Tip Toe (Channel 4 drama, Russell T Davies, with Alan Cumming, bumming and David Morrissey)

A 60 year old man getting a text from a 16 year old asking for help should reply advising the police or a safe helpline to call followed by a block. I'm cringing at this.
 
i mean, I did a re-watch of Queer As Folk during lockdown and literally none of Stuart’s friends seem to have any problem with him dating a 15 year old.
 
Oh no, I've finished and now I need to wait. I think it's decent even if what we've seen be the climax is a bit over the top and it's the bits in between all that which are proving the best bits. No Densie though. Was sure it was her in the last preview.
 
rhythmbandit said:
Has he been on the ozempic? I know he's leaned up for a boxing match (against Stephen Bear) but he does look very skinny faced.
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No idea. He's probably the least appealing out of his little club of baiters (unless they do more than inject their dicks and let some gay suck them these days).
 
Episode 2 was a lot better and made me want the next one as I nearly decided not to carry on after episode 1
 
Through the first episode, a lot to like, equally some stuff that was a little bit of a stretch. Funniest bit, the erotic free audio voice on the ‘kindle’. Do we think that cold open is going to stick or will prove to be a mis-direction? It seems a push a gay writer is really going to go there..
 
Literally we went into full abort mode 7 mins before the end of episode 2 when Paul Rhys turned up because its going to be an absolute shit show isn’t it. Going to save that for when the next one is available because i suspect will want to move straight on to next episode. That decision at the top of the first episode has made the whole watch unbelievably tense.
 
Oh I really liked Cucumber - I think it was about 6 months before I split up with my 1st Husband. The thing about handing each other your phones - that CUT DEEP.
 
I found the true-story like ending “Saul met a lovely women” a bit… weird? Had it been screen tested with straights who demanded to know at least one person had a nice life in the end?

It really could have just ended and I’d have assumed they all ended up in jail.
 
Penelope said:
Also broadly helped by the characters (bar the neighbour - and maybe, who knows, the gender critical friend, but she was in it so little this episode that she's still just a bit 2D) not all just feeling like total pieces of work.
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I saw someone say today that the supposedly “gender critical” character is portrayed as generally BENIGN and willing to coexist with the transes and they/thems of the world as long as they’re permitted a bit of banter - rather than the actively hostile horror shows they are in reality. Basically the critique was that Russell has mistaken his middle-aged friends who don’t really understand pronouns for TERFs and that portraying that movement as fairly harmless in a piece of media is actually damaging. If true then I probably agree - but can probably take some solace in the fact that that lot are almost certainly frothing at the mouth about being portrayed as tolerant, reasonable people.

I probably should also watch it before mounting (:ken:) my high horse but this person’s commentary also spoiled the lot without warning :D
 
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CHRIST that was a lot. Definitely the best thing he's done in a long while (I'm not convinced It's A Sin was actually good, rather than just being about AIDS), but a lot of it was as absurdly heavy-handed as ever. I don't think it needed to lay it on quite so thick with how in the thick of it Clive was on things like being a Leaver - it could have just left some of it to be inferred.

I will say, much as the last episode did feel like it got faintly ridiculous in terms of how everything scaled (most of all - just WHY did Leo think it was remotely a good idea to go next door?!), I do think it broadly stuck the landing. Pretty haunting and feeling just close to true enough to life in where things are now - in a way Years and Years broadly didn't - that you have to hope we don't end up with something similar happening at any point soon.
 
Tetris-Rock said:
I saw someone say today that the supposedly “gender critical” character is portrayed as generally BENIGN and willing to coexist with the transes and they/thems of the world as long as they’re permitted a bit of banter - rather than the actively hostile horror shows they are in reality. Basically the critique was that Russell has mistaken his middle-aged friends who don’t really understand pronouns for TERFs and that portraying that movement as fairly harmless in a piece of media is actually damaging. If true then I probably agree - but can probably take some solace in the fact that that lot are almost certainly frothing at the mouth about being portrayed as tolerant, reasonable people.

I probably should also watch it before mounting (:ken:) my high horse but this person’s commentary also spoiled the lot without warning :D
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In the end the gender critical friend - or at least, that aspect of her character - felt pretty incidental to the whole thing. She felt a bit beyond the ones that don't quite get pronouns: there are enough snidey jibes at the younger trans character that she's definitely got a bee in her bonnet. She definitely didn't quite feel like the actual picture of proper online TERF warriors, who I doubt could even be capable of coexisting in a room with someone trans and letting things just be sometimes in the way her character was in a few scenes.
 
I really liked the first three, but found 4 and 5 pretty dreadful. The writing was too heavy handed, characters acted in ways I didn't believe - and though I believe that the ended could happen, I didn't believe it in the way it came about here. The random ginger who looked like FINNEAS was a ropey plot device. And shoutout to the hooligan with Alan Cumming's phone who managed to find damning photos/videos and screencast them to the TV at the exact points required to move the plot forward :D

The title cards were baaad. On a positive note, I thought the cast were really good. A well put together ensemble doing good work with the material.

Also this thread's title should be updated as I don't think there was any bumming? Just a small amount of straight sex.
 
I think it's the best thing he's done since It's A Sin. Agree with the comments about it being heavy-handed, laying-on-with-a-trowel stuff, and characters doing unexpected/weird things, but it feels like it's landed at exactly the right moment, and the monologues from several characters have been an excellent encapsulation of the *grind* of what it's like to be queer (Leo outside Canal St about being polite to straight men especially). Some of the things Leo did that made me scream at the TV are just about believable, as he wants to be a hero to queer youth and has the recent suicides weighing on him. The whole thing felt close enough to now, whereas Y&Y was way out there for me, albeit less far-fetched now than it was a few years ago. I didn't really get Cucumber until the final line of the whole thing was delivered.
 
The things he’s done since It's A Sin are Nolly, new Doctor Who, and that Who spin-off where Russell Tovey fucked a fish or whatever.

I didn't watch the latter but I loved all of Nolly and would probs put about half of his recent Who eps ahead of Tip Toe, and the other half below
 
I've now finished it and I thought it was really quite brilliant. Incredibly depressing, but the acting was SUPERB from the entirety of the pretty large cast and I thought some of the admittedly hasn't handed points were entirely valid and actually gave me pause for thought a few times.

The way he fucked about with Doctor Who the past couple of years and then did THIS!
 
Finally resumed this. I just don't believe any 60 year old would ask a 16 year old, let alone their neighbour, if they're having safe sex, so the escalation here (I'm on episode 3 at the end). The family all turning at the kitchen table was rather disquieting, but that's totally Russell jerking himself off. The Denise arc was also totally superfluous.
 
I understand the fear of calling the police, but not doing so with the music blasting out being another ridiculous going forward.
 
Finally finished. It just felt very heavy handed and as if it were applying homophobia from 30 years ago to today. RT biting off more than he can chew. This could have been a very different show and still have these issues and conflicts arise. I was hungry for a big old queer space drama and won't be duped by Russell again - that's 2 shows in a row I've ended up being loathe to finish.
 
I don't know. It did go a bit heavy on the kind of homophobia you don't really tend to hear much of anymore, but also it did feel quite pointed that the thing that actually got the whole thing to boil over was explicitly rooted in transphobia.
 
Watching some of RTD's interviews to promote the show (he's always good value) it struck me that he kept talking about how Tip Toe is about the violence online spilling over and infecting real life.

I think the final ep would have been more successful and believable had Clive posted online about Leo 'grooming' his son, with that then turning into an online mob spiralling into real life murder - which Clive could have still been a part of. Things could escalate believably that way, and better make the point. It's the gymnastics the script had to do to take the men from eating ASDA pizza to hanging Leo in the space of the footie half time that stopped the series from sticking the landing for me.
 
Finn said:
Watching some of RTD's interviews to promote the show (he's always good value) it struck me that he kept talking about how Tip Toe is about the violence online spilling over and infecting real life.

I think the final ep would have been more successful and believable had Clive posted online about Leo 'grooming' his son, with that then turning into an online mob spiralling into real life murder - which Clive could have still been a part of. Things could escalate believably that way, and better make the point. It's the gymnastics the script had to do to take the men from eating ASDA pizza to hanging Leo in the space of the footie half time that stopped the series from sticking the landing for me.
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Agreed. Not least because things like the ending saying a Google search for Leo would suggest he was a convicted paedophile within 18 months kind of nodded towards that kind of thing anyway.
 
I watched all 5 episodes of this so I guess I must have found something in it. There was definitely a sense of foreboding (and cringe) throughout.

I struggled to “like” it as there were so many convenient decisions made for plot’s sake and I just found it too hard to disassociate the character from Alan Cumming (who I’m not generally a fan of) not to mention the fact every time he was on screen I had a visual image of Adolf Hitler with this look his character had.
 
Just finished it. I think episodes 2 and 3 were shades of brilliant and the Denise Welsh subplot was actually one of the few times they gave a bit of interesting nuance to the way they showed Clive to be self loathing and awful (the other was the ep 4 conversation about his son being born weak) otherwise it was so on the nose and cliche it was caked on thicker than Melba’s make up.

Agree the escalation (and sequence of events) in episode 5 made it quite unbelievable and hard to not just roll eyes at, but the final message landed well and I think there was just about enough of a good story/show in there to not make it terrible.

Interesting that a lot of the narrative around it is queer people basically saying look we’re under attack and society going no you’re not you’ve got enough rights be happy
 
straightorbroken said:
Finally finished. It just felt very heavy handed and as if it were applying homophobia from 30 years ago to today. RT biting off more than he can chew. This could have been a very different show and still have these issues and conflicts arise. I was hungry for a big old queer space drama and won't be duped by Russell again - that's 2 shows in a row I've ended up being loathe to finish.
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I couldn’t disagree more with your take on it being about homophobia 30 years ago being applied today. This is literally now. Hate crimes are on the rise. Brianna Ghey was literally murdered for being trans.

You lot are a hard crowd to please. We watched this in horror over 2 nights and whilst it’s clearly heavy handed, thought it was a brilliant piece of tv.
 
I just didn't buy into the stupid decisions the characters made. I was just rolling my eyes because no one would have behaved like this in real life - starting with the decision to give your neighbour (who you don't trust or like) the key to your fucking house!
 
Debbie Jellinsky said:
I just didn't buy into the stupid decisions the characters made. I was just rolling my eyes because no one would have behaved like this in real life - starting with the decision to give your neighbour (who you don't trust or like) the key to your fucking house!
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I do agree, but if I'm being kind to Russell you could see it as a metaphor for one of the main themes of the show: the LGBTQ+ community has been encouraged to come out, be visible, be open. Which has been great, while it's been tolerated. But we've given away our keys to the straight world, said "look at us!". And now they know who we are and they still don't like us.

Am I being too kind to the writing or am I onto something?
 
Iguana said:
The LGBTQ+ community has been encouraged to come out, be visible, be open. Which has been great, while it's been tolerated. But we've given away our keys to the straight world, said "look at us!". And now they know who we are and they still don't like us. In this essay I will
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Iguana said:
I do agree, but if I'm being kind to Russell you could see it as a metaphor for one of the main themes of the show: the LGBTQ+ community has been encouraged to come out, be visible, be open. Which has been great, while it's been tolerated. But we've given away our keys to the straight world, said "look at us!". And now they know who we are and they still don't like us.

Am I being too kind to the writing or am I onto something?
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I think the world (well, in Britain at least) is broadly fine with us, which is where some of the plot stacking in the final episode fell down for me. I just don't believe everyone in that room at the end would have happily gone along with a lynching, even crowd psychology aside.

I think I agree with @Finn that an ending that had corralled an internet mob and had his community more based in that would've felt a bit truer to life.
 
A bunch of guys who are joking about bumming each other, flashing their holes out, simulating maturbation in front of each other, cheering on solo onlyfans clips, who would clearly have no issue with anyone in their family being gay, suddenly regressing to homophobia that just isn't present among a standard general group of straight-appearing lads anymore (and there was absolutely nothing in this show to indicate they were any sort of extreme group). The level of hate around today is different and arguably far more terrifying. This show didn't successfully convey this. RTD just doesn't have it.
 
it wasn’t JUST about them being homophobic though - there were implications of paedophilia and the way the militant vigilantes get out to hurt paedophiles on very flimsy evidence is pretty well documented. Yes they haven’t strung one up in this way (yet) - but people in many countries have been lynched for simply being who they are and whilst I’d like to think it wouldn’t happen here now, if the wrong people were in the wrong place at the wrong time under the wrong circumstances, then who knows what could happen.

I think it’s better viewed more like a Black Mirror episode - real world adjacent rather than the exact
world we’re in. And as a cautionary tale.
 
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