How To Stream The Original Queer As Folk

One of the television’s landmark queer shows is about to be reborn. On June 9, Peacock debuted Queer as Folk, a reboot/reimagining of the original series from the early 2000s. Technically, there are two original Queer as Folk iterations, being that there was a UK version that aired from 1999 to 2000, as well as a U.S. adaptation that aired for five seasons beginning in 2000. If you’re interested in catching up on the original series before streaming Peacock’s version, we know exactly where to send you.

Any Queer as Folk originalists out there have several options at their disposal. The original U.S. version is currently available for streaming on Roku, in addition to being available on Hulu and Showtime, however, both services require a subscription before viewing. The U.S. version is also available for purchase on Amazon Prime Video, which is also where the original UK version can be found.

Those viewers who are interested in the upcoming Queer as Folk may ultimately be behooved to take a gander at the series’ roots, given the changes that are being made to Peacock’s version. For instance, the original U.S. iteration was set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and followed the lives of several gay friends navigating their relationships, careers, ambitions, and families, while the UK version chronicled the lives of three gay men living in Manchester’s gay village near Canal Street. The reboot, on the other hand, takes place in New Orleans, in the aftermath of a tragedy that has rocked a community.

“The queer community is as diverse as the entire world because we are everywhere in every culture,” said series creator Stephen Dunn in a May interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “There’s a lot of segregation within the queer community. After Pulse, it felt the first time that the community had really felt united. It happened in Orlando, but the ripple effect was felt across the world.”

From the sound of Dunn’s comments, this new series will attempt to capture a community coming together. “What you’ll see in Queer as Folk is the honest truth of what it is like to go through something like that and how it’s not this saintly victim tragedy story,” he said. “These are real people and they’re not victims. They survived a tragedy, and they are human beings whose lives were completely turned upside down after this.” Dunn went on to describe show’s interest in breaking down the myriad of ways communities contend with trauma, alluding to how different the framework for the updated Queer as Folk is from its predecessors’.

Another major difference between the reboot and originals will be the quantity of content. The original U.S. version aired 22 episodes during its inaugural season, whereas the UK version aired just eight. The reboot version will be following in the footsteps of the UK iteration, as Season 1 is comprised of only eight episodes. Granted, there’s no telling how many more seasons and episodes could be in the reboot’s future if it is popular enough.