Animal Husbandry, SoHo Style
The premise of “The Fabulous Beekman Boys” — a couple, uptight Brent and laid-back Josh, give up the Manhattan media world to become gentlemen organic farmers in upstate New York — inspires hopes of a gay “Green Acres.” The chores! The culture wars!
Brent Ridge, left, and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, gentlemen farmers.
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Preview: 'The Fabulous Beekman Boys'Blog
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Alas, reality is less fabulous than 1960s sitcom, at least in the first two “Beekman Boys” episodes, Wednesday on Planet Green. So far the show favors dour bickering over fish-out-of-water rural humor, much to its detriment. It’s as if Jon and Kate Gosselin had spent every episode taking their children to see farm animals: Brent and Josh Plus 100 Goats.
The “boys” are Josh Kilmer-Purcell, a writer, advertising executive and former drag queen, and Brent Ridge, a physician and former “vice president of healthy living” for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. The “Beekman” refers to an old farm near Sharon Springs, N.Y., about 50 miles west of Albany, with goats, pigs, tractors and, crucially, a beautifully preserved, stately white house with a wraparound porch, the kind that makes weekenders go weak in the knees.
The couple bought the 60-acre spread several years ago, and now Dr. Ridge is there full time, overseeing operations with a compulsiveness that’s more off-putting than funny, at least on-screen. Most of the actual farming appears to be done by Farmer John, the manager, who has his own quirks, which include dissolving into tears at the thought of his beloved goats. “I become very emotional about my animals,” he says.
Mr. Kilmer-Purcell still spends his weekdays in Manhattan, where he brings in a paycheck by working for the advertising mega-agency JWT. This means he’s often unavailable to help with mucking the pens or cleaning the barn windows, which leads to snippy remarks from Dr. Ridge, then tart rejoinders from Mr. Kilmer-Purcell like, “Brent comes from a world of Martha Stewart parties, where everything looks perfect but nobody’s having a good time.”
Much of this sniping is inspired by money. The farm is the locus of the Beekman boys’ “ethical” and organic retail business (hence the involvement of the environmentally minded Planet Green), with products like goat-milk soaps and cheeses. The TV show is part of their omnimedia approach to marketing, along with Mr. Kilmer-Purcell’s most recent book, “The Bucolic Plague.”
The book, which “reeks of charm,” Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times, is more forthright than the television show about parts of the boys’ story. Of his job with Martha Stewart, which is invoked repeatedly on-screen, Dr. Ridge says, “I gave that up to be a full-time farmer.” But readers of the book will know that Ms. Stewart’s company gave him up, laying him off, which could be one source of the tension coursing through “The Fabulous Beekman Boys.”
It’s also possible that the tension is being manufactured to set up feel-good reconciliations in future weeks. If Mr. Kilmer-Purcell and Dr. Ridge are, in fact, pretending to be angry with each other, it could explain why they come across as so dull — nonactors are automatically less interesting when they try to act.
In the meantime the audience that fiercely defends all things purporting to be fabulous can adopt the Beekman boys and enjoy the moments of sylvan burlesque (if they can tear themselves away from Bravo). But they should cross their fingers for the animals while they’re at it: in one scene Dr. Ridge, having transported a pair of piglets in the unpadded bed of his pickup, drops one on the ground from a height of about five feet. (It manages not to break any legs.) In reality television, there’s no crying over spilled pork.
The Fabulous Beekman Boys
Planet Green, Wednesday nights at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.
Produced by World of Wonder for Planet Green. For World of Wonder: Randy Barbato, Fenton Bailey and Tom Campbell, executive producers; Angela Rae Berg, co-executive producer. For Planet Green: Jeff Hasler and Lynn Sadofsky, executive producers.
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