Product: Hotel Babylon - Season 1 (2008)
Rating: 4.0
Great British Show ... Bad Sound
This is a show about a posh hotel ... and it has enough scandal, sex and drama to satisfy any fan of British television. You'll need a region 2 DVD player to watch this. But those are easy and inexpensive enough to find. One of my favorite shows ever is Footballers Wives and although this show doesn't live up to that benchmark it still sizzles.One caveat is that the sound mixer for this show should be ashamed at themselves. The speaking track is low and muffled in many cases. The music track is booming and loud. It gets annoying because especially for an American viewer, it is hard to understand about a quarter of what is being said anytime there is music playing while characters are speaking. (which is almost always) This is one of the most poorly mixed shows I have ever heard in terms of the audio ... it is almost like someone made this on a laptop. The audio engineer really screwed this up. It makes the show very hard to watch because extremely hard to understand certain characters, especially when things are spoken in hushed tones or whispers. They put music (loungy heavy bass music behind the showe almost always.Beyond the terribly destructive audio, the show is interesting. The characters are ones you can invest in. A witchy manager, a slick assistant manager with a troubled and mysterious past, a lothario bartender, sexy cleaning lady, old school doorman, conniving ex-girlfriend front desk manager and a capable but somewhat shady concierge who steals the show. The guests who check into the hotel pose certain problems ... rockstars, suicidal guests, high class call girls. Each show usually focuses on 2 or 3 of these guests and their problems along with the drama between the staff. It is a good balance of humor and drama and each show is a nice escape where you can get involved in the plotlines and characters without suspending too much disbelief.The resolutions of the episode ... how they wrap up the storyline ... is usually pretty predictable and too cutesy. But this is a small part of the show. I made it through the first season and enjoyed it but to be honest, I don't know how many seasons I could invest myself in watching the same environment. Also, British luxury hotels are a lot different than luxury hotels in the USA. I can't help but think when I watch this how gaudy and cheap the hotel looks. It is supposed to be a creme de la creme top of the line luxury hotel ... however, here in the USA it looks sort of seedy and tawdry and not at all luxurious. Think lots of neon, grey and red. I think the set design does the show a dis-service ... but then again, I've stayed at a few hotels in the British style that were very expensive and very tawdry looking.Overall, a good show with interesting characters and sort of interesting storylines. I don't know how many seasons I could watch this ... but I guess Bad Girls focused on a prison and made it to 7 or 8 seasons. So we will see. Another good British drama with sexy story lines and plenty of plot twists. Anyone who can give me some recommendations on more British soap style dramas like this would be very helpful. I have seen all the Footballers Wives and Bad Girls. I am thinking my next show might be Mile High ... but would love a Brisith tv show in the veign of FBW. This is as close as I've come so far.