Cowlip's intentions about Brian and Justin

[nightvision55.livejournal.com]

Hi, this is the first time I've posted here so please forgive any mistakes ...

I was just wondering; in the UK original, the focus of the series was the Brian/Michael relationship, and they were the ones who ended up together. So, did Cowlip originally intend that in the US version, and did they just go with the Brian/Justin pairing because they realised how hot the chemistry between Gale and Randy was?

Does anybody know?

Comments

[bilby10.livejournal.com]

I'd love to know what CowLip's exact intentions were too. I've never read an interview where this is explicitly stated. I suspect their main intention was to re-tell the UK QAF stories in their own way, and include a few of their own (which I think they did very well in S1).

I don't know if they intended for Brian and Justin to take off the way they did. Maybe they did. In the QAF version, Nathan idiolises Stuart rather than falls in love with him. Eventually he takes over from Stuart as the king of "Liberty Ave". In S101 Justin is much softer. I don't ever get the sense that he has any intention of one day taking over the reigns from Brian. Justin sees Brian's faults from the get go, but falls in love with him anyway. IDK - I'm thinking that it maybe was intentional on CowLip's part. I also remember their comments about being careful to select a Brian and Justin that would complement one another.

The other thing I'd love to know is was Michael really meant to be the main character, or was it always meant to be Brian and Michael? To me Brian is the main character, and it kind of annoyed me, particularly in the later seasons, that CowLip always ensured that Michael had as much screen time as Brian. I would much preferred to have seen more of the other characters (Justin, for starters). I liked Michael, but he wasn't compelling enough to have had so much of the spotlight.

I suspect Hal was a yes man, and that probably paid off for him, much more than Randy's tactic of expressing his true opinions. A shame, but that is the way of the world. Yes men and women undeservedly tend to go further.