Crônicas de San Francisco

This ten-part miniseries has some very high highs and some very low lows.

Back at Barbary Lane are Laura Linney as the sometimes annoying Mary Ann and Olympia Dukakis and the magical Anna Madrigal. Two superb actresses. Also back is Paul Gross, the original Brian. Michael is now played by Murray Bartlett, a huge improvement over smarmy Paul Hopkins in the previous two outings, but not as sweet as the original Michael played by Marcus D'Amico. Barbara Garrick also returns as DeDe, but she's a marginal character here.

Chief among the newcomers to Barbary Lane is Ellen Page as the tough Shawna, the daughter of Brian and Mary Ann .... or is she? We also get a complicated lesbian couple (Garcia and May Hong), a snoopy "reader" (Victor Garber). and a strange lesbian filmmaker (Zosia Mamet).

I found DeDe's misbegotten twins extremely annoying. I'm not sure if they were meant to be comic relief, but they ain't funny. There are several other recurring characters but they're not terribly important.

A few name actors pop up in one or two appearances: John Glover as an old cop, Mary Louise Wilson as the home resident, Luke Kirby as a 1960s cop, Stephen Spinella as a dinner guest, Molly Ringwald as an art collector, and Danny Burstein as Connie's old husband.

The standout episode of this series in #8, which re-enacts the infamous drag queen riot at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco. This looms as the backdrop to the flashback of Anna's arrival in San Francisco in 1966 as a 40-something woman.

And despite a largely annoying storyline that clutters the achingly sad finale, we finally clear the gaudy debris and get to the great loss we all knew was coming.

Many kudos to the indomitable Olympia Dukakis for her portrayal of Mrs. Madrigal over the decades and to Laura Linney for her chirpy performance as Mary Ann and also for producing this series.

I'm two episodes in, I'm quite enjoying it, but the flaws are glaringly obvious. I'll start with the biggest one and that is the supposed gap in decades that has occurred. I would have much preferred that it was set in the 90s or early 2000s, with the first series being set in the 70s this just doesn't add up for me. I'm finding it hard to move past it and very distracting.

The second flaw is the constant nods and winks to the younger generation and references to Instagram etc. There was an annoying pause in the flower shop when a customer paid for his purchase using his phone. This approach, which I think is intentional, is incredibly obnoxious.

Aside from these criticisms, I'm still a fan of the original material, and I am hopeful it settles down. Laura Linney rocks

I thought this production was done well and was really poignant, although at times the acting was a bit contrived. However, speaking as one who was born and raised in The City, I found this to be very "San Franciscan"... the gay, the straight and the in between. I found myself getting nostalgic and teary eyed, especially with the night scenes from the roof showing North Beach....I could just feel and smell that night air. All in all, enjoyed it.

I was very excited about this new series on Netflix, where love is standing central. Love told in many ways... new love, family love, love for friends. There are quite a lot of characters passing by in a short time, but in some way you get easily connected to their stories and all lead actors try to bring as many depth to their characters as possible. It doesn't want to be pretentious, which I was afraid of. Tales of the City does deliver some great stories. This should be clearly a series which needs more story and episodes to give some characters more space to tell their story. But, it's all heart warming and just the sort of series what we need these days. If your heart isn't made of stone, I'm sure you will melt in a heartbeat.

I really wanted to like this series and went into it with a very generous, open mind because it's the sort of series I tend to enjoy. Unfortunately the weak writing, wooden acting, constant cliches and cloyingly over-sentimentalized tropes made it really difficult to love.

I did stick with it in hopes that it would 'get better' but unfortunately it never did. A real shame because the idea had potential but it felt more like a bad after school special than a ground-breaking diversity story. It actually feels dated (in a bad way) and it's from 2019.

I gave it 7 stars because there are so few LGBT-friendly series out there I just didn't have the heart to give it less, but if I was being more honest it really doesn't deserve much more than a 5 or 6. While it does have some charming moments, it's too cutesy and devoid of grit to be truly ground-breaking.