mnpollio Along with Dante's Cove and the Donald Strachey mysteries, one of the jewels in the crown for the gay-interest cable channel Here! before it turned its back on scripted entertainment and devolved into repeats and all-yadda yadda reality/talk show junk. While not as polished as the other two, it certainly had its moments and actually seemed to improve with each new season thanks to wacky additions and twists.Season 1 is set in a small coastal town where a variety of guys are showing up with their blood drained and then walking out of the morgue. Intrepid reporter Thom (David Moretti) discovers a link between the victims and a sex club called the Lair, presided over by vampire Damian (Peter Stickles) and his minion Colin (Dylan Vox). Thom's probing proves to have dangerous consequences for himself, his boyfriend Johnathan (Jesse Cutlip) and best friend Laura (Beverly Lynne).Season 1 is the least impressive of the three seasons Here! produced. The show worked better when it opened up the action beyond vampires, but for the first season vampires is all we get, along with a number of the old clichés - like Thom potentially being the reincarnation of Damien's old lover. Some other weaknesses are the fact that we have little concern for Johnathan since he seems to be stuck in a perpetual jealous snit and the writers do not seem to have any idea what to do with the Laura character. Meanwhile, Brian Nolan's Renfield-esque informer and Colton Ford's sheriff do not seem to have much to do.On the plus side, there is some decent acting with Stickles and Moretti doing well, and Ford coming off surprisingly good. There is lots of male skin and the first episode showcases sexy Moretti in arguably the most erotic voyeuristic shower scene ever filmed. Yeah, baby!Season 2 corrects some of the previous faults. It unloads some of the extraneous characters and adds some new faces. Amazingly, despite all of the build-up with the character, Johnathan is recast and then dropped in quick succession, leaving the central relationship between Thom and Damien. The story lines wisely expand to include ghosts, werewolves and, strangest of all, a killer plant. The special effects with the werewolf are weak, but given that the transformations end with cutie Matty Ferrero waking up starkers, all is forgiven. Acting improves a bit more, with Stickles becoming more sympathetic and Ford remaining solid. Unfortunately, the writing for Moretti's character is all over the place, making his character one of the most fickle in history and it proves a real challenge to the actor. Vox takes on the main villain role and he seems to be laughably channeling Joan Crawford in the late stages of her career.Season 3 comes off the best as more of the kinks are worn off. Steven Hirschi joins up as a gorgon (the werewolf is out) and Ford gets his own storyline (and finally a nude scene!). Stickles is better than ever, but the writing for Moretti is schizophrenic and makes him unsympathetic. He sleeps with a sweet book shop owner so he can steal from him and place his life in danger, then seems oddly unmoved later at the ultimate fate of that character - a reaction reflected in his surprising reticence over the loss of his former boyfriend and best friend. What is up with this character - at least get him in the shower again to make us forget he is becoming a pill. Unfortunately it all ends with the requisite cliffhanger and Here!'s promised next season has never been delivered.While not quite the gonzo guilty pleasure of Dante's Cove or as solid as Chad Allen's Donald Strachey mysteries, The Lair is a worthwhile guilty pleasure in its own right, whether it be for the great male skin or the wacky plots, it comes off much like a softcore gay-interest Dark Shadows, which is not really a bad thing. The fact that it kept improving makes its disappearance even more regrettable as there has been nothing similar to it to fill its loss or even its niche in general since then.

bronty What IS it about low-budget gay entertainment??? It may be true that real talent doesn't always come cheap but surely - SURELY - there must be SOME actors out there, willing to "play gay" (whether they ARE gay or not), who have actual honest-to-goodness talent. Unfortunately, none of those actors are involved with "The Lair", a vampires-are-among-us series created for a gay audience. Utilizing the same nudity and sexually-charged situations that made "Queer As Folk" such a big hit, "The Lair" may initially draw in viewers simply because of that; what KEPT "QAF" popular, though, was its storytelling AND the fact that the performances were solid, creating characters you could actually care about or want to continue seeing. Not so with "The Lair", which truly values style over substance: most of the men presented here were chosen strictly for their looks. The summary of the show is that a newspaper reporter is investigating a series of strange deaths of unidentified men dumped in various spots; his investigation leads him to a gay sex club called (of course) The Lair, which is really owned and operated by vampires. (This is in no way a spoiler as this is clearly spelled out in the first few minutes of the first episode.) Naturally, this means the viewer is offered lots of men in soft-core situations. For those who aren't too demanding, the show may provide some entertainment. But I personally find this show's soft-core aspect dull and lifeless; everyone is young, trim, muscular, blah blah blah. It's all just so cookie-cutter! Don't get me wrong: I like looking at men as much as the next person but...I happen to like variety. All shapes, colors, and sizes. Apparently, though, only young white men of a particular style inhabit the world of vampires and "The Lair". I give it a rating of two only for the flesh shown, though even that hardly salvages it. That the show is directed by Fred Olen Ray doesn't help; he's directed countless exploitation flicks, made cheaply and poorly, for a seriously undemanding audience. Until now, his canon seems to have been created primarily for straight men (lots of T-and-A). This ranks (and I do mean "rank") right down there with them all! The show is boring, lifeless, rather UNsexy. The acting runs the gamut from wooden to melodramatic; the writing is simple-minded and seems to be there only to get from one sex scene to the next. It also seems to have been created under the guise that gay people are so starved for gay-themed entertainment that they'll watch anything put before them. Watch this show if you must but I say if you're going to watch guys going out it, why not just get some real porn and have at it?

rambler-9 "The Lair", for anyone who doesn't already know, is a spin-off series from Here!TV's "Dante's Cove", and follows it the footsteps of that series in that it's a supernaturally-themed gay soap-opera. In most other respects, it's a different thing entirely.I enjoyed "The Lair" quite a bit. While it suffers from all those things that typically plague new shows (the actors are still finding their characters, and so are the writers, for that matter) - especially new, short-season shows - it's well-produced, and feels well-directed as well. Some of the actors' performances are quite good, and I would say that all the core character performances are superb, which is unusual for a new show. The characters of Thom, Damien, and Colin are strong, motivated, and well-acted, and the supporting cast does a good job as well.Although the show is a gay soap spin-off of "DC", and contains a "Gentlemen's Club" as a major location, it is actually less nudity-saturated than its sire. Perhaps that's due to "DC's" island beach location, while "The Lair" has a somewhat more urban feel about it (although it's ostensibly set on an island as well.) The nudity in this show feels more "natural" (that is to say, more plot-supported and less random) than that in "DC", and is only on rare occasion a distraction from the show's main action. There is sex (gay) and a lot of it (remember the "Gentlemen's Club") but it feels natural to the plot line and the location, and is generally well-acted (a major thing, in my opinion, if you want "hot" instead of "huh" in your sex scenes.) I'll give one ding in that there are scenes of group sex where the guys are soft (though the camera doesn't dwell on that part of the anatomy - this isn't hard-core porn, after all) and it feels off. Maybe there's a rule about showing hard guys on non-porn, but it seems to me that for a couple of seconds of airtime, it greatly help with suspension of disbelief - after all, I'm supposed to believe these guys are ENJOYING this. Either that, or edit more tightly so it's not obvious on a casual (that is, I'm not freeze-framing to hunt for it) viewing.Overall, I really enjoyed the show. I think it got off to a stronger start than "DC" and am really enjoying the mix of interesting characters, skin/sex, and of course the "John Doe Murders" plot line running as the main frame the show lives on. I think this one has legs, and will give us all a good run.

SoulFlower1981 I went into this series expecting it to be almost the same as the series "Dante's Cove". I was let down by most of the performing in the series and the writing of this series. It was not a good series over all. I was expecting something because it was a planned spin-off of "Dante's Cove"."Dante's Cove" is intriguing and keeps the suspense going and has you guessing until the end. Unfortunately, "The Lair" does not provide this as much. "The Lair" only had two redeeming things about it the acting of Dylan Vox and Beverly Lynne. There was a few places were Beverly could have done a lot better, but overall they were the only two that were watchable in this series to me. I am not saying that the other actors might not turn in good work in other places, but I did not like most of them in this particular series.The ending of this particular series also had me scratching my head. It needs to be explained if they are going to do another season of this show. I won't spoil it, but overall I am disappointed by what I thought would be a great show. If it comes back it need to have better writing on the cast and a story that we can care about. Sex is NOT that important for a show. Context and story are.