Fabulous Farmers! ...and minor unfabulousness.

Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge

Photo cred: greginhollywood.com

Today, a new show caught my attention that I am now officially hooked on called "The Fabulous Beekman Boys!" On Planet Green at 9PM (EST) on Wednesdays, it's a cute show about two New York City men who have been together for 10 years, and the farm that they bought in Upstate New York. (represent!) They've turned this farm into a business making and selling cheeses and soaps and other home products from their farm produce, and the show deals with their making the transition to farm life and a new business while keeping their relationship and life intact and not killing each other in the process.

The show is really sweet. Their eccentricities make for good reality TV, as they're both a little over-reactive and stubborn, (which probably was the reason they have a show in the first place.) but, I'm sure it's also very cut-and-spliced-together for the most drama possible. But, at the end of every argument, or at least end of every episode, you know that they really do love each other and the farm will live to see another day.

At first when the show started, I was intrigued because it was about a gay couple on a farm, proving that targeting demographics thing actually works. J The first topic -a gay couple- an unlikely TV show topic by itself, let alone plopped on a farm. But, as I watched, I realized it really wasn’t a show ABOUT a gay couple trying to live as a normal couple on a farm, it was just about a couple. This show says, even more powerfully because it doesn’t outwardly say it, that this is just a couple. Just two people in love living together and trying to make it all work in a lovely little village called Sharon Springs, NY, just like anybody else there. (I mean, one happens to be a New York Times Best -Seller, and the other is a former doctor who now works for Martha Stewart, but... Still. Normal.)

I also LOVE is the style of the show. That kind of Cape Cod-ish, East Hampton-y, very Ina Garten style. Their lawns aren't too manicured, but they're nicely kept. They preserve and live with the nature around them, rather than trying to control it and turn it into a cookie cutter, HYPER-LANSCAPED, anemic development style. It’s elegant, but roughed up a little, and down to earth.

(Plus, it looks like they're exclusively dressed by J. Crew, so... I'm sold.)

So, they make soaps and cheeses and other home products from their goat's milk, and the other produce of their farm, and because it's all hand made and hand-wrapped, (in one episode, Brent hand-wraps 11,000 soaps for Anthropologie, -which also shows you the kind of business they‘re doing with those 12-soap box sets selling at 64 bucks a pop) it harkens back to an era fifty or sixty years ago before things were factory made, and people cherished the little things. It's really a cool thing. (Or, a good thing, as Martha would say.) This, I think is the reason it’s on Planet Green. It goes back to the way things used to be. (But still fabulous) Because that's what it focuses on, though, the fact that they happen to be two men is almost inconsequential. Of course, they are, and that’s in now way attempted to be hidden, but it doesn’t seem stereotypical, or a gimmick. It’s just their honest mannerisms which inform the story of the show, rather than act as a gimmick to get people to tune in weekly to see the silly gay farmers.

However, I just watched one of the episodes where they slaughter two of their pigs, (named Porky and Bess... Gotta love the gays.). These two were the first pigs they’d ever owned or slaughtered, and this part of the episode was to show that “farming ain't all fun.” And, they show the slaughter, albeit in a rather tasteful, poignant manner, save for a little bit of playing up the drama factor, with off screen gun-shots, that even still didn’t seem gimmicky. It just seemed to serve to drive home the reality of farming, and raising animals. Then, we had the sad, mournful piano-accompanied montage which is customary after a death now (made me think, "...ok, I guess.") with Brent and Josh walking away wiping away tears, rain on the wildflowers, (“yeah, ok, I got it…”) a shot of the dead pigs with blood streaming out of the gun-wounds in their heads...

"wait, WHAT?!"

That was un-needed. I mean, I understand everything else, and support the pushing of boundaries to show the reality of farming in an honest, non-exploitative way, but… showing the damn dead pigs? It seems to me, if this is going to be such a plot point, how hard it is that they have to slaughter these pigs, doesn’t showing the bleeding, dying, unconscious animals that we were just so eloquently mourning negate the whole plot line, and cheapen all of the other lovely things abut the show? Bad form, I think.

And sure, all that for one four second shot out of four episodes? Well, it bothered me, and seemed to be the only slip up in this otherwise fun and understatedly progressive show. Of course, sometimes the way Josh and Brent treat each other is a little grating, but how much of that is editing?

In spite of that, I'm hooked. Fabulous Farming, Fabulous style, Fabulous people, and a fabulous new show to watch on Wednesday nights.

So YOU check it out! Wednesdays at 9PM EST on Planet Green!

Alright, until tomorrow, kids.

PEACE OUT!