When America’s
premium gay television network here! (the “queer” and “get used to it” being
implicit) delivered, in the fall of 2005, its first original series to its available
audience base of more than 50 million households, Dante’s Cove instantly became one of the most talked about shows in
the gay community, thanks probably in equal measure to its well-toned cast and
predilection for campiness. The show unashamedly mixed together sex, horror and
elements of the supernatural and gay culture, and then pressed “puree” on the
blender.

Dante’s Cove: The
Complete Second Season, available this week in a two-disc set from Genius
Products, revisits the peaceful beach town where not everything is as its
seems, and checks back in on the sexy, young denizens, picking up where season
one left off. Hunky barkeep Toby (Charlie David) and the older, menacing
Ambrosius (William Gregory Lee) continue to fight for the affection of Kevin (Gregory
Michael), while artist Van (Nadine Heiman) asks witchy sorceress Grace (Tracy
Scoggins) to help teach her to use her newfound powers, much to the dismay of
her girlfriend Michelle (Erin Cummings).

The residents of the Hotel Dante are forced to deal with
many tough obstacles this season, including addiction, infidelity, coming out,
breaking up and death. (No split personalities or evil twins… yet.) Several
newcomers also join the diverse cast this season, including Queer as Folk’s Thea Gill as Diana, a
woman whose past and future are intertwined with the lives of Grace and
Ambrosius, and Gabriel Romero as Marco, the handsome owner of the local outdoor
bar. Other new characters include bad boy Kai (German Santiago), who’s
good at getting his customers what they need, legal or illegal, and Colin
(Dylan Vox), who runs the island’s private sex club and naturally conceals a
dark secret that comes to compromise some of his illicit endeavors.

Dark Shadows, of
course, was the original supernatural-tinged sudser, and I guess NBC tried the
same thing a few years back with one of their daytime offerings, a series whose
name currently escapes me. For better or worse, Dante’s Cove utilizes these elements fairly sparsely, meaning there’s
lots of teeth-gnashing dialogue and emoting instead of deep and labyrinthine explication
by way of intra-show mythology. What the series most has going for it is its
abundance of secrets and reversals, and the manner in which the show’s writers
run these back and forth, across one another. Still, the characterizations
really hew quite frequently to a rather WeHo-narrow interpretation of gay life,
and the camp-factor alone can’t make this worthy of crossover viewing for most mainstream
soap fans.

Housed in a regular Amray case, and presented in widescreen with an English language stereo track,
the set’s bonus fatures include a smattering of deleted scenes and a handful
of brief featurettes. The men and women of the cast (and yes, there are some,
despite the boys’ prominence in the show’s marketing, per the above) get separate
featurettes, and other behind-the-scenes material gives viewers a bit of a peek
at the making of the show. For more information, visit the series’ web site by
clicking here. C- (Series) B (Disc)