Vicious

Sir Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi star in "Vicious," also starring Frances de la Tour.

McKellen and Jacobi play, for want of a better term, two old queens, and de la Tour plays their upstairs neighbor Violet. McKellen's character, Freddie, was an actor with so-so success who talks about his fan mail ("You only had one fan," Stuart (Jacobi) reminds him. "Yes, but he wrote a lot of letters," Freddie says.) In the episode I saw, the two were mourning, if that's the right word, the death of an old friend who apparently had been the lover of Freddie at one time, though he also managed to have two wives and six children. "Wasn't there a wife?" Penelope (Marcia Warren) asks. "Oh, yes," Stuart says, "but that was only for 19 years." Basically, it's the two guys throwing insults at one another and having a bad reaction when someone opens the curtains and lets in the light. The one-liners for the most part are very funny, delivered by two great actors who are obviously enjoying themselves camping it up.

I have to say I found it quite enjoyable, funny, and on a higher level than some of the comedies on TV today.

It's deliciously vicious, this "Vicious" series from the Brits. And no one does "camp" like the Brits. Between Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi, we have "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe" meeting "Will and Grace," with the former coming out better, higher, funnier.

Sharp, very sharp, screenplay and the biting, scathing retorts to these who longtime partners is at once horrifying yet all this ends up in an "ab fab" understatement: they really are more than partners; they are friends. Kudos to them for chancing such roles and kudos to the writers for being so "spot on." (And what's NOT to like about Ash!)

Here's to a continuation of this series.

I give this an 11/10 because it was so much more entertaining to me than most shows I watch. I laughed a lot in every single episode and loved all of them by the end (which seems bizarre at the start, but really it's inevitable by the end).

The show takes stereotypical things and people and plays them very well, turning them into characters that I'd love to see come back for another season. It is original in that its main characters are almost all 70+, and that the main two are gay men, but they're all played as people who happen to be those things, not totally defined by them.

If you don't have the necessary sense of humor, you will be confused and/or offended by the show. But if you understand it, it's incredibly funny, relevant, and you'll see that the people are all very loving with each other (in a crazy way).

It doesn't have a massively dynamic, ever-changing cast of characters with deep plots - it's about two people living their very ordinary lives together. They do it so well that it makes it extraordinary for me.

So, I recommend this and I hope you give it a chance or three.

What a delight to see Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi having a wonderful time because their pleasure is our pleasure. A gay Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf 48 years together in constant battle with each other but unable and unwilling to have it any other way. Love is all there is and when love has been constant between two people nobody can understand why they are together. They know. I love them, together. They are surrounded by spectacular actors and actresses playing hysterically funny characters without lowering the standards that they themselves represent. A special valentine to Frances de la Tour and Marcia Warren.

I went into this one without any idea of what I was in for. I had some time to kill and found this on my DVR so I decided to check it out. I'm the kind of person that will watch nearly anything at least once even if I have no idea what the show is about or who's in it. I put it on without bothering to read the info and was shocked right away to see Sir Ian McKellan's name on the cast list. I love this man. I have never seen him in anything I haven't loved. Then the show started and I found myself wondering what the heck I was about to watch and how the heck it ended up on my DVR. By the end of the first episode, I was madly in love with Vicious.

I get why people are having a hard time with this show. From the moment the first episode started, I wasn't entirely sure what I was watching. It isn't what one would expect to see on television these days. It's definitely hammy and over the top but I think that's what I liked about it most. It's ridiculous and I think the ridiculousness is what makes it so brilliant. All that out of the way, this is not a show everyone is going to love. If you want a well acted, thoughtful sitcom that pokes fun at life but still takes itself seriously in the end, you should skip Vicious. If you're looking for a bit of silly fun, definitely check it out.