InsidePulse DVD Review – V.I.P.: Season One

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credit: www.amazon.com

Cast:

Pamela Anderson……….Vallery Irons
Molly Culver……….Tasha Dexter
Natalie Raitano……….Nikki Franco
Shaun Baker……….Quick Williams
Leah Lail……….Kay Simmons
Angelle Brooks……….Maxine de la Cruz

The Show

Take a few sexy women, put them in tight clothes, give them guns, and put them in luxurious locales, and what do you get? Pamela Anderson’s V.I.P., that’s what. In 1998, the former Mrs. Tommy Lee returned to her television roots with what turned out to be one of the more popular syndicated series around.

Anderson stars as Vallery Irons, just another small-town girl who moved to Los Angeles in hopes of hitting the big time. Reality found her working a hot dog stand with her best friend Maxine (Angelle Brooks). One day a big movie star stops at the stand to get a hot dog, sees Vallery, and invites her out on a date to the premiere of his new movie. Vallery goes with him, but at the premiere, a deranged fan tries to kill the movie star. Vallery was able to get a lucky shot in, disarming the fan while the star cowered in fear. Trying to protect his reputation, the star tells the press that Vallery is his bodyguard.

Meanwhile, three professional bodyguards, Tasha (Molly Culver), Nikki (Natalie Raitano), and Quick (Shaun Baker), find themselves the new owners of an insolvent bodyguard agency, after the previous owner sells it to them and disappears, not telling them the business is in arrears. While brainstorming one day on how to keep the business afloat, they happen upon the hot dog stand where Vallery works. Thinking quickly, they come up with a game plan. They offer to bring Vallery into the company, calling it V.I.P. (Vallery Irons Protection), which would combine their expertise with Vallery’s newfound name recognition to draw in elite clients.

The three bodyguards, plus their secretary Kay (Leah Lail), sell Vallery on the deal by promising her she can live in the lap of luxury while never getting herself in any real danger. Vallery agrees, and of course she finds herself in one dangerous situation after another. But with the help of Tasha, a former CIA agent, Nikki, granddaughter of the West Coast’s biggest Mafia don, Quick, a former pro boxer with a dark past, and über-hacker Kay, Vallery’s able to save the day week after week.

This is the type of show that will make your nose bleed if you think too hard about it. The acting is laughable, the stunts are amateurish, and the special effects are barely B-flick quality. Still, there is a certain energy to the show that makes it watchable. And having Pamela Anderson get almost-naked at least once an episode doesn’t hurt.

Score: 5/10

The Video

Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphous widescreen, the video is OK. The show was shot with a lot of primary colors, which have a tendency to bleed, and the blue screen usage is extremely obvious, but there’s nothing bad about the transfer, per se. It’s your basic TV show transfer.

The Audio

Presented in 2.0 Stereo, the audio is decent. There are a lot of explosions and gunfire that are handled decently, and the dialogue comes through unscathed, and that’s pretty much all you can ask for.

The Extras

The extras offered here are wafer-thin. There’s a trivia track on the first episode with interesting tidbits such as the average cost per episode ($1.3 million) and the average number of breast pads used per guest actress (four), a commentary with executive producers J.F. Lawton and Morgan Gendel, actress Natalie Raitano, and writer Steve Kriozere on the final episode, “Val the Hard Way”, and a 10-minute Behind the Scenes Featurette on the making of the show that’s pretty blah, even for an EPK featurette. Overall, the extras offered here are pretty weak.

Score: 3/10