Reviews & Columns |
Reviews DVD TV on DVD Blu-ray 4K UHD International DVDs In Theaters Reviews by Studio Video Games Features Collector Series DVDs Easter Egg Database Interviews DVD Talk Radio Feature Articles Columns Anime Talk DVD Savant Horror DVDs The M.O.D. Squad Art House HD Talk Silent DVD
|
DVD Talk Forum |
|
Resources |
DVD Price Search Customer Service #'s RCE Info Links |
Columns
|
|
Sunset Tan: Season One
Fake tans for a fake "reality" series. Lionsgate has released E!'s tanning salon reality show (yes...it's the end of the world), Sunset Tan: Season One on a two-disc, 12-episode collection. Regular viewers of E!'s only worthwhile show, The Soup, will no doubt be familiar with the totally real, totally believable, totally, like, not scripted at all antics of the loveable boobs of Hell-A's most whacky, sexy, criminally annoying tanning salon! The rest of the 99.99999% of the TV viewing population will never have heard of it, and in that blissful ignorance, thus shall their souls be saved. Daring only in the monumental hubris the producers must have felt in trying to fob this off as anything other than an addle-patted soap opera, Sunset Tan: Season One at least one-ups other E! offal like The Simple Life by managing a coherent story arc, but besting the Paris Hilton/Nicole Richie celebutard fest is akin to claiming to be the biggest fly on a pile of dog sh*t.
Okay; here's the set-up (and I do mean set up). Blinged-out, ball-cap-pulled-over-to-a-precise-32°-off-center-angle Jeff Bozz and overly-muscled, overly-tanned, overly-mellowed out Devin Haman own six successful tanning salons in the Los Angeles, Southern California area (why anyone would need to go to a tanning salon in sun-drenched Southern California is still a mystery to this Midwestern boy, but that's another story). And you wouldn't believe the caaaa-rrrrraaaazzzy hijinks their employees get up to! Actually, it's not all that crazy. They mostly bitch and moan about their jobs, and dish the dirt on each other like 12-year-olds. Chief complainers include: Nick D'Anna, manager of the West Hollywood salon, who one might assume is gay except for his totally believable relationship with Ania Migdal, who comes to work for Sunset Tan, as well (and who doesn't seem entirely satisfied in her relationship with the curiously reserved Nick); Keely Williams, the busty, forgotten manager of the forgotten salon somewhere where nobody really cares about her because she's not all that interesting; Molly Shea and Holly Huddleston, the brain surgeons of the bunch, and known as the "olly Girls" because they both think it's clever that their names end in..."olly"; and the villain of the piece, leggy, blonde Janelle Perry, the snarling, catty, cagey, scheming, gorgeous P.O.A. who will turn on you like that if you: a): threaten her position in anyway; b): refuse to work one of her many shifts she dodges so she can go on vacation (like every weekend); or c): if you're stupid or dumb or not as hot as she is or you wear the wrong clothes or if you walk funny.
Into this maelstrom of sun-bleached insanity and silicone is dropped one Erin Tietsort, a sweet-natured, painfully naïve Okie from Tulsa who loves her pastor daddy dearly, but who wants to live in Los Angeles because she doesn't want to be like the people who live in Los Angeles (I know; it didn't make sense to me, either, when she said that). Working under Janelle (hell yeah!), Erin is subjected to almost daily withering put-downs from the deliciously demonic Janelle, pushing Erin to the brink of admitting she may have made a mistake in moving to Los Angeles. Fighting back in that brave, plucky manner of hers, and pushing back the tears (sniff, sniff), Erin begins to find her base tan and openly challenges Janelle when it's announced that Jeff and Devin are opening a new salon at (gasp) The Palms in Las Vegas, with all the employees in competition to become its new manager. Like a bunch of yowling cats in heat, the managers scratch and claw at each other, trying to best one another in the only way they know how (petulant ass-raggin'), as they try to ascend the summit of tanning salon Valhalla: a wildly over-priced Holiday Inn set out in the middle of nowhere. Who will win? Who will die? And who will contract basal cell carcinoma melanomas from all that tanning?
Jesus Christ, what a dumb show. I mean...tanning salons? That's what's left to scrape up at the bottom of the whole "reality show" phenomenon barrel? How the hell do you craft a series that's even remotely engaging when the central action of the show's format revolves around people getting...browner? Well, if you're the producer of this dubious prospect, I guess you have to then focus on the people you cast (I mean, the people you found working at these places), and script a bunch of silly, totally unbelievable scenarios to craft a soap that people might tune into on the slight chance they may see nude bodies along with the whisper-thin flights-of-fancy you concocted in the editing room. Giving Sunset Tan: Season One a modicum of credit, it does at least provide a couple of familiar (i.e.: ancient) narrative frameworks to hang its stupid sensationalism off of, including the classic "sweet-young-thing-from-the-plain-states-coming-down-to-the-Big-Bad-City," along with the pffice politic power-grabs and of course, the mainstay of any "reality show:" the villain crushing all those who oppose her/him. And Janelle is molded quite well into that clichéd stereotype. We've all worked with "Janelles" before (but probably not with anyone as hot as she is), so it's a nice contradiction in terms: we hate her guts but we'd sleep with her in a L.A. second.
However, a roughly framed-out storyline can't make up for Sunset Tan: Season One's startlingly blatant ineptness, from its poor casting to its direction. More than any other "reality" series I've seen, individual scenes in Sunset Tan: Season One "play" scripted; there seems to be zero effort put into making the show at least feel true (the spray-tanning of the "corpse" at the funeral parlor - when the guy is obviously still alive, is the nadir of the show). The "olly Girls" are of course the most noticeable breakers of the fourth wall (the editing is so incompetent on the show that Jeff blows the girls' cover in one episode when he states they were friends before their hiring - so much for the girls just breezing in to work). I don't know if someone held up cue cards for the girls or they learned their lines phonetically, but their delivery is some of the most unintentionally hilarious thesping I've seen in some time. Not that they can't get off a funny line now and then (they're particularly cute and cruel when they mock their super-serious, super-dumb bosses), but too much of Sunset Tan: Season One plays lazy in its obviously set-up scenes (with the "olly Girls" getting away with shenanigans that any normal boss would stop on day one), making pro wrestling look like cinema verite in comparison.
Even the more prurient possibilities of the show are negated by the terrible lensing and the hack-work editing. While E! furiously blurs all the nipples that show up on the naked women (which lets you know this is an E! production; if it were naked guys, it would be Bravo), this sop to decorum only makes all the plasticine bodies look even more Barbie-like and un-erotic. For a show that's supposed to be about good looking people walking around in as few clothes as possible, Sunset Tan: Season One registers a depressingly low voltage. Frankly, it's difficult to ascertain exactly what the producers of Sunset Tan: Season One were going for when they commissioned this dried out, wrinkled, shriveled up cow chip. The embarrassingly obvious "spontaneous celebrity walk-ons" will have the general audience puzzled, trying to remember who they are - or perhaps more accurately, who they "were" (Chelsea Handler makes an utter fool of herself, although she's dimwitted enough to think she's being ironic and cool, while Chris Katan's appearance is just plain sad). And as for the "isn't Hollywood weird and whacky?" angle, that hoary old cliché was played decades ago. It just isn't interesting anymore. None of this crap is. And neither is Sunset Tan: Season One.
Here are the 12, twenty-minute episodes of the two-disc set, Sunset Tan: Season One, as described on the DVD insert.
DISC ONE:
Episode 1: Welcome to Sunset Tan
Erin tries to acclimate to a different lifestyle, and Nick is frustrated with the regional manager.
Episode 2: Vegas, Baby
Nick may be the top salesman in L.A., but Vegas proves to be an entirely different beast.
Episode 3: Oklahoma!
Erin visits her family in Oklahoma. Meanwhile, the Mystic Tan machine breaks, costing Nick a lot of money in commissions.
Episode 4: Miss Sunset Tan
With the Vegas salon opening soon, casting occurs for Miss Sunset Tan, and Keely is frustrated with Roxanne's managerial skills.
Episode 5: Olly's Follies
The competition between the Sunset staffers heats up as Jeff and Devin take them all (sans the Olly Girls) to Las Vegas to see who would be the best fit.
Episode 6: The Reveal
Miss Sunset Tan is revealed, along with the new Vegas manager; Erin decides if she will stay in L.A., and Nick decides if he will stay at Sunset Tan.
Episode 7: New Kid on the Block
Things heat up at Sunset Tan as Nick's girlfriend joins the staff and Janelle puts her job in jeopardy.
DISC TWO:
Episode 8: All Work, No Play
It gets ugly between Erin and Janelle, while Nick stresses out over the job and his lady.
Episode 9: Guess Who's Coming to Sunset Tan?
The Olly Girls and Ania go at it, and an ex-Playmate comes in to get some color.
Episode 10: Relationship Woes
Nick and Ania's relationship is on the rocks, while a new girl poses a threat to the Sunset Tan staff.
Episode 11: While the Cat's Away...
The Ollys throw a big bash at their boss' posh pad, while Jeff and Devin check up on the new Sin City salon.
Episode 12: Employees Gone Wild!
The Ollys have a serious sit-down with their bosses, while Ania discovers a devastating secret about Nick.
The DVD:
The Video:
The full screen, 1.33:1 video transfers for Sunset Tan: Season One are no more tacky than the show itself, with mild video noise and some ghosting, and a less-than-super-sharp picture.
The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English 2.0 stereo mix is adequate for this yak fest; all dialogue is clearly heard (and what dialogue it is, too). Close-captions are available.
The Extras:
Yes, Sunset Tan fans, there are extras! But the deleted scenes, "red carpet" interviews (which have to be seen to be believed), and "Olly Girls' Guide" on how to do "things" the Olly Girl way, add up to less than nothing. Flat out: if you're buying this DVD for the extras, you need to seek professional help.
Final Thoughts:
In the opening episode of Sunset Tan: Season One, a pudgy, remarkably unattractive Britney Spears shows up for some tannin', y'all, and gives us her take on the Zen-like (or Calgon™) properties of tanning: "I love tannin' because it's my time to escape from the world." If only, Britney. If only. There's no escaping the fact, however, that Sunset Tan: Season One is one burnt-to-a-crisp "reality" series, with a blown central story hook (let's watch people...brown), and an almost cavalier approach in getting the audience to believe they're actually watching something spontaneous and real. If you slap some sunscreen on a sinker and put it in a thong, it's still excrement - nice glow or not. Skip Sunset Tan: Season One.
Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.
|
Popular Reviews |
Sponsored Links |
|
Sponsored Links |
|
Release List | Reviews | Shop | Newsletter | Forum | DVD Giveaways | Blu-Ray | Advertise |
Copyright 2024 DVDTalk.com All Rights Reserved. Legal Info, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use,
Manage Preferences,
Your Privacy Choices
|