Netflix--4 seasons--total 10 hours and 21 minutes---yes, many episodes are 15 minutes or less.


I don't recall what season I started watching this show but it certainly wasn't the first. In any case, after a few minutes, I was ready to turn it off as I thought it was one of those tacky, stereotypical badly made soft porn gay movies but before I knew it I was caught up and watching it, going back to the first season and first episode.


"Eastsiders" started out as a web series on Youtube funded by a Kickstarter campaign then was picked up by for distribution through Logo TV's website, went on Vimeo's demand service and then was sold to Netflix and also was made available on DVDs by Wolfe.


It is a show about relationships, all kinds, though the main focus is on Thom and Cal who, when we meet them, have been together for 6 years. We quickly get to met Cal's mother who is divorced from his father, doesn't really like Thom but acknowledges their relationship. We also meet Kathy, who goes on a "Cats" tour though she can sing but not dance and has been going with Cal's best friend non-gay Ian for 6 months, her longest relationship. Cal's sister has broken up with her boyfriend and is now 'seeing' a woman. Yes, it is about all kinds of relationships from a drag queen and his manager both defining what 'versatile' means and couples who have an 'open' relationship and those who don't but cheat on each other and a black doctor and his desire to have a family and who's white lover is a house husband and doesn't want children until they foster a young Latina. There is the leather crowd, the asexual woman, the old couple staying together because they would be alone otherwise. There are people who drink too much causing problems not only for themselves but for those around them.


Yes, there is soft porn and a lot of stereotyping but there isn't a gay person who won't learn something not only about themselves and other gay people but also non-gay people just as non-gays will find out that in many ways they are no different than gay people, especially when it comes to relationships. There are implied orgies along with all sorts of combinations just as there all kinds of friendships between men and women, men and men, women and women along with a lot of new terms to viewers.


It has, to me, the annoying going back and forth in time and too many of the guys are look-alikes but there was no way I was going to not watch it and I am going to give it a little time before I watch it again. There is nudity, not frontal, and the 'f' word along with other '4 letter words' but they are used as people use them in real life. You can see the difference as to when the producers didn't have much money and when they started getting a 'bankroll'.


Anyone who watches this will learn some things they never knew and might even see themselves reflected.