But this week some toes will be curling when Pittsburgh's hottest gay man, Bryan (Gale Harold), contracts a case of syphilis, a disease redolent with images of medieval kings, rotting faces and arsenic cures.

It may not be the most glamorous of ailments, but then, these days, it's easily cured with a shot of penicillin in the bot. Bryan isn't facing madness just yet, but his dalliance with the STD serves as a device to highlight his Peter Pan status.

Surrounded by friends fast evolving from former pillars of the hedonistic branch of the gay community into quasi-heterosexual monogamous bores (as Bryan says with a sneer), including his increasingly broody buddy Justin (Randy Harrison), Bryan's at a loss to understand why anyone would prefer a home-cooked meal to a gang-bang in the back room of the Babylon nightclub.

Michael (Hal Sparks), meanwhile, is facing his test as a parent when relations go sour with baby Jenny's mum Melanie (Michelle Clunie), and celebrity lesbian Rosie O'Donnell turns up as a diner employee in love with Debbie (Sharon Gless). The writers might want to reconsider their increasingly tiresome addiction to the rapid-fire exchange of one-liners.

Themes may be changing - look for the Sex and the City style "the way we were" montage as Michael and his stolidly responsible partner reminisce about their youth as they walk down Liberty Street - but Queer As Folk remains an engagingly prurient character study.

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