Holly has been Hef's girlfriend for 5 years and is totally devoted to the man; living for the praise the man provides her fairly regularly. She has illusions of being his only gal pal, subtlety hinting for a bigger commitment from the guy in about half her appearances in the episodes. Hef goes through a lot of ladies so the five year mark is something of an accomplishment that even the other two don't take lightly. Bridget is the oldest of the group but seems to have a fine head on her shoulders (not just as a hotty; all three could claim that), serving to balance out the excesses of the other two while remaining friendly with them. Kendra is the youngest and least secure of the trio. Acting like a white trash gangster wannabe, she embraces hip hop culture in a laughable style that includes attempts to rap that would make Jamie Kennedy seem as black as Dr Dre. She also is the most headstrong of the bunch and seems to instinctively know that her appeal to Hef is as shallow as her persona on the show (through editing and selective use of clips, you get the feeling that the producers were simply playing up those aspects of her personality in order to generate more drama; she's probably a lovely young lady in real life). Each of them display their personality via the gifts that they give Hef on his 80th birthday; Holly giving him some rare white peacocks (as had been on the Playboy mansion estate for years until the last ones died), Bridget gives Hef a burlesque strip show out of a cake in front of everyone (low on nude but high on naughty; showing tremendous preparation), and Kendra gives him a poster giving her top billing in a noir fashion that she had some graphic artist generate "for $500 bucks!".

In the commentaries, the ladies rarely seemed cognizant of the way the episodes were edited to essentially make them come across as caricatures of themselves; from calculating, to insecure, to chasing the man for the wedding (you can figure out which gal fir which persona easily enough after a few episodes), but there were some cute moments when they seemed to really be pals and not nearly as focused as their screen personas were sculpted to be. As far as the reality part of the show goes, I'd have to say that the series was about as convincing as the rest of them on the air these days; not much but close enough to make for a cute and sustainable series. I don't know if watching the first season or the subsequent seasons will make these seem repetitive but having watched most of them in one sitting did prove to be a challenge even for me due to the way the dynamic kept hitting me over the head. The episodes lasted about 22 minutes each so the 16 episodes included on the three DVDs weren't bad, although at this writing, I'm only about two thirds of the way through all the commentaries.

The Girls Next Door: Season Two

Here's Looking At You, Hef!
Eighty Is The New Forty
Career Dazed
Mutiny On The Booty
San Diego Or Bust
Heavy Petting
Sleepwear Optional
I See London, I See France
When In Rome
Baby Talk
The 21 Club
Girls Will Be Ghouls (extended version)
The Age of Aquarium
Rabbit Season
We Can Work It Out
Playboys After Dark

Sound: The audio was offered with several choices including a 2.0 Dolby Digital English language track using an uncensored version, a censored version, and subtitles to both those tracks as well as a Spanish version. I had no way of checking the foreign language subtitles for accuracy but of the two language tracks, the uncensored was the way to go. The basic cable level of quality was adhered to; with minimal separation on the vocals but some for the soundtrack (I liked the opening song by the way). The dynamic range was such that it sounded about the same on my higher end stereo set up as on my low end DVD/TV with the exception that I could hear more noise on the high end equipment.

Extras: The most interesting extra to me was the huge number of deleted scenes, totaling almost 50 clips of varying lengths. Some of them had more nudity or sexual innuendo, while others showed goofy moments by the cast, but they were almost always as good as the main material; broken down by which episode they came from for those of you appreciating such an idea as much as I liked it. The next best extra for me was the audio commentaries by the three gals on each episode. They didn't always have a lot to say but they were fun and made me want them to come back to the "Don Houston Mansion", albeit a couple of steps down from what they are apparently accustomed to compared to Hef's rented home. There was also a combined version of the first two episodes that added in extra footage and some bloopers with the three discs in thin-pak cases in a cardboard holder. In all then, it was a solid set of extras to me compared to many similar efforts.

Final Thoughts: The Girls Next Door was light, fluffy, and innocuous as could be in terms of adult entertainment. The three ladies all had a different appeal and while edited to present a certain type of "package", it was clear that they all were not consistently focused as the series made them to be (especially if you listen to the commentaries, watch the bloopers, and watch the deleted scenes). I don't know if the show will have long lasting replay value outside of the legions of stalkers Holly, Bridget, and Kendra may have gained while in the public eye but The Girls Next Door, when rationed out a few episodes at a time may even prove to be more fun than checking out as I did in a single (technically two) sittings so give it a look if you like seeing nude or partially clothed bodies of the female variety.

Follow Don Houston's adult reviews at XCritic.com including his review for Pirates 2 Stagnetti's Revenge with 34 pics from the DVD