An Early Frost November 1985: NBC airs the first TV movie about a gay man with AIDS, a film written by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman. (Telling our stories).

Ron Cowen: I would have to say that [as the screenwriters of An Early Frost] we knew what we were doing and we knew the importance of it.

Daniel Lipman: One of the very first things we said when it was presented [was], "We will do this only if the character does not die at the end. We have to have a character who has hope."

RC: We knew we were writing this for Iowa. There was an intention of trying to create compassion for gay people and people with AIDS. I think we certainly had that plan in mind. There were a lot of compromises we had to make.

DL: NBC's big word was balance. [In contrast,] Queer as Folk was written for gay people about gay people. It was very intentional that we not have all these assimilated gay people in the straight world. The difference is that we were able to sexualize characters on Queer as Folk.

RC: In 1985 An Early Frost was probably the most dangerous program that NBC had ever put on its network in its history. We both feel very blessed to have had a career that spans from An Early Frost to Queer as Folk and to reflect the change in gay life over the past 17 years. That's a pretty amazing arc. Especially on TV. Television is very important because of the size of the audience. It's worldwide: That's an astonishing thing.

Cowen and Lipman, who also created the groundbreaking series Sisters, are now executive producers of the Showtime series Queer as Folk.