It's a Sin

The prolific Russell T Davies returns with his best series yet, a moving and entertaining exploration of the 1980s AIDS pandemic, which always remembers the human beings at its heart.

The show is about people, not positions, but it’s about people who learn the price of taking a position, a stand, as well as people who pay the higher price of not doing so. All this without cant and speechifying. Plus it’s really funny and truly moving. Bravo.

Alexander and West, especially, are gifted climactic arias brimming with heart-rending poignance and righteous clarity. Still, there’s something about It’s a Sin that feels summative, as if this is the work that Davies has been building to since he broke out of his own creative closet over two decades ago. And we’re all the richer for his effort.

It is a series intimately in conversation with life and death, with the possibility of youth and the injustice of quashed potential. It is celebratory of the LGBTQ community, unabashedly sexy and fun, but moving and somber when it needs to be. And it's certainly not a sin.

It’s a Sin—which is easily the best season of TV I’ve watched so far this year—gets the big, emotional moments and moral arguments right.

As a vital television document about AIDS and the hard-earned freedoms that were crushed on human and systemic terms — and as purely just a piece of masterful writing and acting — “It’s a Sin” is right up there with Tony Kushner’s epic “Angels in America” as must-see queer viewing. It’s capable at once of breaking your heart, putting it back, then breaking it all over again.

Perfectly-paced, devastatingly written, and played to perfection by an ensemble cast that doesn’t miss a beat, It’s a Sin is a near-flawless piece of television, and an unmissable portrait of both queer youth and the tragedy of the AIDS crisis that will leave you gutted in the best way possible.

The series demonstrates once again Davies’ masterful control of tone, shifting in five episodes from joy to the harder-won pleasures of solidarity in the face of crisis to — finally — tragedy. ... Davies has once again made great and painful art about time’s passage, and has earned the attention of anyone who wants to learn more about what the 1980s were like for gay people — or wants to connect, deeply, with a raw and rounded humanity in all its beauty, complexity, and fleeting joy.

Davies’s skill with structure is on full display here; the first installment is an immaculate introduction that builds and builds and ends with a wallop. His consistent cleverness, rather than coming off glib, charges the work with immediacy and verve. The storytelling is urgent, with few wasted moments. ... This is a stirring requiem for the dead, shot through with defiant life.

It’s testament to the show's quality that I felt the deaths of minor characters as deeply as the fates of the leads.

It’s a Sin looks set not just to be to Queer as Folk’s companion piece but its companion masterpiece.

It’s a Sin is a tragic, albeit masterful, retelling of the AIDS epidemic. Introducing a hearty slew of characters, the series sends viewers through an electric tizzy of nightclubs, parties, and sex, all with a coming-of-age togetherness that binds us to this ensemble of wild young folks.

“It’s a Sin” offers one of the most honest, moving takes on the AIDS crisis and in its final episode delivers a searing critique of the shame that ensured the disease’s spread.

“It’s a Sin” is essentially a radiant coming-of-age story balanced with the sense that the party could end sooner than later. It's an often potent mix between that sense of feeling totally alive amongst your friends, especially at such an independent age, with the gravity of an epidemic that they don’t understand, that they aren’t informed about.

In five brisk and often devastating episodes encompassing that fateful decade [the 1980s], Davies whips between outrageous scenes of hedonistic raunch and stark moments of confusion, sorrow and terror. [15 - 28 Feb 2021, p.11]

The cast’s performances are uniformly terrific, with Alexander and West in particular embodying the youthful radiance the virus slowly steals from its victims. It’s a Sin remembers how brightly, and how briefly, they lived.

After the joy-to-horror onslaught of the first three episodes, the latter parts struggle to balance big speeches with one absolutely ridiculous (if quite cheeky) bit of anti-Thatcherite rebellion. ... At its best, though, It's a Sin brings a unique mix of poignant enthusiasm and simmering sorrow to its tale.

It’s A Sin is an emotionally resonant look at how the young gay community in London lived their lives with the constant threat of AIDS over their heads. The cast has great chemistry with each other, which will help strengthen their stories.

It’s a Sin isn’t trying to jolt a reaction out of its audience the way The Normal Heart urgently needed to. For better or worse, the miniseries is sweeter and more sentimental. It’s not asking for action or apology, but for humanity to remember the joy that all the Ritchies, Roscoes, and Colins brought to this world, and to never let it be erased.

Tragedies in theory shouldn’t be much fun, but with It’s a Sin, the parts that will make you smile are at least as important, if not more so, as the ones that will make you cry.

“It’s a Sin” is an intimate period ensemble drama about families of choice that’s in league with some of the better evocations of the dawning of AIDS in the gay community, including “Parting Glances” (with Steve Buscemi) in 1986 and “Longtime Companion” in 1989.

As pure drama, it leans too heavily on its recreation of the period. We wait to discover if any of the characters, who err towards archetypes, will be capable of surprises. In the meantime, it’s enough to be reminded that a terrifying disease is all the more reason to find joy where you can.

Even genre-bending as much as it does would normally be a challenge, but It’s A Sin pulls it off through its smart script and its brilliant performances.

Although It’s a Sin hoards its tragedy for certain kinds of characters, it is more willing to distribute even shares of its delight. It’s what saves the series for me. Characters like Roscoe and Jill are so frustrating — the series does not care enough about exploring their inner lives or letting them share the spotlight. But it does let them share in the joyful parts. It’s not enough, but it’s not nothing.