Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - July 24, 2007
Ginia Bellafante
"Rick & Steve" uses robotic figures and stop-motion animation. And it harbors far less anarchy in its soul, mocking the normative values now favored in gay and lesbian life as wholeheartedly as it endorses them. The series isn't so much a gay "South Park" as it is a "Honeymooners" for our post-"Will & Grace" age.
Based on short films by Q. Allan Brocka, "Rick & Steve" is arguably even more conventional than that. Though set in the middle of the baby boom, "The Honeymooners" did not concern itself with child rearing, a subject so dear to the cultural interest that it is unavoidable even in comedy's most seemingly subversive pockets. It says something that the grossest joke on "Rick & Steve" thus far hasn't been about illicit sex but about procreation.
Illicit sex scares Rick and Steve, a longtime suburban gay couple who wrestle with a request from their lesbian best friends, Kirsten and Dana, to assist in the production of a baby. Another young friend is paired with an older man who is H.I.V. positive. ("You married me when it was cool to have a boyfriend with AIDS," he growls at his partner.) Everyone on the show is coupled.
Rick and Steve are married too, and they work at their monogamy. One night after they venture to a club, they return home horrified by the idea of guys in leather and the whole promiscuous scene to which they have been momentarily privy. This sends them to a couples therapist, who advises that each engage in the other's hobby; Rick's is Men-zuh, an organization of gay geniuses.
"Rick & Steve" derives much of its humor from stereotype: lesbians who yearn to get home to grout tubs and ones who seek "nondenominational cleanser." Some of it is clever, but none of it challenges heterosexual assumptions about what gay life ought to look like. The difference-versus-equality debates that factionalized nearly every social movement of the 20th century seem well over in the gay and lesbian world. "Rick & Steve" is just more proof of how forcefully one side has won.
RICK & STEVE
The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World
Logo, tonight at 10, Eastern and Pacific times; 9, Central time.
Created, written and directed by Q. Allan Brocka; Mr. Brocka and Lance W. Reynolds, executive producers. Produced by Cuppa Coffee Productions, Post Pictures and Logo.
WITH THE VOICES OF: Will Matthews (Rick), Peter Paige (Steve), Emily Hands (Kirsten), Taylor Dooley (Dana), Alan Cumming (Chuck) and Wilson Cruz (Evan).
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