It's official: HBO has picked up the pilot for The Viagra Diaries. What's that? The journal of our innermost thoughts and emotional life? Sorry to disappoint, but no, it's an adaptation of a novel by the same name, by author Barbara Rose Brooker. The series, which is helmed by Sex and the City creator/executive producer Darren Star, features Goldie Hawn as a 70-year-old divorcee whose husband dumps her for a much younger thing after having a midlife crisis at 65 (a little late, in our opinion, but whatever). She ventures into the world of dating past retirement age, and, being a writer, uses her experiences as fodder for a weekly newspaper column called "The Viagra Diaries". The plot centers around her on-again off-again relationship with Marv, a 75-year-old gent she meets on JDate, whom she describes as a online "serial dater".
We don't know how faithful the small screen adaptation will be, but the book itself doesn't reflect very well on older men or Viagra in its portrayals. Again and again, the female characters complain about senior men becoming dependent on Viagra, which inflates not just their genitals, but also their egos, and turns them into sex maniacs hellbent on bedding younger women.
Does Viagra really have that effect on senior bachelors? While it might help a guy unleash his inner Lothario, we doubt that it bears that much responsibility for transforming his character. Chances are, if he's a jerk after discovering Viagra, he was a jerk before taking it, too.
