Years ago I posted an overview of this entire season, but I was recently requested to post in-depth reviews of each specific episode. Well, I’m a man of the people who appreciates everyone who reads any of my blog posts, especially the regular readers, so I try to give them what they want when I can.

Plus, it provides more content for me here; instead of just 1 post covering everything, I can have 13 separate posts!

This series, created by Brian Hurwitz, began airing on Cinemax and other cable stations in June 2004, with original episodes airing once a week. The series starred Tiffany Hendra as Cooper and Amy Lindsay as Olivia, two women who run a dating service called Black Tie Nights.  Each episode’s main plot centers around their efforts to set up a new couple.  This series was unique among most softcore TV series at the time in that it often featured ongoing sub-plots and continuing stories that could carry over from one episode to the next. Before this, most softcore series’, like Beverly Hills Bordello and Passion Cove, were more like anthologies, where each episode told a complete story on its own, with special guest characters (often with some actors cast as different characters if they appeared more than once). But this was the start of a new trend in softcore, which would follow in later series’ like Life On Top and Zane’s The Jump Off, which also contained recurring characters and ongoing storylines.

Written by D.B. Brooks, Windsor Goodman, and Anthony L. Greene, and directed by Julie Jordan, this is the set-up episode of the series. As it opens, Olivia is a former lawyer who is still mourning the death of her husband Vince (Hoyt Richards) from 2 years prior. Cooper is a former professional cheerleader (they don’t say for which team or sport) who wrote a famous tell-all book about her career. The two ladies meet in a bar where Olivia is commemorating the 2nd anniversary of Vince’s death. In a flashback scene we see Olivia and Frank celebrating their wedding anniversary by having romantic sex by the fireplace in their home.

Cooper thinks it’s been long enough for Olivia to be in mourning and that it’s time for her to start dating again. She offers to set Olivia up with a new guy and brags about her skills as a matchmaker (she was the one who introduced Olivia to Vince in the first place). Insisting that she can match anyone, she spots a random guy at a bar, overhears him complaining to another guy at the bar about losing his girlfriend, and bets Olivia that she can fix him up with someone.

Jeff Archibald is the man in question, Frank, a professional fashion photographer. Through a somewhat convoluted series of events, Cooper finds out his name and where he works and goes to see him under the pretext of hiring him for a photoshoot. While talking, she learns about how his girlfriend recently dumped him, cleared her stuff from their house, and moved out because she didn’t appreciate his work. Cooper then asks him if he’s interested in meeting someone new.

So she sets Frank up on a date with Candy Hicks, an actress played by Beverly Lynne. Cooper arranges for them to meet at a pier for a boat ride and tells him to bring a bouquet of daisies. Frank gets their first and meets Allison, the skipper of the boat (played by Elina Madison). Candy arrives late and immediately acts dismissive of Frank. She doesn’t appreciate the bouquet, saying she hates daisies and gives them to Allison instead. They have lunch on the boat, but she mainly talks about herself, including talking about her ex Eduardo, whom she dated during her “hot Latino phase.” Eduardo is played by Billy Chappell, who doesn’t seem like a Latino to me, but never mind. In a flashback scene, we see Candy and Eduardo having sex outside on a patio.

As the boat ride ends and Candy leaves, Allison invites Frank back in for dessert. I’m sure you can guess what “dessert” means in this case. 

This is when we get the plot twist. Candy talks to Cooper, and we learn that this was Cooper’s plan all along. She was really setting Frank and Allison up. Candy knew this and acted rudely on purpose so that Frank wouldn’t like her. Cooper even told Frank to bring daisies because she knew that those were Allison’s favorite flowers.

The plan worked. As the episode jumps ahead one month, and we learn that Frank and Allison have been dating ever since and are currently on a trip together.

Back at Olivia’s house, Cooper watches as Olivia puts away all of her pictures and memorabilia of Vince, as she’s ready to move on with her life. And instead of taking a job at a law firm in Colorado, she plans to stay and suggests to Olivia that the two of them go into business running an exclusive dating service, taking advantage of Olivia’s wealthy connections and Cooper’s matchmaking skills. And thus, the series begins.

This is a good start. The chemistry between Amy Lindsay and Tiffany Hendra is good, which will be key to making this series work. The three sex scenes were hot enough. Plus, there’s a scene where Ander Page, playing a model named Lola, has a long nude photoshoot with Frank. This is a series that softcore lovers should check out.

Chacebook rating: FIVE STARS

Jason Majercik is selling this UNRATED 3-disc DVD set of Black Tie Nights season 1 for $29.99. Email him at quinn_nash@hotmail.com for his softcore inventory list.