Satisfaction

"Satisfaction" begins with Neil Truman (Matt Passmore) having a terrible day. To top it off, he happens upon his wife, Grace (Stephanie Szostak) getting it on with another guy. Neil discovers that the other man is a paid escort, Simon (Blair Redford).

Neil comes into possession of Simon's phone, including all his contacts. On a whim, Neil takes a call and manages to fill in for Simon with a client.

Neil's heart belongs to his wife and his daughter, Anika (Michelle DeShon), who is having her own issues. But he has dipped a toe into forbidden waters and he is fascinated. He meets a modern day madam, Adrianna, played strikingly by Katherine LaNasa. She offers him a job working for her, which he declines.

As Neil juggles the various aspects of his life--and dabbles in Zen meditation to cope--things get more complicated. He knows Grace is lying to him. He is lying to her too, but she doesn't know it. The web of deception allows them to seek answers outside the marriage while they try to save it. Can that approach work? "You never really know where enlightenment will come from," he says in a voice over.

I find the story, after two episodes, to be well written. This is a sexy show. And there is an air of mystery surrounding the entire storyline. The acting is good.

On message boards, I have seen comments about the characters not being likable, but I disagree. Though they may be confused, they truly care about each other. The dilemmas they face are real and not uncommon. They are living in a world that is recognizable to many who work in high-pressure jobs, who lose sight of what their family needs, who wish to find a balance that promotes happiness for themselves and those they love.

So far, the story is in a state of imbalance. It is difficult to know what will develop and how Neil and Grace will achieve some equilibrium in their relationship. At this early stage in the story, I am interested in watching to find out.

Update 8/22/14: As the story lines expand to include other characters, the show is getting more interesting.

I remember how I felt the first time I watched the series. I thought I was looking at an everyday-person's boring life being sure that something good would come out eventually. Passing the first three episodes, the only expectation that I had was kind of a need for having some questions answered rather than genuinely wondering about the next one and looking forward to it.

Then the surprise took over the entire plot. Neil started to show the other side of his actually amazing character and Grace was stunning on her scenes. The 4th episode was a real junction that the scenario took to another direction. The series was now more than a late-night cracker that we usually consume when there's nothing easy to eat in the kitchen.

The season finale met my expectations to the extent that I left the show to a long break rooting for another season and checking out the USA Network website every other day in the hope that they didn't cancel the show. It turned out they did not and that was a relief.

The second season started off with a near-perfect play and plot, which I'm sure all other fellow fans would agree with me on this.

I strongly recommend you give it a shot. You're not going to regret the time you spend on the show.

The pilot of Satisfaction was very good. In its 65' feels more like a movie than an episode of a series.

Neil, a successful investment banker and a family man, has an epiphany and thinks he's living a life without meaning. He decides to do something about that, to speak the truth, to take matters in his own hand, but... the results are far from what he might expected! After the end of the pilot everything seems completed though. Most of the characters did their circle and any farther reference to them anymore seems futile. But it's a show, not a movie! So these characters keep coming back. Their story didn't end but now they seem totally unnecessary.

Just finished watching the second (42' this time) episode and now my initial good review is changing to the worst. The editing is now avoiding crucial parts of what is happening. The script is making the characters more wooden and predictable. I, as a viewer, now care less about them.

The show unfortunately turns into a sitcom. There are even some elements of comic relief, like with a Buddhist "Monk" (another character who completed his circle in the pilot, but he is still present in the 2nd episode) who's pickpocketing a cellphone to send a SMS.

Also in the second episode we get to see the title sequence, with a nip-tuck version of Satisfaction (by the Rolling stones), that I really truly wished not to be the music theme of series, but in vain.

Overall: See the pilot. If you question yourself after, "Where the show goes from here?" skip the rest of the series.

What can I say for the new USA series "Satisfaction" it's a show that teases you watch it week after week and nothing really big happens true their is plenty of skin and love scenes still the story still does frown you with it's drama and discovery. Still it's a guilty pleasure as a plot about a husband Neil Truman(Matt Passmore) and wife Grace(Stephanie Szostak) who have an open marriage of sleeping around with escorts to spice up their love life is interesting. And the series has good eye candy in the form of pimp business lady Adriana(the sexy Katherine LaNasa). Overall it's a sexy series with lust, fun and intimate feel certainly a different kind of series for USA network.

The well-titled "Satisfaction" is about a couple who believe that there is something missing from their basically contented, affluent lives. The show begins with something out of a dream: having discovered that his wife is paying an escort, the husband takes his rival's phone and decides to take up the business. His wife's infidelity does not sadden him so much as it provides not only a motive but an opportunity, presented here in a very ingenious way, as the husband follows headlong into another life. His wife, too, despite being far too stunningly gorgeous to be paying for sex, has her own power as a character, though she is offered a kind of international compensation at the end that is highly implausible. The show's very interesting, plausible view of the complications and kinks of husband and wife will be exciting to anyone who has experienced married life, though the same cannot be said of its view of parenting; the daughter and her boyfriend are utter bores.