It's a sin... [MNHQ Warning: contains spoilers]

[sandybeaches74]

Is it not the most moving tv series in a long time? I've sat here tonight wiping tears away and am not normally the overly emotional type...

It’s not a true story though - Jill is real but the rest are just characters. Choosing to insert one woman, whose only role is to support the male characters, IS token. Can you imagine if it was an all white cast and there was one black character who didn’t have any storyline beyond doing the cleaning and acting as an emotional prop?

absolutely brilliant and exceptional tv.

loved and cried every episode.

but i do agree on jill- especially as i keep seeing #be more jill everywhere.

the only character who never shags nor has romance nor anything? her existence is support for boys. she's universal stereotypical good girl 'mum'.

still loved it though, extraordinary story-telling, heart-breaking.

Enjoyed it on the whole but like a pp, found Ritchie’s admission that he slept with people knowing he had AIDS and would likely kill them, really uncomfortable. In fact, I really disliked his character entirely. Loved the others though, especially Colin.

Interesting to hear people’s thoughts about Jill. I thought she was a good character, didn’t know she was based on a real person. I didn’t think of her as a token woman at all. She came across as a loyal, level headed, caring person.

The Jill scenario is a bit strange in that she appears to have no private life other than with her flatmates and the other gay men. I suppose it’s not about her though.
Also, it was the 80s when women took a more subservient role.

But it wasn't Jill's story. So it didn't need to be about her history and her relationships, other than that between her and the men. It was about them. If there had been scenes of Jill having sex with men then it would have had no relevance, unless they were the gay men we saw having sex with other men.
And some of the men were based on real people too. And all of their "stories" were based on events that RTD and his friends experienced.

@FolkSongSweet

It’s not a true story though - Jill is real but the rest are just characters. Choosing to insert one woman, whose only role is to support the male characters, IS token. Can you imagine if it was an all white cast and there was one black character who didn’t have any storyline beyond doing the cleaning and acting as an emotional prop?

It is based on Jill Naders experience, calling her token and a prop is awful and choosing to reduce her lived experiences as a human being.

It's called critiquing a story - and you can do that whether its based on real life or not.

The Dig is also a marvellous piece of TV - but they also chose to change two female photographers to one young male, they chose to take twenty years of the main female character, and made an experienced female excavator, a naïve newlywed. It's ok to talk about this presumably?

Its a Sin was (long overdue) brilliant 3-D representation of how Aids swept through the gay community - it doesn't mean it brilliantly represented the women who were there. - Maybe it doesn't have to but yeah, there is a discussion to be had.

To the poster who found the story predictable - of course it is predictable, it's about the AIDS epidemic in the 80s and there's only one way it is really going to end. I do think some grossly under-estimate just how much AIDS ravaged the gay community.

This is a picture of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus.

"The Gay Men’s Chorus posed to illustrate the impact of AIDS. Those dressed in black, with their backs turned, represent those who had died. Those dressed in white were still alive when this picture was taken in 1993. However, just three years later in 1996, all their backs would be turned because the obituary list is now 47 names longer than the chorus roster. For each man singing these days, more than one chorus member has died of AIDS."

Anyway, back to It's a Sin.

I think this is one of the most moving and heartbreaking things I've ever seen on tv. Watched it twice now, and sobbed even more the second time. As others have noted, it draws a few interesting parallels with COVID too.

Gonna start binging on this tonight with DH. Can't wait

I didn't find it predictable at all - and I loved it for that. As a PP said, I actually gasped at the end scene with Ritchie's mother and Jill.
I was also shocked at the Colin - football t.shirt bit - (even though it had been 'seeded' so i shouldn't have been.) And the way it presented as epilepsy at first - and his happiness at the photocopier...
It was in many ways very familiar - but then the familiar was twisted and something new was achieved. It really was exceptionally well done, with a great attention to detail.

Sorry hope there are no big spoilers there.

It was an incredible watch. My heart broke for Colin and his mother.

The Dig is also a marvellous piece of TV - but they also chose to change two female photographers to one young male, they chose to take twenty years of the main female character, and made an experienced female excavator, a naïve newlywed. It's ok to talk about this presumably?

That's not really the same thing.

Why?

It's possible for a programme to be both brilliant and sexist and that's exactly what It's a Sin is.

Changing women into men/making them younger is erasing them completely from the story.
Not really the same as having them there campaigning, supporting.
If they had removed Jill completely and had Dave instead it would be comparable imo.

No, I think its all part of looking at the choices writers make in the cause of the story.

those choices can be very revealing, and yes, they should be and are up for debate.

@SimonJT my point is that the real Jill will have been so much more than a prop for the men, but we didn’t see that in the way she was depicted in the programme.

And besides, it wasn’t a documentary so the fact the character was based on a real individual doesn’t mean that it did or even intended to reflect her “lived experience”.

Clearly the writer made decisions about how to portray her and we didn’t get a sense of the whole person there. Given that she’s the main female character I think that’s pretty disappointing.

I can't believe some of the comments on here about the Jill character.Especially the 'token 'one.Maybe because I'm the same age as the real Jill ,remember this time all too well.And know women whose absolute best friends were gay men. If anything this reminded me of them .And if the Jill character liked to look after her friends and was practical - and pro-active too in helping her friends campaign for and get treatment - then that doesn't make her some downtrodden skivvy.

And actually FolkSong it didn't just show Jill cleaning and being a prop.It showed her studying,starting her own acting career,her great relationship with her parents.Her absolute humanity.I can't take umbrage that she was seen wearing rubber gloves and standing at the sink.

Obviously we have different opinions about this. We didn’t “see her studying” - she was at uni with Ritchie but didn’t have any scenes studying. We saw her on stage once. She was on screen more than any other character but always in service to the men in some way - helping Ritchie get with Ash, supporting him in his relationship with his parents, caring for Gloria including cooking and cleaning, nursing Colin and then Ritchie. And in the scenes where they were all just hanging out together at home she was the one tidying up after everyone. Personally I thought it was a shame that she wasn’t more complex than that.

I completely agree, it would have been nice to get to know Jill a little better. Yes we know she was studying and she had nice parents but that really seemed it. Typical of Russell T Davies really, as big a fan of his as I am he just doesn't seem to know how to write women.

However I absolutely loved this show, and the feeling I was left with after the last episode has stayed with me and I think it will for a long time.

Did anyone else like the fact Ritchie was an extra in Doctor Who?

Nice touch RTD

@RedWhineandgo

Did anyone else like the fact Ritchie was an extra in Doctor Who?

Nice touch RTD

It was paying homage to Dursley McLinden.

My dd was overjoyed. We both remember the episode.