Five5Creative Anyone who vilifies this show because they feel it paints a "stereotypical" or "negative" portrait of what gay men are like are either painfully naive or living in denial. This show is not only frighteningly accurate but smartly written, beautifully shot, superbly acted and stylishly edited.As a 47 year old gay man, I found this (unlike many other gay-themed TV series) to, at long last, finally depict characters with which I am familiar and with whom I identify on many levels.It's both raw and honest and yet tempers the darker aspects of gay life with humor and respect.As much as we would like to be perceived as no different than our straight counterparts, the reality is we are different. And for good or ill, most of us gay folk do indeed behave in the manner that is depicted in this show. It was refreshing to not see our lifestyle sugar coated.In our fight for equality, too often we try to pretend that things are not what they appear. But they are. They always have been, and they always will be. Gay men are, after all, men. And men have a single-mindedness when it comes to behavior and desire. If this show was about straight guys, we'd all say, "Well yeah. Men behave like that." But because it's specifically about gay men, so many would like to say "gay men don't really behave like that." But we do. That is the harsh reality we need to accept.I've been out since I was 20 years old. In the 27 years of being an out (and proud) gay man, I have seen and encountered all of these characters in my life and still, to this day, see and encounter them. Stop cry-babying that this show perpetuates negative stereotypes. If you don't like what you see in this show, then don't watch the show. But you will see no different in the real world. This is gay life. We love, we lose, we win, we make mistakes and we have sex... a lot of it if we're lucky. And when we're not having sex, we're looking for it. Not because we're gay. But because we're guys. Cucumber depicts what men do and how men behave when those men happen to be gay -- the joy, the misery, the heartache, the loss, the triumphs, the failures, the sex and the never-ending quest for it.That is the reality of the world we live in. Sorry if you find that harsh. That's what happens when a mirror is held up and you don't like what you see. I personally had no problem with what I saw when I watched this show. I make no apologies for who I am and what I do. I'm far from a minority of one in that respect.The problem is not with what this show portrays. The problem is that the portrayal is accurate. And that problem is, quite frankly, our problem and no one else's.Learn to live with it.

Bert Krus A friend advised me to watch this series because it was supposed to be about my life. As a gay man in my early fifties I was kind of unsure if I wanted to see this, a story about a man my age dealing with my issues. Well, I just finished the last episode and I must admit that I highly enjoyed "Cucumber". Best part of Cucumber is the great script, mostly funny, sometimes dramatic. In my opinion all important themes of gay life for a middle aged man are presented. Also the uneasy thing of the division of roles in male gay relationships and sex, who's the top and who's the bottom? Who gives and who receives? Who penetrates and who is being penetrated? Decades ago this wasn't an issue at all. I had long term relationships and I never discussed that with my boyfriends. We were happy being together. Nowadays gays want to know if you're a top or bottom. The same clarity as between a man and a woman? If you can't or wont define yourself you're going to miss sexual opportunities. In porn movies roles are defined, and so it should be in our lives. Whether or not straight rules are the same for gay sex, it's a fact that this old fashioned view on sex is now mainstream in the gay community. The tragedy about all this is that it has been scientifically proved that most gay man are in fact bottoms. So everybody is looking for a top and two bottoms don't even think about falling in love or being sexual. Oh well, everybody has to do what they must do, but I don't believe in this division.Cucumber has many more great themes, but this was the most striking for me. Cucumber is compared with that other gay series called "Looking". Looking was nicely shot and superbly styled but Cucumber dives much deeper and seriously in taboos like gay male sexual intercourse, loneliness, age gaps, career and work, narcissism, bi-curious youth, race and social media.

dcscribe8860 Back during the long-anticipated, yet ultimately disappointing (for me) debut of RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE, Season 7, CUCUMBER AND BANANA were given a sneak preview that my DVR programming had also picked up. I was tremendously underwhelmed by the RPDR debut, and was sorely tempted because of that experience, to delete everything, including the preview. However, because I try not to make snap judgments about the first episodes of shows, I decided to go ahead and give C&B a shot. Maybe I shouldn't have. I found it too loud, frenetic, stereotypical bordering on the insulting and maybe even homophobic, with unlikable characters that I could find nothing in common with. And THAT was just CUCUMBER. Don't even get me started on how I felt about the follow up of BANANA. This was sometime back in March, if I recall correctly.SO...fast forward to NOW. When my partner asked about watching something for the evening, I suggested that I had taped the 'official' premiere of C&B. I had described it to him before, and not in a very complimentary way, so I was surprised that he agreed to watch it with me. I did qualify beforehand, that if it stunk to high heaven, we could always bail out and watch something else.Wonder of wonders...we watched both parts, he for the first time and I for the second, and we both actually ENJOYED it (in spite of the ridiculous censoring of certain visuals and dialogue that were very easy to see and/or lip-read what was going on.)So, what changed for me this time around? What made me give C&B a second chance?TIME, for one thing. Not being a Doctor Who fan (though I was crazy about TORCHWOOD), I was still somewhat familiar with Russell T. Davies writing style from that and also the original version of QUEER AS FOLK. And here's the thing. Viewers need to recognize that like any other popular nighttime entertainment, C&B presents a stylized, heightened version of what we know to be real life: people, situations, consequences. Straight people know not to look to television or film for saintly, pristine, accurate depictions of the IDEAL life they imagine they have, or would like to have. Why should the situation be any different for gay men, be they middle-aged or young, living in Manchester? Real life IS complicated, messy, absurd. People make complicated, messy, absurd decisions from motivations that are likewise. I've had TIME, as I mentioned before, to reflect on all of this. I don't believe that gay men think any more or less of sex than straight guys do. Same with actually engaging in it. Part of the reason why I didn't respond well to Henry and Lance and their colleagues, was because I wasn't ready to acknowledge the more truthful components of their relationship and the interaction with their mates, co-workers, etc., that resonated sympathetically with what my partner and I go through. RTD has done a brilliant job with that part. And with BANANA, the 'flip side of the album', so to speak, it was easier to identify some of the traits of people I knew when I was in my early teens to twenties, with the exploits of Freddie and mostly, Dean...not to mention a few of those same qualities I saw in myself at that age. The reviewers that charge these shows with some kind of blatant irresponsibility should take a couple of deep breaths and reexamine their extreme reactions to what they've been watching. Is it the writing or acting they're responding to? Because in my not-so-humble opinion, both are pretty much above reproach. Or is it a nerve being struck with some of the more truthful aspects of the characters and situations being presented?Personally, I don't need or want a show that paints all gay men as some kind of sexually, morally and fiscally responsible saints, who all have adopted kids or beautifully blended families, with the neat little white picket fenced house, the minivan, the two great jobs, the fully loving and supportive families. Please. We know some of that exists, but if that's all you want to show me, SHOOT ME NOW. REAL DRAMA COMES FROM REAL LIFE. And vice versa. Gay men think about sex a lot. MEN think about sex a lot. PERIOD. And sometimes, actually more than that, it can affect what decisions they make and what actions they take. Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes not so much. A quote I heard recently perfectly sums up what is at the core of C&B. And that is taking into account the Three Most Important Keys To Living A Successful Life: TIMING, ADJUSTMENT and CONSISTENCY. The ongoing, engaging scenarios that will continue to unfold in these two shows, will be a lesson on how the characters apply those three principles to their own situations. Or not. And how well they do with the outcomes.

nothingisforbidden My husband bailed on this show ten minutes in, but I (always eager for gay stories on the screen) decided to watch the whole thing. It has been an exasperating, unpleasant, and unrewarding experience. The technical aspects and the actors are competent, but the tone is all over the place. The writing is too insipid and the character too shallow for this to work as drama. It's much too unfunny to be a comedy, even a black comedy. Nor does it work as satire; there are no moments of glittering insight. It's really a horror show, I suppose, wrenching us from one unpleasant encounter to another, climaxing with the very ugly murder in episode 6.Trying to explain this "horror show" to my husband, he put his finger on the problem. "Where's the love?" he asked. And there you have it. There is no love in this show. The two older characters, together for 8 years, clearly do not love each other, or themselves for that matter. In the mean-spirited world of "Cucumber" there is no love at all. No love of each other. No love of parents for children, or children for parents. No love of one's work. No love of the place one lives. No love of oneself. No love of sex, either, though this show pretends to be all about sex. No love of the writer for his characters, only contempt.I find it very strange that Russell T. Davies, a TV creator so successful he can surely do whatever he wants, should choose to put this particular vision on the screen. Is he really so cynical and bitter that he sees not even a glimpse of love in the "gay world" he inhabits? I remember an interview he gave when the original "Queer as Folk" was creating a buzz, and I was taken aback at how unhappy he seemed, especially for a young writer achieving international success. That unhappiness is manifest in every scene of "Cucumber."I happened to watch this series after binge-watching "TransParent" from Amazon, which blew me away with its razor-sharp observations, quirky humor, and deliciously uncomfortable but all-too-familiar movements. I was hoping "Cucumber" would be that good. Alas, no such luck.