The Good

The Bad

Queer As Folk - The Complete Fourth Season continues on where the others left off with the characters you have come to know and love if you follow the show. I had never seen a frame of the show in my life until the folks at Movieweb saw fit to bestow this DVD box set on me. I must say I came away with a greater appreciation for this show, and I feel that my eyes were opened to many different aspects of the “gay lifestyle”. I never watched “Sex and The City”, but I always felt that the quick moments I saw between the 4 girls were always mean spirited and left a bad taste in my mouth. I guess I assumed Queer As Folk to be the same way, mainly because I had heard that “Sex” was in fact mostly scripted by gay men. Let me say that once again that I was wrong.

I found the relationships in Queer As Folk - The Complete Fourth Season to be very interesting to say the least. I didn’t find them off-putting and I think truthfully that they were quite genuine. Basically, as a newcomer to the show I put together that all the relationships happen around the main character Brian Kinney. He is going with a guy named Justin and together they have some things to work out within their relationship. Another interesting subtext was the relationship between Michael and Ben. Ben is ill and Michael is a cartoonist who is starting to have success with a comic book he does that features a gay superhero. There are other interesting subplots with different characters from the show, but I feel to get in to all that here would be to give too much away.

I enjoyed watching Queer As Folk - The Complete Fourth Season and since I get SHOWTIME at home, I am going to do my best to try and continue to watch it. Now, if only someone could tell a straight male like myself what “Queer As Folk” means? Is it some inside joke or is just a roundabout way of saying “Queer As F**k”?

Features

No extras came with this DVD box set.

Video

Full Frame. For some odd reason I thought I recalled this show being in widescreen? I guess maybe this is just me thinking that any show on SHOWTIME is automatically in this format. The transfers of this DVD looked very good. The picture quality was very crisp and I often found myself looking for “pan and scan” movements where there were none. I really like the different use of colors in this show. I feel that it really helped to differentiate the various characters that make up the episodes, while also underscoring various aspects of their life conditions.

Audio

This is Dolby of some sort, I suspect, but unfortunately I am unable to deduce exactly what kind. The sound is quite solid. Once I got the volume adjusted on my TV set, I didn’t have to adjust it again until I was done watching the episodes. It is mixed quite well with all the dialogue and the underlying audio. I like that there aren’t any real bells and whistles with this DVD box set. I say this because it is nice to just have the episodes and not be overwhelmed by the supplemental materials. As someone who had never watched this show before, I feel that starting with Queer As Folk - The Complete Fourth Season was a good initiation.

Package

This cover looks suspiciously like the cover for the show One Tree Hill. Everyone is just sort of laying on everyone. Nothing too crazy, although I am sure that there is enough about this to grab the eye of anyone who might be interested. The back features a brief description of the show as well as some DVD technical specifications. All in all the packaging is solid if not spectacular. I am sure if this was the last season of this show then things might look a little bit different, but as they are, the packaging for Queer As Folk - The Complete Fourth Season is just fine.

Final Word

As I said, I had never seen an episode of this show before. I was pleasantly surprised and I will probably watch a few more episodes as I can find them on SHOWTIME. I think that a show like Queer As Folk serves many purposes. A) It gives people who are like the characters in the show a place to see TV that represents them(although this is surely very subjective), B) It shows people like me an alternative lifestyle and C) It demystifies many of the preconceived notions that seem to be inherent in a such a lifestyle.

I feel that Queer As Folk - The Complete Fourth Season did a great job of this. I don’t know too many gay people so I am not sure how “right on” it is, but I tend to think that it obviously pleases it’s audience otherwise why would the show be in it’s fourth season?

Good job SHOWTIME for staying ahead of the curve once again.

Queer as Folk was released .