'TELL ME YOU LOVE ME' - Complete First Season
EROTIC DRAMA SERIES from HBO
Starring IAN SOMERHALDER (from LOST)
WARNING : Includes VERY EXPLICIT SEX & NUDITY
MINT - AS NEW!!!
Region 1 DVD BOXSET - will play on any multi-region DVD player
WIDESCREEN & DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1 SOUND!!!
FREE POSTAGE!!! (in the UK)
This 10-episode first season of HBO's drama, Tell Me You Love Me, is a semi-sexy romp into the world of coupledom, though in total it casts a depressed glow on the possibility of long-term connection. In it, three couples plus their endearing shared therapist, May (Jane Alexander), feud over various issues arisen due to marriage, aging, differing sexual desires, and sheer boredom. Episodes rotate couples' scenarios and are spliced with scenes showing each seeking refuge in May's office. The youngest pair, sous chef Jaime (Michelle Borth) and her fiancé Hugo (Luke Ferrell Kirby), break their engagement over feared infidelity, while Jaime lands pretty boy Nick (Ian Somerhalder) to temporarily ease her pain over the broken commitment. Thirty-somethings, Pawlik (Adam Scott) and Carolyn (Sonya Walger), struggle to get pregnant. As their situation escalates they detest what they recognize in each other as parental traits they've both worked so hard to avoid. The most riveting and mature situation develops as Dave (Tim DeKay) and Katie (Ally Parker) realize that after 13 years of marriage and kids they're incapable of having sex. DeKay and Parker make an eerily convincing acting team, mirroring oodles of couples who lack passion but don't know how to fix it. Dave and Katie most successfully ask the core question of whether or not marriage can truly work. Here, sex and love are separated into two distinct categories. Failed intimacy abounds as emotional overload and stress sets in for each team of lovers. The first several episodes set up the dilemmas and are rife with fighting and despair; midway through, relief comes as Dave and Katie take their therapist's advice and have some nights alone with no kids. Similarly, Jaime gives Hugo a break after he nearly overdoses. Episodes nine and ten are the juiciest, as one begins to wonder who will stay split up and who will weather the desperation. Carolyn reconsiders her anxiety-inducing job, while we see Katie and Dave still crumbling under tension as they remodel their already-perfect house yet again. Throughout, sex scenes amongst the two sexually active couples provide some respite from the bickering, though they mostly illustrate how sex serves as both sanctuary and escape. Tell Me You Love Me shows marriage as an uphill battle, though seemingly this means to inspire viewers to assess their own relationships for preservation. --Trinie Dalton
Product Description Sex. Life. This is the story of three couples trying to stay afloat - and one woman's efforts to show them how to do it. HBO's newest adult drama series explores issues of intimacy - through the point of view of a 20-something couple, prenumpital concerns and fidelity are examined, while the series' 30-something couple confront their failed attempts to start a family, coping with the effects it has on their sex life. And after two kids and 12 years of marriage, a couple in their early 40s question why their love and devotion hasn't translated into physical intimacy in nearly a year. Tell Me You Love Me explores the telling, everyday moments that can make or break a couple's commitment to one another, both emotionally and physically.
Rare Intelligence on Television,
I wish, sometimes, that the general populace of this United States were not so screwed up when it comes to sex. However, this is not the case and as a result of this slack-jawed, priggish mindset, the rest of us are robbed of one of the most intelligent, insightful programs this viewer has seen in some time.
Cynthia Mort has depicted a laser focused and thoughtful portrayal of intimacy in "Tell Me You Love Me". She has stripped the inner workings of an intimate, sexual relationship bare with four couples in different stages of their lives. The effect is at once disturbing, hilarious, frightful, and hopeful as these adjectives are really the bones of any relationship. This is a series every person involved in an intimate, sexual relationship should watch more than once.
The cast is brilliant, if not to mention, courageous. Michelle Borth (who knew she was more than just a femme du jour?) and Luke Kirby portray the "new loves" preparing for their wedding day. Sonya Walger (Mort shows her genius in recognizing this woman's talent) and Adam Scott play a childless couple struggling for a baby. Ally Walker, of "Profiler" fame (too long away from the view of the masses) and Tim DeKay of "Carnivale" are the married-for-years-with-kids scenario. Jane Alexander (formidable!) and David Selby (a far cry from "Dark Shadows'" Quentin Collins) play and older, mature couple. All of these actors bring precise candor to their portrayals provoking intense reactions from the watcher.
As you find yourself muttering under your breath, "You bitch!" or "You bastard!" you ultimately realize that you would be the ultimate hypocrite to even attempt to choose sides.
And, yes, they all have sex. It would be silly to present a discourse on intimacy in sexual relationships without the act of sex. So, get over it and watch this show!
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Big and Different,
Much hyped and sensitively written HBO series analyzing the marital and other problems of three couples, plus their therapist's own back story in what most people would consider late, late middle age. You'll be surprised to see the vigor with which Jane Alexander puts into her fervent love scenes with David Selby (yes, from DARK SHADOWS). Alexander has never struck me as being much of a softcore type, but here she looks great and she puts everything she has into it, a risky move for the former head of the NEA which might get her into trouble with her former constituency, but I think the risky work she does here gives her more credibility, and flows neatly into the scenes she has with her clients. In a way it will remind you of Lorraine Bracco treating Tony in THE SOPRANOS and cynical minds will assume that TELL ME YOU LOVE ME is like Dr. Melfi on ecstasy, but give the show a chance, it definitely has its own rhythm, and you won't pick up on it right away if you're used to the rough and tumble rapidfire cutting of most US made hourlongs.
Here the pace is positively molasses, Ingmar Bergman style, long, long scenes of domestic life interspersed with some pretty amazing bedroom scenes (what they call "random play" on Facebook). You won't believe you're watching this on TV. But it's all mixed in with hours and hours of nothing at all, in which it's up to the actors to convince us that there are real people behind those insertions and releases. Some of the actors are better than others, though none is really horrible. At first I wondered, how did they talk these actors into having such realistic sex scenes? Did they recruit them from porn movies? But I recognized some of them from other legitimate work and I guess the answer is, they went for the gusto of it. Dave and Katie are pushing forty, they've stopped making love and just live for their children and homelife, always repaving the patio et cetera. Their little girl has started having her period even though she's ten. Ally Walker plays Katie, the dissatisfied wife who wonders where all the romance went in her marriage, while Sherry Stringfield from ER plays Rita, her no nonsense pal. La Stringfield still acts as though she were the undisputed star of the show (in fact of the entire entertainment world), but she is pared back to the point where you can actually believe it. Tim DeKay is the husband who prefers to bring himself off under the covers rather than face another go round with his wife. It's bleak and miserable.
Adam Scott and Sonya Walger play a somewhat younger couple, Pawlik and Carolyn. They make love by the clock so that Carolyn can fulfill her dream of getting pregnant. But petulant Pawlik doesn't like being made to perform at gunpoint, so he starts balking and expressing his deep dislike of his wife. She's quite a piece of work and the script does little to soften her up. More power to the actress who plays her because this is a tough part to play.
Finally there is Jaime, a young sous chef at a trendy restaurant, torn between two good looking guys, incapable of being faithful to either. It was really this girl who plays her whom I thought initially wasn't as much an actress as an inflatable doll with a helium voice. Poor Jaime can't keep her clothes on for twenty minutes at a time. One of the boys in her life is played by former LOST star Ian Somerhalder, the other by some other dude. One is called Nick, the other Hugo. I can't remember now who is who, but stand back folks because, as it turns out, Michelle Borth as Jaime is the one who really wins your heart by the end of the season's run. I began to see why she was the way she was, and credit Miss Borth for a sensitive unfolding of real depth.
The show is slow, no doubt about it, and goes to some painful places. Will the unabashed focus on sexuality make it an audience winner? Hard to say, but it was well worth trying out! Give it a chance, you might learn something! I did, about Ian Somerhalder... | |