Dante’s Cove – The Second Season (2006)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Feature: C-

 

 

So the supernatural action cycle dying a slow, tired death.  What can be done to save it or make it more interesting?  Original ideas?  Real suspense?  Strong teleplay writing?  How about gay men and a few token lesbian couples in the middle of all the black magic?  That is essentially the idea behind Dante’s Cove, here in its Second Season DVD set.  We missed the first set, but from the content here, it looks like it was not much.

 

With the freedom of cable/satellite TV, the show has been appearing on a gay channel called “Here!”  That is a shock for those who only thought Logo was new and a first.  Either way, the show is very formulaic in its really lame supernatural side and then the mostly gay male cast has a habit of walking around all over the place, often nude, even with several instances an episode (!?!) with full frontal nudity.  What that has to do with Satanism and witchcraft is never explained, but I guess the curse includes turning these guys into exhibitionists.

 

Tracy Scoggins is here as the main witch/succubus type figure and unless I am missing a bunch of gay in-jokes, which would not saver this show either, this is just silly and has a strange sense of immaturity that matches its teen non-gay counterparts (like Charmed) and a lack of character development to match.  Except as a gay male curio, this is a very pointless show that cannot make up with abundant nudity what its soap opera scripts severely lack despite only having to fill up six hours of programming.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is on the soft side, shot in digital HD that looks like old 1080i, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has limited surrounds and clearly recorded dialogue.  Extras include a four featurettes, trailers for this and four other such releases, a plug for the Here! Network and audio commentary track option with deleted scenes.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo