Channel 4's season of programmes marking 40-years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality ended last night, and for me, with great disappointment.
The channel had a great opportunity to look at the issues facing gay men today but instead fell back on negativity, stereotypes and clichés.
The worst offender was the drama Clapham Junction, billed as a piece in which a number of story lines were inter-linked by a violent attack on a gay man on Clapham Common.
I tuned in expecting a gritty, hard-hitting drama but instead found a clichéd, relentlessly negative piece that portrayed gay men as selfish, morally bankrupt human beings.
Even what was supposed to be a happy storyline - the civil partnership of a long-together couple - had to be spoiled by one of them getting off with someone else at the wedding.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't want it to be a rose tinted view of gay life but the sheer grinding bleakness of the piece astounded me.
Last night's documentary Queer as Old Folk also left me slightly depressed. It aimed to tell the stories of several older gay men in Britain today but again felt the need to sensationalise and go for the lowest common denominator.
The main focus seemed to be on Clive, a gay man still married to his wife, who liked to update his 17-year-old son on the details of his sex life - "I'm off to Southend tomorrow for a lovely threesome".
The documentary seemed to delight in his sex life when the much more interesting tales of an elderly couple getting married after a lifetime together, or the relationship between two men with a 39-year age gap between them were not explained in much depth at all.
The best piece was the first programme, the docu-drama A Very British Sex Scandal about the 1954 trial of a Daily Mail journalist arrested for "homosexual offences".
It was a poignant, well-acted piece that made me think and left me optimistic for the rest of the season. But unfortunately I was wrong.
