"Sophie" and her gay BFF are coming to ABC Family

Yeah, definitely meh.

Kitty

Somebody mentioned Sophie in the comments of Anthony's most recent Gays of Our Lives column, and after watching this clip, I'm really looking forward to it, and I sincerely hope ABC Family doesn't cut anything out of the show.

By the way, do we know who "Dave" is? I think he's absolutely adorable!

Check out my blog: http://radicalsexy.blogspot.com/

It is so easy to see Debra Messing in this part. Canadian sort of version of Starter Wife. 

Brandon
www.brandonshea.com
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Having lived much of my life in Detroit, I got to see a lot of Canadian television (and now that so many shows are shot in Vancouver and Toronto, we can all see a ton of Canadian actors).

Love Sara Botsford--she's always been the great Canadian ice-queen, as in her series ENG, and as a villain in Still of the Night.

Sebastian Spence is a great piece of eye-candy who most Americans got to know when his series First Wave started airing on SciFi.

Now all this show needs is David Orth, from The Lost World tv series, and of course, as the gay dad in Degrassi.

We get this show in Canada, and it is quite possibly one of the worst shows ever made.

Took a pass on this show when it first started to air on the CBC. Reviews in the paper were not the greatest and there was no mention of a gay character (why we need such a great site like AfterElton!). I believe there is a second season, only I can't tell you if its yet to air, on the air, or has aired ---that's how far off my radar this show is. The clips tend to have me keeping it off my screen. 

Wait a minute. I seem to recall that the first season was to be about Sophie finding out that she was pregnant, so these clips that you have must be from the second season.

It's a sitcom. It never moves beyond the confines and stereotypes of a sitcom. It's a well executed sitcom that to me doesn't make any of the stereotypical mistakes and has a pretty varied cast. But it doesn't have this one unique selling point.

One exception, I LOVED the storyline in season 1 about Matt's Swiss boyfriend Verner who was just hilarious. it wasn't necessarily a great gay storyline but the actor was awesome. I could watch the scene where he dead seriously stares into the camera and explains that he moved to Canada from Switzerland because he found the Swiss to be "cold and humorless". In his best Terminator voice. 

I admit I watch the show mostly because the main character's name is Sophie. And it's not bad enough for me to stop watching it. I'm just not sure if I could give anybody not named Sophie a reason to watch it. NOW if hot young doctor guy stays at Matt's boyfriend, that would be a different story... 

BFF is well written and we-acted.  I would want to see more before passing judgement in the show.  There is a definite charm about Jeff Geddisa nd certainly one from Dave of Montreal.

INSIDEGUY

Yay, Gaytime has been able to also track down the clips of the "Verner" storyline. (it's really much more funny within the context of the show where it was just a huge breath of fresh air; yes, even with the dumb switched present joke; I love Sophie coming to dinner with Matt and Verner)

http://gaydaytime.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-show-alert-sophie.html

I've watched a few episodes of this show because it comes on after Little Mosque on the Prairie.  The very first episode I thought was painfully unfunny, but I watched another episode later where the gay friend started dating Sophie's enemy across the hall, and when Sophie said they had to break up out of respect for friendship or whatever, Matt basically told her to screw off, which was a nice moment and like nothing you would see in Will and Grace.

I saw the promos for this when I was visiting my parents (on the Vermont/Quebec border) a while back and wished I could watch it - YAY! Hope it's good [I didn't even know it had gay content, just seemed very charming from the promos I saw].

I’ve been a reader of this site and of the forum postings for over a year. Today I had to create an account to reply to this post.

« Sophie » is a remake of a good French-Canadian show called « Les hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin » (The Ups and Downs of Sophie Paquin). The third season is now airing on SRC (the French speaking conterpart of the public channel CBC).

Both shows the same set, but the differences are obvious. The original version is a 45 minutes dramedy and « Sophie » is a 22 minutes sitcom.

I only saw 2 episodes of the English version, so I don’t know much about the gay BBF role, but that role is a great in the original version. I just noticed that the two actors play the role very differently. “Sophie Paquin” is sure centred on Sophie, but about half of the screen time goes to the wacky or not so wacky regular supporting characters and minor supporting characters. And Martin's story line is very interesting.

Here a summary of what happened to the gay BFF in the first three seasons (13 episodes each). Sophie’s BFF, Martin Brodeur (played by out actor Éric Bernier) is an ER doctor. At first he is scared of commitment and very cynical. He goes from one one night stand to another, hangs around the saunas (the character talks about it and we see him there are time). One day, at the ER he meets a cheesy pop star, Jean-Sébastien. They hit it off, but Martin is reluctant to start a relationship. Jean-Sébastien doesn’t give up. In the process of courting Martin, he comes out in a People’s time magazine and declare his love for a doctor. Eventually Martin let his defences down, starts healing his emotional blockages and the two date. It gets serious, Martin tells J-S he loves him, a big step for him. Jean-Sébastien writes a cheesy hit song about his love for Martin. They get a dog. Martin changes job to be more available and is about to sell his condo to move in with Jean-Sébastien when he finds out he is cheating on him with the dog trainer. Martin has his hearth broken.

In the third season, Martin and Sophie meet a judge. Martin is telling Sophie how perfect Yves (the judge) would be for her because he is a good man who has made peace with himself. When Yves rings Sophie, Martin is really surprised to find out that Yves doesn’t want to go out with her, but with him. At first he doesn’t want to go on a date, mainly because of Yves age and lack of umph. But he finally gives in. They have a great first date until Yves tells him he has a 16 year old son. Martin really doesn’t know how to deal with that news. A week a so latter goes to the court house to meet Yves and tells him he can’t stop thinking about him. They start dating. We just found out that the kid is very manipulative. Season 3 is still airing, so that is where the story ends for now.

What I love about Martin’s story line is that the character is very real, very three dimensional. We know him, know who he feels and why he acts the way he does. He evolves and it doesn’t feel rushed. The gays characters kiss as often as the straight ones. We see them in bed. And they are very present. There is Martin, his ex-boyfriend and his dog-trainner new boyfriend are still supporting characters and there is a waiter with a snobbish fake French from France accent who has been pining over Martin for years, but Martin truly doesn’t want anything to do with him. Finally, this seasons, Sophie’s boyfriend bisexual ex-girlfriend (who had left him for his own sister) and her girlfriend are also minor supporting characters.

I love this clip.  It definitely appears to be willing to go further than Will & Grace ever went, and it kind of reminds me of Will & Grace if Grace had been the central character instead of Will.

.. somebody tell me why everybody seem to not like/have liked Will from "Will & Grace"?? Eric McCormack was just fabulous and gorgeous (still is)! He is/was my favourite.

I digress - "Sophie" (kind of reminds me of "Clara Sheller") looks interesting! I for one will be watching for sure, for two reasons: Sebastian Spence and Michael Ontkean! OH MY!

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R.I.P. - Heath Ledger [1979 - 22 January 2008]

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