Queer As Folk: The Complete U.K. Collection

Before "Queer As Folk" was a Showtime series produced in Canada, it was a British TV series set in Manchester, England, totaling 10 episodes over two seasons (eight half-hour episodes in season one, and two hour-long episodes in season two).

The original "Queer As Folk," written by Russell T. Davies, featured best friends Vince (Craig Kelly) and Stuart (Aidan Gillen, late of HBO's "The Wire" and now on "A Game of Thrones"), and Stuart's underage fling, Nathan (Charlie Hunnam, now making movies and starring in FX's "Sons of Anarchy").

As re-imagined for American cable television, "Queer As Folk" featured Hal Sparks as the comic-book-loving Michael; his best friend and longtime crush Brian (Gale Harold); and Randy Harrison as the 17-year-old Justin. All the other characters from the original series -- a supportive mother, a gay uncle, a lesbian couple, and two additional male characters, one insecure and the other flamboyant -- also had their American cognates.

The American series ran for five years, and used ideas that Davies had for further QAF episodes that were never produced, but it was arguably when the American remake moved past the story lines of the British original that it came into its own, adding new characters and tackling American political and social issues. The American series was groundbreaking, if often soapy, and its extended run allowed for much different resolutions to the various characters' story arcs.

But the British series has punch, and the decade since it was produced has done nothing to water it down. Davies' writing packs so much into these episodes, now offered as a complete omnibus collection and presented as 6 hour-long episodes, that you feel like you've watched at least two or three seasons worth of drama, comedy, and provocation.

Davies' original series is much harder-hitting and controversial than the American version. It's also more dynamic. The ending may veer off into fantasy, but this original vision of gay life without sentiment, varnish, or unnecessary stereotype has a tough edge about it that cuts deeper -- and satisfies more -- than the American version's five-season run.

Each of the three discs in this DVD set offers extras. Disc One includes "Behind the Scenes" featurettes as well as an episode of "Right to Reply," a show in which guests discuss the series and debate topics such as safer sex and underage teens seeking the sexual company of older men. There's also a segment from talk show "T4" in which Kelly and Hunnam discuss their characters. (As was the case with the American series, many of the gay characters were played by heterosexual actors.)

Disc Two includes cast filmographies and a collection of deleted and extended scenes.

Disc Three includes more deleted and extended scenes, plus a "What the Folk?" featurette and trailers.

The extras are fascinating more for the historical perspective they offer than for their actual content. At one point, we learn that before the Showtime series was greenlit there was an alternative proposal to bring the show to American television in a version helmed by action film director Joel Schumacher: Now, that could have made for some explosive viewing!