Watching "Heated Rivalry," I can't help but think of "The Outs," a better gay series.
In "The Outs," two young men meet and start dating. They both begin to get their respective acts together. The most moving scene has one of the guys getting ready for a job interview. He recalls an episode just outside the subway; as he had packed his backpack, he had omitted his stash of drugs, because he had recently started giving actual thought to his choices. (This is a function of being in a healthy relationship.) At the subway turnstile, cops were checking bags. The young man saw that his day--in fact, his life--could have taken a bad turn. But it didn't. This is just a small moment between two characters, but it feels like real life. Someone with a laptop computer gave careful consideration to this scene.
In another interlude, a young man is living in Brooklyn with a roommate he doesn't really know. Topics for chit-chat are banal: a gross colleague who regularly sneezes into his office trash can, the problem of overhearing one's ex as the ex enjoys being on the receiving end of a handjob. Suddenly, this roommate bond is interrupted; the roommate is found dead in his bed. The absurdity/shock in the script feels like something from actual life.
"The Outs" has a quality that "Heated Rivalry" is missing: a point of view. Although it's less slick than "Heated Rivalry," "The Outs" is a better series because it is a passion project. The makers are clearly enjoying their work; they're not thinking about fan service. At the least, "Heated Rivalry" is valuable because it raises questions about more successful scripts: it makes you think about what works and what falls flat in the world of narrative art.
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