MovieChat Forums > Too Close for Comfort (1980) Discussion > Episode: Shipmates - Henry's Navy C.O. b...

Episode: Shipmates - Henry's Navy C.O. being gay

posted 9 years ago by blondechick01
2 replies | jump to latest

Just watched the episode on Antenna TV entitled Shipmates. The story is about Henry finding out his Navy C.O. has been living with a man for the past 25 years. The man tells Henry his companion is dying. I wondered if anyone else thought they were inferring the partner had AIDS.

[–] candrew088 9 years ago

That's a good question. My wife and I watched this episode last night and we wondered the same thing. The episode was filmed in 1983 - an AIDs storyline probably would have been the first of it's kind for a network sitcom. Even though they don't mention the disease by name, it was readily obvious the intention of the episode was to get people talking and to put a face to same sex relationships.

If you are on Facebook you can send a message to the Script Supervisor Mattie Caruthers - she would probably know.

[–] !!!deleted!!! (49761343) 9 years ago

I wondered if anyone else thought they were inferring the partner had AIDS.

No way, Jose!

I remember this time period clearly and back in the early 1980s, there was very little public awareness/understanding of it. Sure, once in blue moon, there would be an article mentioning that there was some "mysterious" disease affecting gay men. But AIDs didn't really hit national consciousness until Rock Hudson announced he had it in 1985.

Now it very well have been that the writers of TCFC heard of AIDs and used that as inspiration to have the CO's boyfriend die off. But there was no way they would have inferred that he had died of AIDs. Mainstream audiences from 1984 would not have really gotten it, especially back then when the "big killer" that everyone was worried about was cancer and heart disease.

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