I caught Tales of the City when it was repeated late night on Channel 4 in the UK. I had no idea what it was, I thought it was a film, but it looked good, so twenty minutes into watching it, I set the video and went to bed...
I decided that my sister would probably fancy Michael (Marcus D'Amico). It turned out when we watched the video that he was a British actor who had been on a UK series and already knew him and really fancied him! (the TV series was Murder Most Horrid. My sister tends to go for very obscure actors)
A couple of years later, my sister got cast in a small part in a play at the local theatre. She dropped out after a while because there were too many rehearsals. Then she read some publicity in the newspaper for said play. She said to me as she was reading it, "Linda, who's Marcus D'Amico?" His name was listed on the cast list in the newspaper.
I (who have a memory for such crap as actors my sister fancies) replied: "Oh, he's that actor, off Tales of the City, that you really fancy?"
My sister said "Doh!" It turned out the lead actor in the play she had dropped out of (a production of "Vertigo") was indeed Marcus D'Amico. She said he had referred to himself as "Marc" or "Marcus" but he had had a beard and longer hair and hadn't really looked like his normal hunky self! So she hadn't recognised him! But he had been very nice to her and after she dropped out he saw her around the theatre and told her she was missed!
Being part of the youth theatre attached to the theatre we managed to get free tickets to the play, and there was Mr. D'Amico in all his clean-shaven, scrubbed glory, and I could hear the sound of my sister kicking herself as we watched quite a good production, minus her!
I've read all the Tales of the City books now, they did go downhill a bit towards the end (and for me, there was nowhere near enough time given to the lesbian characters!), but they're good fun and so different to everything else out there. I really loved the first series, I bought the videos (only £5 each in an HMV sale), but I felt the cast and script weren't as strong for the second series.
Do any UK kitties know if Further Tales of the City has aired on Channel 4 yet? I am pretty sure it has aired in the US but not here. I wonder if there are any plans for Channel 4 to show it?