Bliss

Bliss  I stumbled upon this series by accident while channel surfing. As the Oxygen Network plays it on late Sunday nights, I don’t always get the opportunity to watch. The series is entertaining, even though there are times it strains credibility. Most of the stories are shallow, in spite of the occasional attempts at character development, and they’re not that hard to predict. Though the series is supposed to be for a female audience, men will certainly enjoy it. The episode regarding a lesbian historical boutique owner and her butch younger girlfriend entertained me, but I don’t know if straight women would enjoy such a thing. On the whole, “Bliss” is a fun time-filler for hard-up insomniacs.

Probably the best episode is “Six Days”, in which the beautiful yet authentic Anna (Michelle Duquet), an unhappily married farmer’s wife is left alone on the farm after her annoying bore of a husband Jake (Paul Stewart) suffers an accident that temporarily incapacitates him. So she finds someone to help her keep up the farm while he recovers. Of course, Mike (Callum Keith Rennie), the man who volunteers to work for her, is nice-looking and virile. And it’s obvious what they’ll do once they’ve been alone for a few days. Yet the story works just the same. We see the alienated wife and the loner farm hand connect as people, not just genders or bodies. It’s clear that both are not trusting people. He has moved from place to place since leaving home, while she’s never been out of her hometown even though she’s never liked living there, yet they’re both drawn to each other for the same reasons. So when they smile and laugh together, there’s a real sense of release and fulfillment. It’s almost as much about the effects of loneliness as it as about sex. The actors get much of the credit, yet they work with the story. The only weakness of the story is, why did Anna marry Jake in the first place, not only because he’s so much older than her, but because he’s such an exasperating personality? But in the end, it doesn’t matter.

Wild Things