(courtesy YouTube (c) Showtime / paramount+)
SNAPSHOT
Created by Oscar nominee Ron Nyswaner, based on the novel by Thomas Mallon, Fellow Travelers is an epic love story and political thriller, chronicling the volatile romance of two very different men who meet in McCarthy-era Washington. Matt Bomer plays handsome, charismatic Hawkins Fuller, who maintains a financially rewarding, behind-the scenes career in politics. He avoids emotional entanglements – until he meets Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey), a young man brimming with idealism and religious faith. They begin a romance just as Joseph McCarthy & Roy Cohn declare war on “subversives & sexual deviants,” initiating one of the darkest periods in 20th-century American history. Over the course of four decades, we follow our five main characters — Hawk, Tim, Marcus (Jelani Alladin), Lucy (Allison Williams), Frankie (Noah J. Ricketts) – as they cross paths through the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, the drug-fueled disco hedonism of the 1970s, and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, while facing many obstacles in the world…Fellow Travelers is a series created by American writer Ron Nyswaner (screenwriter of Gross Anatomy, Love Hurts, Philadelphia, The Painted Veil, Filthy Gorgeous, Freeheld, My Policeman; TV writer on Ray Donovan, Homeland). Adapted from the novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon. Featuring episodes directed by Uta Briesewitz and Daniel Minahan. Nyswaner and Bomer executive produce along with Robbie Rogers (All American, My Policeman). Daniel Minahan (Halston, American Crime Story: Versace) executive produces and directs the first two episodes. Co-produced by Fremantle with Showtime, Fellow Travelers was made in Toronto. (courtesy First Showing)
Love stories are engrossing but they’re even more engrossing when set over a lengthy period of time and with all kinds of wider issues at stake.
While love on its own terms is big and huge enough to be arrestingly watchable, mix it with the great tide and pull of history and you place it in a real world context where it is truly tested for what it is.
I knew next to nothing about the novel or the story, beyond the synopsis above, but the trailer, which in its short runtime and extremely limited narrative spread gives us so much longing and lust and hope, promise a truly extraordinary story in the offing.
Fellow Travelers premieres soon on Showtime/ Paramount+
firstshowing.net/2023/matt-bomer-jonathan-bailey-in-fellow-travelers-lgbtq-series-teaser/