We know from experience that the adoption process is stressful and invasive, and it’s hard to look deeper than the brazenly transactional nature of it. One of the things we worried about during our adoption journey was that our checkered childhood would keep us from being parents. But we found out that’s not how things work. That process is shown in a new BBC dramedy miniseries that just dropped on BritBox.
LOST BOYS & FAIRIES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A montage of two men brushing their teeth, baking and cutting some bread, then kissing each other in preparation for their meeting.
The Gist: Gabriel (Siôn Daniel Young) and Andy (Fra Fee) are a couple who have been together for about eight years, and they’re looking to adopt a child; the meeting they’re getting ready for is with Jackie (Elizabeth Berrington), a social worker who will interview them, inspect their home and determine their fitness to adopt.
While Andy is an accountant, Gabriel’s job is a bit more unusual: He’s a drag queen at a club in Cardiff, Wales. He also has an amazing voice, as we see during a clip of one of his performances. In fact, one of the stories Andy talks about is how the two of them met when Andy came to the club where Gabriel performs.
Andy has always been the one who is more sure that he wants kids. Gabriel, however, isn’t as sure he can be a good parent. As we see during flashbacks that are brought up during interviews with Jackie, Gabriel’s mom died when he was little, and his deacon father, Emrys (William Thomas), didn’t take too kindly to his son dressing up in his mother’s clothes, among other signs that his son was gay. To cope with that, Gabriel turned to drugs, getting clean only in recent years. Gabriel’s fear is that he’s going to repeat the parenting patterns of his father.
The more Jackie gets to know the couple, though, the more she thinks they’re ready. She gets a glowing endorsement from Andy’s mother Sandra (Maria Doyle Kennedy), and even Emrys begrudgingly approves, though it takes some effort on Gabriel’s part to convince him.
Jackie gives them information about an event where prospective parents meet with a group of kids in the foster system. While it feels like “speed dating,” Jackie says it’s been effective at generating placements. At this event, where Gabriel imagines the parents literally fighting each other to talk to kids, he and Andy meet 7-year-old Jake (Leo Harris). He’s a boy and a year older than the age range Gabriel wanted, and according to his foster mother, he’s definitely a handful. But Jackie feels that Jake is a great match for Gabriel and Andy.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Lost Boys & Fairies somewhat reminds us of the one-year Ryan Murphy comedy The New Normal.
Our Take: Created by Daf James, Lost Boys & Fairies is designed to be as much a comedy as it is a heartfelt story about redemption and breaking bad family cycles. The first episode leans heavily on stylistic choices like the flashbacks to moments in Gabriel’s life, to fantasy sequences like the parents at the adoption event in a melee to be the first to talk to the kids that are there.
What concerned us about the first episode was that it felt like the three-episode series was going to revolve around this series of interviews that Jackie has with Gabriel and Andy, where Gabriel reveals more and more about his childhood, plus his fears about parenthood. Andy and Gabriel spend much of the first episode regretting saying certain things to Jackie that they are sure will get them excluded from adopting. What they — and most prospective adoptive parents — don’t realize is that the social worker is looking at an overall picture, not looking for that one orange flag that’s a dealbreaker.
Our concerns dissipated, though, when Jake came out from under the couch Andy and Gabriel sat on in order to get away from the stress of the event. He definitely was a wise-beyond-his-years type, but also the product of an abusive household and someone who might take some time to get adjusted to his new surroundings. But, as Andy and Gabriel are about to find out, parenting is fraught with issues and places where even the best parents screw up. The degree of difficulty is raised with a child who was in the foster system, due to past trauma.
If the subsequent episodes of the series examine how Andy’s and Gabriel’s past come into play in their early days with Jake, that will make for a satisfying watch. We want to see more about Andy’s past, even if it was a more bucolic and accepting upbringing than Gabriel’s.
Sex and Skin: After getting Gabriel’s dad to talk to Jackie, Andy and Gabriel celebrate getting over this hurdle with some lovemaking.
Parting Shot: We flash to the day Andy and Gabriel met, with Gabriel singing the song his mom used to sing him. We then see Jake in the back of a car, singing along to the same song.
Sleeper Star: Sharon D. Clarke plays Claire, Jake’s foster mother (or “foster carer,” as it’s called in the UK), who became a bastion of stability in Jake’s life and knows him better than anyone.
Most Pilot-y Line: The sequence where Gabriel imagines the parents in a battle royale to go see the foster kids was a bit drawn out, given how most of the episode was grounded in reality.
Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re not sure how much commentary on the adoption process the series Lost Boys & Fairies will give us, but by the end of the first episode, we were rooting hard for Andy, Gabriel and Jake to become a strong family unit, which is certainly a product of the show’s strong performances and inventive storytelling.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Lost Boys & Fairies’ On BritBox, Where A Same Sex Couple’s Past Comes Into Play When They Look To Adopt appeared first on Decider.
