Noah's Arc Season One: My thoughts

I just watched the last episode of the first season of Noah's Arc and I have mixed feelings about the show. Most of all, I'm glad that there's something on TV that gives the presence of Black gays on TV and it doesn't portray us in a negative light. There has been much talk in the Black gay community about the series. This weekend when I was at the 3MV retreat, several of us got into a conversation about the series and our thoughts on it.

The things I don't necessarily like about the show are:

• The story lines move way too fast. For example, Wade who was supposed to be heterosexual in the first episode, but ends up in a relationship with Noah in the second episode. It would have been better to build that story line up some before making them lovers.
• The acting isn't the greatest. The ones who I think need the most work is Wade and Ricky. They are both nice to look at, but the acting is less than stellar.
• They take on several social issues, but I think it may be more than the show is capable of handling at this point. It would be better if they took a couple of issues and went deeper with them, rather than cover the surface of several issues.
• Noah's voice is a bit annoying. It seems that it's overly effimiate. I didn't see the initial run of the first episode that was making the gay film festival circuit last year, but I heard that his voice wasn't as high pitched then as it is now.
• Some of the plots were whack. The one that stands out the most was the one when Chance was taking "homo thug" lessons from T-Money because his lover had a fetish for "homo thugs".

The things I like about the show are:

• I like the camaraderie of the characters and how they help each other through hard times. It's especially endearing to see because we don't see many pictures of Black men having healthy friendships like that on TV.
• On the same token, it's also nice to see images of Black men loving Black men, though tonight's episode was DRAMA!
• Though they may try to tackle too many hot topic issues that the Black gay community is dealing with, (e.g.: homophobia in the Black church, masculinity in the Black gay community) at least they are broaching these issues.
• I like Alex's character for some reason. I think because he's so witty and of all the character's he has his own little tag line, which is how he says the word "girl" when referring to his friends.

As for the season finale, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think there was lots of DRAMA!!!! (almost too much for one episode). I was a bit disappointed in Noah for cheating on his boyfriend at a sex party. It was too much when the guy he cheated on Wade with sits next to him the next day at Chance and Eddie's commitment ceremony. Speaking of which, Wade's friends completely fucked up their ceremony! I felt for poor Alex for getting played as hard as he did in front of everyone when his proposal to marry Trey was declined and then to add salt to the wound, he found out Trey was planning to move out of the country for 6 months, putting their relationship on hold. The fight between Alex and Guy I think his name is, was corny. It didn't really seem realistic at all. But it sure does seem that Guy and Trey have somethin' goin' on.

Overall, I think that the show is okay, but could use some tweaking of the storylines and acting. I also think the story lines move much too fast which makes the show seem unrealistic at times. If nothing else, Noah's Arc has caused a lot of discussion within the Black gay community. One of the things I wish they might do for the future is to add more facets of the Black gay community such as lesbians and transgender's. Not doing so only feeds into the divisiveness of our community where it seems that lesbians and gay men rarely socialize in the same circles. I do think kudos should be given to Patrick Ian Polk for getting this show onto a weekly national spotlight, even if it's on a conservative station such as LOGO. I suppose that part of my support also comes from the fact that I support Black gay media as long as it doesn't portray us in a way that I feel is detrimental to us.