Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

FinneganBear Season 1 was a well written, well acted character study of Christine Reade, who transforms from smart, "good girl", from a good family, who does well in law school, receives an internship at a prestigious firm but winds up a high priced call girl. Christine was not a particularly likeable character but her transformation from one world into another was spellbinding. Season 2 consisted of two unrelated half hour weekly stories. It seems creators Kerrigan and Siemtz wanted to go in a very different direction but were stuck with the escort theme. Kerrigan did the "Erica and Anna" portion of GFE primarily about Erica, an unethical political operative involved in arranging illegal campaign contributions. Anna was the call-girl in the story. Erica uses Anna to blackmail a political opponent and inexplicably decides she must have a relationship with Anna. Anna appears somewhat unstable and the two of them alternate between pleasing and hurting one another. We learn nothing about either character. The series is essentially about the political intrigue and less about the characters, none of which have any redeeming value or are worth caring about. Siemetz did the "Bria" portion of GFE. Bria is a former escort now in the witness protection program. We learn that she met a mob boss as an escort and married him, presumably to live a life of wealth. She was aware of his violent criminal activity and admitted to participating in some crimes. Now she feared he would find her and kill her before she could testify against him. Unhappy in her new, tedious life as well as afraid, she secretly finds a few wealthy men to escort as well as using sex to ensure the married marshal assigned to protect her remains interested. The only thing "Erica and Anna" and "Bria" have in common is that there is not a single character in either series worth caring about.

tigerfish50 The excellent Season 1 of 'The Girlfriend Experience' related how a law student ventured into high-end prostitution to pay the bills and increase her living standards while interning at a big-city legal firm. Riley Keogh's portrayal of the main character Christine won a Golden Globe nomination, as her understated performance depicted the psychological cost of pretending affection to entitled executives and selling them her body. The scripts for each episode remained focused on the escort work throughout, with Keogh's micro-expressions betraying inner conflicts as Christine subtly adjusted her persona to please various clients, lovers and employers. The series revealed how prostitution affected her personal life and law career, and ultimately derailed both.By contrast, Season 2 lost almost all meaningful connection with the call-girl lifestyle as it followed three different protagonists in two separate narratives. In the first, an escort named Anna embarked on an obsessive lesbian love affair with a sociopathic financial-political operator called Erika. In the second, former escort Bria got marooned in witness protection limbo as she awaited the trial of her gangster husband. The stories were neither believable nor interesting, the characters failed to generate any sympathy, and subtlety was entirely absent.

twhiteson In 2002's "Auto Focus," former "Hogan's Heroes" star and all-around perverted sleazeball, Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear), is depicted fantasizing shortly before his 1978 murder about making high-end porn films with legitimate actors, directors, writers, and technicians. His friend (and possible murderer) John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe) scoffs at the entire idea as ludicrous. Yet, Bob Crane had seen the future because forty years after his death porn has indeed gone mainstream and there is no better example of this trend than Starz' "The Girlfriend Experience." "The Girlfriend Experience" is pornography except "tastefully" done by actual film professionals. Yes, there are plots about boring, high-end, sociopath prostitutes co-mingling with boring A-type sociopaths with high-end jobs and aseptic offices/apartments while meandering through twisted Machiavellian worlds of high finance, politics or law, but the plot and character development seem to be secondary to the three or four pornographic sex scenes/episode. The second season has been even more blatant with the "Erica & Anna" episodes being nothing more than one "hot lesbian action" scene after the next. People claiming they're watching this show for its plot or character development sound about as believable as those who used to claim to read Playboy for its articles.Are actors so desperate for work, money, and fame that they'll do almost ANYTHING? What do Anna Friel and Louisa Krause tell family and friends about their work: "Oh, sure it sounds and looks like I'm making porn, but it's not because Steve Soderbergh's name is attached to it and it's on Starz!" Do they want their children or relatives' children to ever watch this stuff? Undoubtedly, they're telling themselves that they're being "risky" and "artistic," but in reality they're providing the same service to horny heterosexual men/boys that they usually get by cruising the internet. (And undoubtedly many of the scenes from "The Girlfriend Experience" will be uploaded to those internet sites.)In sum: "high-end" porn that lowers the bar.

privateinformation-84218 Really enjoyed season 1, but season 2 is incredibly boring. Even more sex scenes have been added to each episode, which I always skip because they are incredibly uncomfortable. The characters show so little depth, there's no insight into the characters' background, motivations, personalities. Why does everyone live in impersonal homes with little to no furniture and no personal items? Once you've skipped through the awkward stares and bland sex scenes, there is approximately 10 minutes of actual talking.I hate what they have done to this series.