---
title: "Fellow Travelers"
year: 2023
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/fellow-travelers"
fi1m_id: "fellow-travelers"
imdb_id: "tt15384586"
tmdb_id: 216089
wikidata_id: "Q113110570"
fi1m_score: 68
critics_score: 67
critics_reviews: 9
published: "2026-10-01T00:09:22.654609+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-01T00:09:23.229095+00:00"
region: "KR"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Fellow Travelers (2023)

Created by Ron Nyswaner · KMRB 19 · Drama

## Identity

Fellow Travelers

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/fellow-travelers
- **Type:** Series
- **Fi1m ID:** fellow-travelers
- **IMDb ID:** tt15384586
- **TMDB ID:** 216089
- **Wikidata ID:** Q113110570
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15384586/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/216089, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q113110570

**Fi1m score: 68** · Critics 67 from 9 reviews

*In a sentence:* Two men fall for each other in 1952 and the next four decades keep barging into the bedroom

> Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey make a love affair across four decades that is frank, grown-up and often moving. Around it, Ron Nyswaner’s series marches through every landmark of American gay history as if taking attendance, and the romance has to wait.

## Synopsis

Washington in the years of Senator Joe McCarthy (Chris Bauer), with Roy Cohn (Will Brill) and David Schine (Matt Visser) at his elbow. Hawkins ‘Hawk’ Fuller (Matt Bomer) meets Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey), a devout young Catholic newly arrived in the capital. Hawk wants him and wants nothing written down; Tim wants to be loved and to be good, and finds the two pull against each other. Around them are Lucy Smith (Allison Williams), daughter of Senator Wesley Smith (Linus Roache) and the respectable match Hawk is expected to make; Marcus Gaines (Jelani Alladin), a journalist; Frankie Hines (Noah J. Ricketts), a performer in the bars where the men drink; and Mary Johnson (Erin Neufer), a colleague with secrets of her own. The affair that follows runs on for decades.

## Review

Ron Nyswaner’s eight-part adaptation of Thomas Mallon’s novel takes a love affair that begins in Washington in 1952 and follows it, in jumps, to 1986. The men are Hawkins Fuller, a State Department official who has never been caught at anything, and Tim Laughlin, a young Catholic who arrives in the capital believing in Joe McCarthy and in God, in roughly that order. The verdict is simple. When the two of them are alone together, *Fellow Travelers* is as good as this kind of drama gets. When it cuts away to show us what else was happening in America, it slackens, and it cuts away a great deal.

Matt Bomer plays Hawk as a man who has decided in advance what each of his expressions will be. The smile arrives half a second after the eyes, and that half-second is the performance: it tells us what he costs himself every time he is charming. Jonathan Bailey’s Tim is the opposite, open to the point of recklessness, a boy who prays before and after and tells the truth in the office when a lie would have been wiser. Bailey has a way of looking at Bomer as if he has just been handed something he cannot afford, and it is the look the whole series rests on. Of the two it is Bailey who moved us, because Tim is the one who keeps paying.

The sex scenes have had most of the attention and they deserve it, for the plain reason that they are where the writing is sharpest. Nyswaner uses them to show who is in charge, and the answer changes. In the first episodes Hawk gives instructions and Tim obeys, and both of them know this is about more than the bedroom; by the 1970s the arrangement is not what it was. Nothing in the dialogue states this and nothing needs to. We were struck by how rarely television lets a sex scene carry information, and by how much these carry.

Daniel Minahan is one of four directors, and the Washington the series sets up is a place of flat, bright offices and dim red bars. Joseph La Corte’s costumes do a good deal of the work: Hawk in grey flannel that fits him like a uniform, Tim in a suit that looks new for the interview and never quite worn in, Lucy Smith in the full skirts of a senator’s daughter dressed by her mother. Paul Leonard-Morgan’s score is mostly piano, quiet under the love scenes, and for the first half it stays out of the way. In the later decades it is asked to tell us the weight of history, and it begins to lean.

Here is the trouble. Each episode is pinned to a landmark of its decade, from the McCarthy hearings onwards. The affair is made to walk through all of them, and the series stops to make sure we have noticed where we are. Marcus Gaines (Jelani Alladin), a Black journalist, and Frankie Hines (Noah J. Ricketts), a performer at the bar where the men drink, are given a strand of their own that is set down whenever Hawk and Tim need the screen back, and both actors are too good for the scraps. Allison Williams is sharp and sad as Lucy, who is written largely as a problem for Hawk to manage rather than a woman with her own evenings. Erin Neufer’s Mary Johnson, a colleague at State with a secret of her own, is the quietest and best-used of the minor characters. In the middle episodes we found ourselves impatient for the men to be left alone, and then annoyed at being made to feel it.

Nyswaner’s strengths and his weaknesses are both on show. He writes a sickroom better than almost anyone, and he cannot resist a speech. Will Brill’s Roy Cohn is a sly, sweating, funny creation, and the series could have used more of him and fewer dates on the screen.

The last two episodes, back in the 1980s, repay the slower middle, and the hospital scenes did more to us than we expected from a series that had spent so long telling us what to think. Watch it in pairs of episodes, with patience, and with someone who will not mind if you go quiet. The best of its eight hours are in the bedroom and at the bedside, and that is not a complaint.

*Fi1m score 68, published 1 October 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics come down in favour, and the praise gathers almost entirely around the two leads. Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey are credited again and again with a chemistry that carries a relationship across four decades, and several reviews call the result moving, even devastating. The frank sex scenes draw approval too, for telling us something about the men rather than decorating the story. There is broad agreement that the series takes gay history seriously and covers ground television has mostly left alone.

The reservations are about shape. Critics complain of a middle stretch that loses momentum, a muddled timeline and a history-lesson approach that crowds out the characters. The spread is wide, from the mid-80s down to the mid-30s. Vulture is the one outright negative, arguing the lesson swallows the people. Collider, more mixed, faults the series for romanticising a toxic relationship and sidelining Black, female and trans characters. The Hollywood Reporter, alone, picks out Allison Williams’s Lucy as the most compelling performance.

## Straight answers

**Is Fellow Travelers worth watching?**

*Fellow Travelers* is worth watching for the love affair at its centre, and we scored it 68. Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey are frank, grown-up and often moving when left alone together, but the series keeps cutting away to march through four decades of American history, and the middle episodes drag. Watch it in pairs, with patience.

**How long is Fellow Travelers, and what is it rated?**

*Fellow Travelers* is rated 19 by the KMRB in South Korea. It is a drama series.

**Where can I watch Fellow Travelers in South Korea?**

*Fellow Travelers* is not on any streaming or rental service in South Korea at the moment. It is available in 34 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How violent or frightening is Fellow Travelers, and is it suitable for children?**

*Fellow Travelers* is not violent or frightening, but it is an adult drama with frequent and explicit sex scenes and is not suitable for children. It has no UK certificate and carries a TV-MA rating in the United States. The later episodes spend time in hospital rooms during the AIDS years, which some viewers will find hard going.

**How does Fellow Travelers compare to Angels in America?**

*Fellow Travelers* is the smaller and more intimate of the two, a romance that happens to pass through history, where [*Angels in America*](https://film.one/tv/angels-in-america) is six hours of Tony Kushner's plays with the history at the front and the fantastical let in. Both put Roy Cohn on screen. We think *Angels in America* the stronger work; *Fellow Travelers* is the one to choose if what you want is a love story.

**Is Fellow Travelers based on a true story or a book?**

*Fellow Travelers* is adapted by Ron Nyswaner from Thomas Mallon's novel of the same name, and is not a true story, though it is set among real people including Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn and David Schine. The series stretches the affair across four decades and pins each episode to a real event. You do not need to have read the book.

**What should I watch after Fellow Travelers?**

After *Fellow Travelers*, try [*Angels in America*](https://film.one/tv/angels-in-america) (2003, Fi1m 83): Roy Cohn again, the plague years again, and Al Pacino refusing to die quietly. Then [*Far from Heaven*](https://film.one/film/far-from-heaven) (2002, Fi1m 87): A fifties marriage with a secret in it, shot in colours the decade never actually had.

### Reviews we read (9)

- **Evening Standard**, Paul Flynn (85/100, inferred): Flynn finds the series a moving, valuable journey through gay history, despite its glossy presentation taking time to break through. He praises the leads’ chemistry and the show’s account of histories denied to gay people. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/fellow-travelers-paramount-plus-review-jonathan-bailey-matt-bomer-b1114941.html)
- **IndieWire**, Ben Travers (B+): The review finds the series an affecting, if familiar, romance that sustains its emotional grip. It especially praises Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer’s palpable chemistry and nuanced performances. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/fellow-travelers-review-showtime-series-matt-bomer-1234919552/)
- **The AV Club**, Max Gao (B+): The review finds the series a devastating, affecting love story, though its middle decades lose momentum. It praises Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey’s performances and their compelling portrayal of a relationship that evolves across four decades. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/fellow-travelers-tv-review-showtime-paramount-plus-1850945942)
- **Variety**, Aramide Tinubu (75/100, inferred): Tinubu finds the series largely exceptional, though one episode disrupts its pacing before the story recovers. She singles out Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey’s electric chemistry as the drama’s most moving strength. [Read](https://variety.com/2023/tv/reviews/fellow-travelers-review-jonathan-bailey-matt-bomer-1235762278/)
- **The Guardian**, Benjamin Lee (60/100, inferred): Lee finds the series overstuffed and uneven, but ultimately worth following despite its soapiness and muddled timeline. He especially praises the graphic, plot-important sex scenes for adding depth to the central relationship. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/oct/28/fellow-travelers-show-review-matt-bomer-jonathan-bailey)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Fienberg (50/100, inferred): Fienberg finds the series uneven, with effective emotional moments weighed down by familiar, sometimes stodgy storytelling. He praises the performances and chemistry of Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey, while singling out Allison Williams’s portrayal of Lucy as especially compelling. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/fellow-travelers-review-matt-bomer-jonathan-bailey-1235623948/)
- **Vulture**, Jackson McHenry (35/100, inferred): The review finds the series faltering overall, with its history-lesson approach crowding out its characters. It praises the sex scenes for being hot, lived-in, and revealing of the characters. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/fellow-travelers-review-showtime.html)
- **Paste**, Lacy Baugher Milas (7.9): The critic finds the series imperfect but important, with a serious and often plodding approach to queer history. She singles out Jonathan Bailey’s vulnerable, forceful performance as its beating heart. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/showtime/fellow-travelers-review)
- **Collider**, Erick Massoto (5/10): The critic finds the series enjoyable as a romance but ultimately inadequate in its treatment of its characters and historical context. He praises its depiction of the lasting effects of homophobia, while faulting it for romanticizing a toxic relationship and sidelining Black, female, transgender, queer, and intersex characters. [Read](https://collider.com/fellow-travelers-review/)

## Details

- **Created by:** Ron Nyswaner
- **Creator:** Ron Nyswaner
- **Director:** Uta Briesewitz, Destiny Ekaragha, Daniel Minahan, James Kent
- **Writer:** Ron Nyswaner, Dee Johnson, Brandon K. Hines, Katie Rose Rogers, Robbie Rogers, Anya Leta
- **Story:** Ron Nyswaner
- **Teleplay:** Jack Solomon, Brandon K. Hines
- **Novel:** Thomas Mallon
- **Music:** Paul Leonard-Morgan
- **Costume design:** Joseph La Corte
- **Producer:** Anya Leta
- **Cast:** Matt Bomer as Hawkins 'Hawk' Fuller; Jonathan Bailey as Tim Laughlin; Jelani Alladin as Marcus Gaines; Linus Roache as Senator Wesley Smith; Noah J. Ricketts as Frankie Hines; Allison Williams as Lucy Smith; Chris Bauer as Joe McCarthy; Erin Neufer as Mary Johnson
- **Certificate (KMRB):** 19
- **Release (South Korea):** 29 October 2023
- **Genres:** Drama
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_zI9UwYNQo

## Where to watch in South Korea

Not streaming, renting or buying in South Korea at the last check.

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BG, BR, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, HU, IE, IN, IT, MX, NL, NO, PA, PE, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SI, SK, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Angels in America* (2003), Fi1m 83: Roy Cohn again, the plague years again, and Al Pacino refusing to die quietly — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/angels-in-america.md)
- *It's a Sin* (2021): Russell T Davies does the eighties in five hours and never stops to lecture
- *Victim* (1961): Dirk Bogarde, blackmail and a closet; the British version, made while it was still illegal
- *Maurice* (1987): Forster’s gentleman and gamekeeper, the romance Hawk and Tim might have had with less fear
- *Far from Heaven* (2002), Fi1m 87: A fifties marriage with a secret in it, shot in colours the decade never actually had — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/far-from-heaven.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/fellow-travelers