Satisfaction Season 1: Well, Are You Satisfied?

Satisfaction started out with a great premise, and I really enjoyed the first few episodes. But as we got to the end I began to wonder just where the story was heading.

At the very beginning, Neil has a breakdown on an airplane, finds his wife cheating, and takes the place of a male escort. It seemed as if the show would run with this idea, letting Neil find comfort in the arms of many women, and somehow learning more about his own relationship with his wife in the process. And to keep things interesting, he made an enemy in Simon by taking his clients. This is a rivalry that could have lasted all season, but was instead wrapped up more quickly than it should have been.

Let me start with what I think the show did really well—and that is to bring up real marriage issues. Simple moments like talking about bills and what to do about your teenage daughter’s boyfriend. It also offered up a really interesting character in Adriana. She’s the powerful, manipulative, well-dressed madam who seems to have become obsessed with Neil. So much so, in fact, that she manages to get herself into Grace’s world and starts getting into her head.

Neil remains the hero throughout the season. Though imperfect and conflicted, he always tries to better himself, even visiting a quite quotable Zen master to talk through his issues. This, I loved. Rather than see a priest or a psychologist, we’ve gone with something a little more surprising, and the Zen master offers good insights.

And Matt Passmore is truly perfect in this role. He conveys so many emotions through his eyes alone, and it’s amazing to watch. It’s really possible to see the thoughts running through his mind as he tries to process everything that’s been happening. And he becomes visibly nauseous when he first learns his wife is cheating on him, and again later in the season at the mere thought of her infidelity.

I wish would could have seen Neil embrace being an escort– at least for a bit. Instead, he puts his focus into creating a happiness “app” at his company. If you ask me, this is where things started to go to downhill. I don’t want to see Neil trying to create an app. I want to see him struggle in his relationship, and I want more conflict in that area.

And I have to wonder if this was the original intention of the show. It seems to me that at the beginning, the plan was for Neil to embrace being an escort, and for he and his wife to grow closer because of what he learns in that process. I also wish we could have seen more of the relationship (or lack-thereof) between Neil and Adriana. After all, their sex scene was probably the most intense and passionate of the entire season. But this show had a lot of negative criticism for its morals, and it seemed to try to redeem itself from that about halfway through the season. I wish it hadn’t. I wish it had just gone for it 100%.

And along those lines, I think more development in the relationship between Grace and Simon could have been equally fascinating this season. I also really wanted the show to explore Grace’s point of view in all of this. Okay, we understand she’s given up her dreams and lost a piece of her identity, but I’m dying to know more. We simply didn’t have enough time to get into it.

It’s that lack of time, by the way, that I think caused the biggest problem this season. Satisfaction is a summer show, and it only had 10 seasons to deal with some incredibly serious issues. With more episodes in the season, it could have really explored the relationships, the infidelity, and the characters on a deeper level.

My hope is that Satisfaction is renewed for another season, and that if it is, that the story gets a bit deeper the next go round. And more importantly, I can’t handle yet another cliffhanger where we wonder whether or not Matt Passmore’s character is going to live…

 

What did you think of the show, and what are you hopes for Neil and Grace if it returns from Season 2? Leave me a comment and let me know you thoughts!