Gay Video Review	Gay Video Reviews Archive

Wet Palms: Season 1, Episodes 1-3
Rating: 3 Stars
Produced by Mark Reed. Directed by Matthew Moore. Written by Jack Shamama and Michael Stabile. Photographed and edited by Mr. Pam. Music by Tekrah Multimedia Studio and Fave Rave. Starring Rod Barry, Brad Benton, Cody Cash, Gabriel Knight, Ethan Marc, Jason Ridge, Rob Romoni, Jason Sechrest, Michael Soldier, Ashton Sorrensen, Bret Wolfe, Chad Donovan, Chi Chi LaRue, Sharon Kane, and others.
How to order

Packaged as a boxed set of three bonus-laden discs, this campy send-up of TV soaps flirts with merchandising overkill, but it's the best merchandise Jet Set Productions has had to offer since Wash West's The Hole (2003). In March, Wet Palms: Season 1, Episodes 1-3 won Gay VN awards for best comedy and best screenplay. (Episodes 4-6 will be released momentarily; episodes 7-9 are pending.)

The script is never quite as witty as it wants to be, but it's observant, and some of its satirical barbs hit home. The intricately silly story is involving and fun. The large cast reads dialogue with variable skill, but Michael Soldier, Brad Benton, Gabriel Knight, Jason Ridge, and others turn in good performances. All sorts of people appear in minor, weird nonsexual roles-- Sharon Kane as a transgendered Frenchman, Chi Chi LaRue as a limo driver, Jason Sechrest as himself.

View our poll archive

In the opening 40-minute episode, a seraphically handsome drifter (Knight) arrives at Wet Palms, a gay apartment complex and hostelry in L.A., and takes a key position in a layered plot. The title of the third part, "Relationships of Mass Destruction," is descriptive of the series, a skein of infidelities and intrigues involving duplicitous boyfriends, rival underwear models, horny executives, party drugs, blackmail, a brainless poolboy, a phantom wanker, and backstage hanky-panky at Jett Setter magazine and Bubble Underwear.

Securely anchored in the storyline, the sex scenes (usually two per episode) are concise but hot, especially when foxy Ashton Sorrensen coats Cody Cash's lips with semen he then licks off, or when Benton bottoms for Soldier in the latter's private workout room. There's also a beautifully judged sequence where charismatic Gabriel Knight jerks off for the benefit of Cash, who's spying on him in the shower.