More Tales of the City

REVIEW
The stories of 28 Barbary Lane continue with more laughs, more sex and more mysteries with Armistead Maupin's More Tales of the City, a six-part miniseries (available on 3 tapes) follow-up to the highly successful Tales of the City. Picking up where the original left off, Anna Madrigal (Dukakis) is still keeping watch over her tenants Mary Ann (Linney), who finds love with the mysterious Burke (Ferguson), and Michael "Mouse" Tolliver (Hopkins, replacing Marcus D'Amico), who falls hard for the dreamy Dr. Fielding (Campbell). Meanwhile, Mona (Siemaszko replacing Chloe Webb) heads off in search of her birth mother; and Beauchamp (Gibson) deals with his wife Dede's (Garrick) impending motherhood. More Tales is just as enjoyable as the original, and since there is less time introducing the characters, there's more time spent with them and developing them. Tensions about showing nudity and depicting homosexuality, which caused a controversy with the first production, have been lessened (this was made for Showtime, not PBS as the original was), making the sequel more relaxed. As before, the series captures 1970s San Francisco in all its glory, featuring fabulous period details in the clothes, music and fads of the era. It's like reuniting with long-lost old friends.