6 minutes ago, te. said:

I don't think that would've made it much better lol. Just technically legal, but I think there's a point that both Justin and Nathan in the OG are just under the age of consent (16 in the UK). Justin / Nathan are hurrying to grow up and underscores the somewhat shady morality/recklessness of Brian / Stuart.

Well I admit, that’s just my personal preference, not that it definitely should have been that way. There’s a big difference between 17/high school and 18/college. I actually felt the same way about Holly and Doug III on Days 😂😂

I had no problem with the age gap, but the high school element… that’s a different story

Edited Sunday at 10:29 AM2 days by AbcNbc247

In the US QAF, I think the problem with Lindsay and Mel was that they were the only lesbian regulars so the show was stuck keeping them together and/or breaking them up for short periods of time. Of the two, the show did seem to do a better job with connecting Lindsay with the rest of the canvas due to her long time friendship/unrequited love for Brian, her being a mentor of sorts for Justin, and her friendly rapport with Emmett, Ted, & Michael. If I recall, Lindsay was bi.. or leaned more bi and the show never really focused/developed that aspect of her character.

The only time I thought the show made somewhat of an effort to incorporate Mel into the canvas was during the brief season 1 arc where she and Lindsay broke up and she became friends with Ted with the two hanging out at Bablyon while Emmett was trying to turn straight and met a woman also trying to go straight. And the woman was likable and cute and she met Mel at the Babylon and it looked like maybe the two might have hooked up, or could have hooked up... but then she wasn't seen again.

@te. The Peacock version had potential... but it was so focused on checking off every diversity box that it didn't think to develop the characters nor think out long term story arcs for the characters.

On 6/21/2026 at 1:51 PM, Soaplovers said:

In the US QAF, I think the problem with Lindsay and Mel was that they were the only lesbian regulars so the show was stuck keeping them together and/or breaking them up for short periods of time.

Yeah and that's the reason why the lesbians were marginalized in the original show. I can see why the US writers wanted to expand on them (particularly in the first two seasons when they had 20+ episodes), but there's only so many perspectives a show can have. Ultimately, gay men and lesbians have different scenes and don't really interconnect that much, at least in cities that have thriving gay scenes (like Pittsburgh apparently does?). I think tv shows often have the issue with wanting to portray the "community" as more coherent than it is, which often leads to them wanting to do too much and end up doing nothing at all. Even with 22 episodes, it's still an hour long show once a week and there's only so much you can do in that time - adding a proper lesbian scene around Lindsay and Mel clearly would've taken time away from the main crew.

Hell, they ended up struggling writing for Justin as the seasons went on as it made no sense why he wouldn't start having his own set of friends around his age that he'd go out with instead of hanging out with people who are 30+. Even Daphne barely appeared in the later seasons.

Oddly enough, I think if they wanted a diverse show I think the best option would be to base it in a city that doesn't have a large gay scene as it would make more sense why a "diverse" set of people would hang out and create their own scene in some Southern small town swamp.