Here’s something that I’m reviewing by request. Compromising Situations was an early softcore television series that debuted in 1994 and lasted three seasons. I think I remember watching it on Showtime, although it may have been Cinemax. The thing about this show is that, like some other softcore TV shows of the time (Hot Springs Hotel, Sherman Oaks) it was a lot more comedic than erotic. It was formatted like a sitcom, but with nudity (mostly in the form of topless women). Actual sex scenes in the show were usually very short, and not really filmed to be particularly arousing, just mainly to advance the plot. It was an anthology series, each episode was a self-contained story with a new group of characters, although they used several actors in multiple episodes playing different characters. Most of the episodes usually were about some man and his romantic/sexual encounters with women, often with some kind of plot twist at the end.

The first season had seven episodes, which I will briefly review here:

Episode One: THE SURPRISE
Written by Bradford O’Neil, directed by Gregory Edan
Burke Morgan stars as Chris Richmond, the President of his own company. One day his employees through a surprise birthday party for him in his office. They also hired a stripper (Caroline de Costa, who also happens to be the above picture who appears in the opening sequence of every episode of this series) to give him a private performance, during which Chris has a heart attack. Chris is taken to a hospital, where the doctor recommends he stay for a few days to recover. Jill, the stripper, feels guilty and sneaks into Chris’ hospital room one night to apologize to him and make sure he’s alright. The two of them end up having sex. And the episode ends with one more surprise.

Honestly, a rather dull episode, as not much happens. There are a lot of talking scenes to pad out the episode that could have been replaced with some sex scenes. There was only one full sex scene in this episode, and that’s the one between Burk and Caroline. There is also Caroline’s striptease in the beginning, but she only gets topless. There’s a hint of a sex scene between another man and woman who are Chris’ employees, but the camera cuts away before they get to it. And Tammy Parks has a small role in this film as a nurse, but she doesn’t show any skin in this episode, so that’s a waste of her talents.

Episode Two: THE TRAIN
Written by Tim Lennane and Kate Nielsen, directed by Lynn d’Angona
This episode takes place sometime in the early 1900’s (but it’s at least after 1918, because a character references women in England being granted the right to vote), and stars Simon Page as Jack Shepherd, an English Ambassador assigned as an escort of a young Chinese woman to Hong Kong, where she is to marry a prominent Chinese businessman. The woman is Chien Wu, played by Bobbie Page (I wonder if she and Simon were married in real life?), who is accompanied by her aunt Li (Irene Tsu). She’s from a very sheltered background, and we learn that this marriage was arranged by her family, and she doesn’t look forward to it, but her conservative aunt dismisses her complaints. During the train ride, Jack and Chien are increasingly attracted to her and eventually give in to their passion the night before the train ride ends. But while Jack tries to convince Chien to defy her family and run away with him, she goes along with her aunt and meets with her future husband.

In addition to the one sex scene between Simon and Bobbie, which is pretty hot, there is a brief sex scene between two other unnamed characters, just passengers on the train. A White man and an Asian woman. The woman has HUGE breasts but, unfortunately, whomever that actress is she’s uncredited.

Episode Three: CASTING COUCH
Written by L.A. Horne and directed by Kyla Zaggy
Ivan Adams stars as Phil, a sleazy casting director who enjoys proposition the young actresses who come to audition for him for sex in exchange for promising them acting roles. The entire episode takes place in his little office. The episode opens with him “auditioning” a woman named Julie (Aline Kassman) and then them having sex on the couch in his office. Later another actress named Sondra (Honey Lauren) comes in, and he tries to convince her of the need to get naked so he can see if she’s comfortable doing nude scenes. To get her comfortable he plays her a video of another actress (Tammy Parks) stripping for him in his office. But Sondra doesn’t go along with it.
And then Phil is visited by a conservatively dressed woman named Betty Condom (Cyndi Freeman), who claims that she represents the Motion Picture Ethics committee, and she warns Phil that he’s being investigated for his behavior. Phil just dismisses her. Then later Betty comes back, no dressed sexy and saying she’s an actress named Candy, here to audition for him. Phil doesn’t recognize her, and they eventually have sex. Afterward, Betty reveals who she is and that she’s secretly taped this encounter to get proof of Phil’s activities. There’s a bit of a plot twist at the end, where we find out Betty’s true motives.

Episode Four: THE MASTER
Written by Jack Mahony and directed by Gregory Edan
Dustin Forbes stars as Ted Cummings, an unrepentant womanizer. The episode opens with him having sex with his secretary (Leslie Hunt) in his office. Robert Brown plays Ted’s coworker Rich, who disapproves of Ted’s behavior, but Ted just thinks Rich is jealous because Ted is single and getting laid more often while Rich is in a boring marriage.
One day after work Ted meets a young woman named Kimberly (Sophie Allan) in a parking lot. She was having trouble changing the oil in her car. Ted helps her and, to thank him, Kimberly invites Ted to her place for dinner.
Despite being half his age, Kimberly and Ted begin a wild sexual relationship. After a couple of weeks, she proposes to set up Ted’s ultimate fantasy: a threesome. Ted eagerly agrees, but on the night of the threesome, well, let’s just say that it doesn’t turn out the way that Ted had expected.

Episode Five: FIRST TIME CALLER
Written by Dan Miller and directed by Scott Blair
Robert Ray stars as Jonathan Andrews, a late-night radio talk show host, who takes whatever opportunity he has to have sex with his female guests. The episode begins with him banging the radio station’s traffic reporter (Eileen Smith) in the janitor’s closet at the station. We then see him working, sometimes he takes phone calls and gives advice to the callers, and sometimes he guests that he interviews. One guest his a nerdy old man (J.T. Maguire) who has written a book about being abducted by aliens who forced him to have sex with them. That’s played mostly for laughs. Then another guest is a sex therapist named Nadine (Rachelle Cano) who has written a book. Nadine is a very sexy woman, and openly flirts with Jonathan during the interview, but then abruptly leaves as soon as it is over. This is a shame, as I would have liked to have seen a sex scene, or at least some nudity from her. Kathleen Gibson plays Jonathan’s boss. And she comes to the station and meets Jonathan in her office, where they have sex, but it’s done with the woman in charge. It’s almost like a femdom scene, with her ordering him to undress and then lay down on the floor so she can ride him. Afterward, she reminds Jonathan that its sweeps week, so he should do whatever he has to do to get good ratings. A scheduled guest for Jonathan’s show is a porn star who likes to have sex with radio hosts and then come into the studio to talk about it on the air. At the end of the show, Jonathan meets the porn star and takes her into his office, but there’s a plot twist.

Episode Six: REUNION 76
Written and directed by James Glenn Dudelson
Robert Ray stars again, this time playing Jake, the writer and creator of some popular TV show. Although he’s in a relationship with Kathy (Carrie Jean Yazel) the famous star of that TV show, Jake’s 20-year college reunion is coming up and he’s nervous about the prospect of reuniting with his old college sweetheart, Jane (Suzanne Solari), whom he considers his first love. He’s also insecure about getting older. He’s wearing an obvious toupee at the beginning of the episode, but it falls in the toilet while he’s getting dressed for the reunion, and so is forced to go without it. At the reunion, he meets Jane, and they go up to a hotel room and have sex. But there’s a couple of plot twists before this episode reaches its conclusion.

There are two full sex scenes in this episode, one with Robert and Carrie in the beginning, and then another with Robert and Suzanne later, and that second scene is the most erotic sex scene on the series at that point.

Episode Seven: LET YOUR FINGERS DO THE WALKING
Written by Susan Clark and directed by A.E. Wiseman
Sprague Theobald (who had a small part in the previous episode) stars as Matt Delany, a middle-aged writer who’s been struggling to complete his latest book. His editor is coming by later in the afternoon to see what Matt’s written so far. As he tries to write he get distracted by a bunch of repairs that are needed to be done around the house. So he calls a bunch of different workers to come by and fix things.

The rest of the episodes show the various workers coming by, each one just so happens to be an attractive younger woman, and after they do their job they seduce Matt. First, there’s Nancy (Eileen Smith) who plays a new neighbor of Matt’s, who recognized him from the back cover of his book and wants an autograph. Then there’s Terry (Suzanne Solari), who was there to install a new phone line. And then there was Penny (Margo Tucker), an electrician who came to fix his fuse box. And then Delores (Donna Spangler), the plumber who comes to fix his sink.

All the women are hot, and the sex scenes are shot well (despite the implausibility of these hot young women throwing themselves at this middle-aged man), so I’d call it the sexiest episode overall of this first season. This also has a plot twist at the end.

So overall it was a decent series, although I wouldn’t put it up there with the real classics like Erotic Confessions or Beverly Hills Bordello. As I said, it was more geared towards humor. It could have been better if there was more of an emphasis on erotica. And I think later episodes did do that. But this first season, for still being in the early days of softcore TV, was a good effort.

Chacebook rating: THREE STARS

I previously have bought many softcore DVD’s from a particular seller on iOffer.com. But that seller has taken his inventory off of that site, and is selling his DVD’s directly via email. His name is Jason Majercik and you can sign up to his bi-weekly newsletter which lists his stock at quinn_nash@hotmail.com. You can put SOFTCORE INVENTORY in the subject line. He is currently selling this season (all 7 episodes, on two discs) for $29.99