Underwhelmed

I've been watching Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City miniseries on DVD and I find it totally underwhelming. I haven't read any of the books (which is surprising because I have read and do read a lot of gay-themed fiction), but I decided to watch the miniseries to see if I should read the books afterward. Uh, no. I'm up to episode four and I have found episodes 1-3 to be really boring (especially the scenes with Olympia Dukakis--I've started fast forwarding through those). Also, a lot of the acting isn't good and the story lines just aren't holding my interest. I'm sort of interested in the relationship between Billy Campbell and his boyfriend, but even that isn't great. The recently fired NCIS actor Thomas Gibson is very good looking in this miniseries, but his love triangle with Laura Linney and his wife feels like a soap opera plot. I read he goes gay later in the series, so maybe things will pick up after that happens.

I never read any of Maupin's books because I didn't think I'd enjoy the stories enough to finish any of them, so I passed. Apparently the Tales books and the miniseries were a big hit with the public. I guess the miniseries was groundbreaking for its time (1993?) with the gay-ness and nudity, but now it seems cheesy and cliched.