Befitting its title, Kit Williamson’s new indie TV show, “Unconventional,” centers two queer couples building out lives and families that don’t quite fit the mold.
Williamson plays Noah, a grad student feeling adrift in his life in sunny Palm Springs. When his husband, Dan (James Bland), tees them up to bring a third into their bedroom (a go-go dancer played by the sexy Constantine Rousouli) and another kind of third into their home (Dan hopes the two will adopt a kid they’ll raise together), Noah’s own insecurities and anxieties flare up. And that’s on top of learning he’s finally helped his sister Margot (Aubrey Shea) and her wife, Eliza (Briana Venskus), get pregnant.
This may be a modern family, but it is not a conventional one.
“I’m not personally very interested in conformity, in making myself palatable to straight people,” Williamson says over the phone from Joshua Tree. “I grew up in Mississippi, and when I left home at 16 and moved to New York and found my partner [now husband], we set out to live our lives on our own terms. That’s something that’s very important to me. I don’t think we should water down our experiences in order to be relatable.”
Williamson’s follow-up to his YouTube-turned-Netflix series, “Eastsiders” (a queer cult classic of the early streaming era), had as unconventional journey as the messy queer characters it centers. So it’s fitting that “Unconventional,” premiering Tuesday, will be Revry’s first full-length scripted series.
And if you’re wondering what Revry is, the team behind this self-styled global streaming network for LGBTQ+ content knows you’re not alone.
“We’re not insulted at all to know that a lot of folks within our community are still not super aware of us,” says Revry’s co-founder and Chief Content Officer Christopher Rodriguez over Zoom. “That’s totally fine. I think that’s changing very rapidly, which is really exciting. I think it’s the right moment and ‘Unconventional’ is the right entry point for a lot of these audiences.”
Founded in 2015 by Rodriguez, Damian Pelliccione, Alia J. Daniels and LaShawn McGhee, Revry offers ad-supported channels and apps on major streaming platforms and devices.
“We built it like a tech company, essentially, but for media,” says Pelliccione, the network’s chief executive. “And there were a lot of strikes against us being in — I don’t like using the word ‘niche,’ but, you know, specialized media. Or, as Tracy Gilchrist says, ‘queer media.’ It’s very obviously hard for mainstream investors to really wrap their heads around what viability and opportunity really looks like.”
With just over 15 million monthly active viewers (75% of whom are under the age of 45, according to the network), Revry prides itself on being free. The hope is to keep the barrier to entry low and welcome as big of an audience as possible — something that has been key to its growth over the last decade.
“Free advertising-supported streaming televisionwasn’t even really a thing at that time,” recalls Daniels, who is Revry’s chief operating officer. “But, we’ve grown with this industry in a really beautiful way that’s allowed us to be incredibly nimble. And we were doing things that I think a lot of the big studios and distributors still haven’t really figured out.”
The Revry founders are as happy to talk about, as Pelliccione stresses, “the power of the pink dollar” and collaborations, with brands like McDonald’s, Nike and Lexus, as they are the creative core focus of their endeavor.
“We have a lot to offer in terms of entertainment,” Rodriguez says. “That’s what we’re trying to do, and that’s what we want to be associated with. Not education. Not finger wagging. We really just want to be ourselves. Be bright. Be colorful. Be entertaining. Hopefully everyone will kind of get that message.”
Offering fan favorite shows like “Absolutely Fabulous” and the OG “Queer as Folk” alongside original series like “Drag Latina,” a competition series hosted by “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alum Carmen Carrera, and “Halloween Ball 2024,” a vogue sports competition shot in downtown L.A. featuring ballroom legends Dashaun Wesley and Leiomy Maldonado, Revry is pitching itself as a one-stop shop for vibrant and unapologetic queer content.
And with “Unconventional,” it may have found a banner series that can help further cement its place in the media landscape.
“We come from the perspective of we’re queer as a network,” Rodriguez says. “We’re queer, but you don’t have to be. But what we’re going to be is very authentic to our community.”
That authenticity is what Williamson has long been searching for in his work. Noah, when we first meet him, is in crisis. He’s in a shouting match with Dan, and their life together seems to be coming to an end. Through a flashback, we see how a meeting with his thesis supervisor (played by Kathy Griffin) prompted Noah to reassess his entire life. “Unconventional” focuses on the thorny aspects of contemporary queer millennial life. It’s not just the promise and perils of polyamory or the societal pressures and logistical problems of starting a family whether through adoption or surrogacy, but also the relatable way that Noah and Margot tackle their mental health and mommy issues alike — with prescribed substances that drown out a world that encourages them to remain in arrested development.
The nine-episode series is informed not just by Williamson’s experiences but that of his fellow writers, including Bland and the show’s editor, Larissa James.
“Dating back to the first season of ‘Eastsiders,’ my goal was to create queer characters that were flawed and complicated and allowed to f— up their own lives,” Williamson says. “We make mistakes. We’re human. That’s an important part of the human experience. A story about role models is just not really that narratively interesting to me. I’m more interested in the ways in which people make mistakes and grow from them.”
“Unconventional,” set in Palm Springs/Joshua Tree, revels in the messiness of 21st century queer relationships and the challenges of starting nontraditional families. Noah, Dan, Margot and Eliza keep secrets and nurse resentments. Even as they hope to start families, they sometimes behave quite childishly, seducing strangers and finding solace in one too many drinks.
“I’ve been calling this show a chosen family drama,” Williamson says. “But so often when we hear about ‘chosen family,’ it’s kind of corny. It’s done in a way that’s like all sunshine and pride parades. Unicorns and rainbows or whatever. I just find reality to be so much more interesting.”
It’s not lost on Williamson why a show like “Unconventional” had to be produced outside the traditional development pipeline. At a time when LGBTQ+ visibility often comes wrapped with a demand for positive representation, for stories that uplift and thus implicitly rest on respectability and assimilation, Williamson’s tales of open relationships, challenging adoption processes and messy marriages question well-worn narratives about couples and family units.
“I’ve sold a lot of development with queer characters over the years,” he says. “But I think having a story center the queer experience the way that this story does, that is something that I think there’s an obvious hesitance around from the industry at large. Sometimes you need to do it independently in order to allow a project to find its voice without adding a bunch of cooks in the kitchen.”
And although the show began production in 2020 (it was first curtailed by COVID-19 lockdowns), its arrival in 2025 still feels timely.
“We’re seeing even major companies announce proudly that they’re canceling their DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] initiatives,” Williamson says. “But our existence is not a DEI initiative. Our existence is not ‘woke’ or whatever word of the week we’re using right now to hide brazen homophobia.”
Revry’s founders hope to have their brand associated with “queer joy.” But they understand that at a time when the LGBTQ+ community is targeted with discriminatory executive orders and driven to worry about losing hard-fought civil rights, loud and proud visibility will undoubtedly feel like a political act.
“I’m really excited to see Revry step up and get behind and champion stories like ours,” Williamson says. “We’re incredibly excited to be their first long-form scripted original series. It feels like we’re at the beginning of something really amazing.”
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