Russell T Davies' It's a Sin failed to give women their rightful place in the AIDS story

Slate

"After watching the series’ five often gorgeous and moving episodes, my hopes for an AIDS story that made space for a young Black woman—with all her own dreams, aspirations, and a real inner life—were ultimately quashed," says Madeline Ducharme. "Jill Baxter, played with clear-eyed vibrance by Lydia West, stands admirably for the countless caretakers who devoted themselves to looking after the dying in the early days of the epidemic and fought like hell to help them pass on with dignity. She offers hot meals and warm company to HIV-positive friends at a time when there was no consensus on how the virus was spread. She devotes herself to political activism too, encouraging her reluctant friends to join an ACT UP–style die-in. She even has a boundless fountain of empathy for HIV-positive strangers in hospitals and on the other ends of phone calls to a help line. Where Davies’ show goes wrong, though, is when it doesn’t allow her to be anything more than that. Jill is a selfless saint, a den mother for the buzzing flat shared by the show’s ensemble, and a death doula—but she doesn’t get to be her own person. From the moment she’s introduced, Jill is working wholly in the service of someone else."