For A Good Time, Call - Weeds, Secret Diary of a Call Girl

Weeds - Lady's a Charm - Ep. 402
Secret Diary of a Call Girl - Ep. 102

So I guess you will love or loathe Secret Diary of a Call Girl (the new show that follows Weeds on Showtime, with original airings on Mondays at 10:30pm and on Showcase in Canada on Thursdays at 10 and 10:30pm) depending on your acceptance that Billie Piper can play Hanna as someone who actually enjoys sex and is willing to work in the sex industry as a call girl named Belle. Luckily, Billie makes it a lot easier to love Hanna/Belle who is smart and sophisticated and makes few apologies about her career choice. Well, except that she keeps her career choice a secret from her best friend Ben and her family, leading a double life that includes splitting her apartment into her personal home, and the professional world.

There's the straight up talk-to-the-camera sex talk from Hanna as she introduces us to her world, explaining what she does, how she does it, why she does it, and not apologizing for loving sex.

It's Paid Sex and the City. And the city is London so the British accents sure help make everything seem more legitimate and more intelligent!

Each episode is sort of another vignette into her call girl life, as we slowly see Belle live the double life. I LOVE double life shows. And since I really have less hangups about sex and sexuality (as opposed to say, my problem with the fact that most shows rely on violence or acts of such as titillation) I've always been intrigued by the double life game that is set up through our society's taboos and moral quandaries despite the fact that it's the oldest profession in the world. Plus as a gay man, I think there's a very different view and acceptance of sex and industry with gay porn stars almost seen as superstars. So my mind is a bit liberally warped that way.

Granted, you could say that the show promotes the sex trade, and that many girls are forced into it whether by economics, social situations or such, but this is the story of a girl who has none of those problems, who isn't a drug addict or any of the usual excuses, and its just one girls story (a true story based on the blog and book called “Belle de Jour: The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl”) that was both fascinating while didn't seem demeaning, and I found myself addicted to the series, watching the whole first season in one weekend (thanks to an advance DVD! Yay freebies (and yes, while we are speaking of it, I can be easily bought)).

While I hoped there would be a bit more of a continuing thread of some of Hanna/Belle's love interests (like the guy she liked in the premiere or the guy she liked in the 2nd episode this week who she considered ditching her client for), I will say that I actually liked the relationship they have built between her and Ben, not exactly going where you would typically think it was going to.

Meanwhile, while the first episode of Weeds this season was really just a setup for the new premise, the second episode, with Guillermo testing Nancy was terrific and a nice return to the feel of Weeds.

I'm not a fan of Albert Brooks so I didn't really care for the season premiere but after this second episode, I'm liking this new premise. Though I wonder how they are going to work Celia and Doug back in, but at this point, the whole Celia in jail is painful to watch (but like a train wreck that we can't turn away).

Here's a video clip Hanging with Hunter (Parrish) because really, can there ever be enough? The funny thing is, he's still such a kid and not really like his surly Silas character and seems almost closer to the slightly gawky teen he played in Freedom Writers: