the tripods.  On their 16th birthday, teenagers are capped with mind-control devices so they won't rebel.  Will  (John Shackley, left) decides to flee to the White Mountains (the present-day Alps), where he can be free.  He brings two companions, his cousin Henry (Jim Baker, center) and a French boy named Beanpole, or Jean-Paul (Ceri Seele, right).

When they reach the White Mountains, Will and the German boy Fritz (Robin Hayter) are sent out on a reconnaissance mission to a tripod city.

But the differences were depressing.

There is an extraordinary amount of beefcake, but the heterosexism is rapant.

In the book, a homoromantic bond is Will's motive for trying to escape: Jack, a few months older, has been capped and no longer cares for him.  In the tv series, the homoromance is absence.

In the book, Will briefly considers staying at the Chateau Ricordeau in France, where everyone is very nice to him -- he could have a "normal" life instead of always running.  He meets a girl named Eloise, but they are just friends.  In the novel, Will falls in love with Eloise and decides to marry her. There's an entire romantic plotline.

Beanpole is also given a heterosexual romance.

In the book, Will infiltrates one of the tripod cities, along with his German friend Fritz.  They have an intense, passionate, homoromantic friendship.  But in the tv series, they are coworkers and acquaintances, nothing more.

During the 1980s Reagan-Thatcher era of conservative retrenchment, homoromantic subtexts were rare, and the "fade out kiss" emphasized even more aggressively than in the 1970s.  So I should have expected it.  But I didn't.  After a few episodes, I stopped watching.

None of the principal actors has continued in show business.  Today John Shackley and his wife live in Chile, where he works in hotel management.

"The Seven Dials Mystery": Murder on an English country estate in 1925, with a gay couple, a gay bar, Bluemel's backside, and Frodo's junk

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Note: I revised this review based on Episodes 2 and 3.

I've been trying to get into reading mysteries lately, including classic Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and The Seven Dials Mystery (1929): one of her earlier works, while she's still fumbling around to create an ongoing amateur sleuth.  A tv adaption has dropped on Netflix, starring Corey Mylchreest, who is straight but likes to pretend to be gay.  So maybe he'll be pretending here, too.

Prologue: An elderly man walks through Ronda, an Andalusian village about an hour from Malaga., with beautiful establishing shots.  He enters the empty Plaza de Toros and checks his watch, and finds a note (a picture of a clock).  Suddenly a bull rushes out and gores him to death!

Scene 1: Chimneys, a stately country house in Gloucester, 1925.  A party, with everyone wearing masks and being decadent.  Lady Caterham (Helena Bonham Carter) and her daughter Bundle hate the ghastly masks, but they had no choice; it was the idea of Lord and Lady Coote, to whom they are indebted.  Lord Coote wants to meet George Lomax, so they can form a relationship: "His Foreign Office, my steel factories." 

Lol, I can't hear the name Coote without thinking of Cornelius Coot, who founded the city of Duckburg in Disney comics.

Bundle, apparently the focus character, continues to mingle.  She approaches Ronny (gay actor Nabhaan Rizwan, right) and his Boyfriend (Hughie O'Donnell), who explain that their mate Gerry hasn't gotten up before noon all week, so they're going to prank him with seven alarm clocks hidden in various places in his room.

Next, she talks to Gerry (Corey Mylchreest, top photo, backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).  He gawks with Girl of My Dreams hetero-horniness, and tells Bundle how incredibly gorgeous she is.  Ok, so he won't be pretending to be gay in this one.  She counters that he is incredibly gorgeous as well.  

They gaze at each other for about five minutes, then he asks her to dinner, and implies that he's going to propose.  The gazing continues.  I'm fast-forwarding past it.

Scene 2: Cut to the boyfriends giggling as they hide alarm clocks in various places in Gerry's room.  Then to a card game, with Bundle and Boy of Her Dreams Gerry continuing to gaze at each other while the others chitchat. Jimmy (Edward Bluemel, left, backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) joins them.

 Then raucous Jazz Age dancing and more gazing.  

The boyfriends are not dancing.  They are engrossed with each other.  I think they're a canonical couple.

Bundle drops Gerry to mingle, then goes out into the garden. 

Scene 3: Morning.  Establishing shot of the country house surrounded by marshland.  Ronny and his Boyfriend complain of being hungover, and fill their plates.  The others arrive, equally hungover.

At 11:15, the alarm clocks go off in Gerry's room.  He's not turning them off, so they send the Butler to wake him.  Then Bundle goes.  She finds that Gerry is...dead!

Cut to the doctor (Tristan Gemmill, p*nis on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), who finds a sleeping draft next to the bed.  Gerry must have taken a draft to help him sleep, and since he was drunk, the combination was lethal.  

"Impossible!" Bundle exclaims.  "He never used sleeping drafts!"  And she knows what he did before bed because....

"Then maybe it was deliberate?" the doctor suggests.

The Boyfriend: "Well, he was stressed at work.  His boss, George Lomax, was always riding him."

"No way!  Impossible!  He was planning to propose to me."

Next up: a bumbling detective (Jake Davies, left), on his first case, ineptly examines the crime scene while making jokes.  Bundle thinks that it was a murder.  Otherwise be lousy story.

"Wait -- there are seven clocks on the mantle.  I thought you guys hid them?"  The Boyfriends glance at each other in shock.

More after the break