Before Tell Me You Love Me debuted on HBO in September of 2008, the show got a lot of press for the amount of explicit sex it contained. While that is indeed true, Tell Me You Love Me is geared at an adult audience; to call it simply a show about sex misses the entire point. Arriving on the heels of mega-hits like The Sopranos and Sex and the City, Tell Me You Love Me definitely represents a departure for the network. The series lacks the tough machismo of Tony Soprano and doesn't allow for the humorous look at sex, relationships, and Manolo Blahniks Carrie Bradshaw and her girlfriends gave viewers each week.
The ten-episode first season focuses on four couples. One couple is about to get married, one is trying to have a child, the third hasn't had sex in a year, and the last couple isn't quite content in their longtime marriage. As series creator Cynthia Mort says in one of the included commentaries, she was going for a sense of realism and these could all be the same people in various time periods.
The first couple, Hugo and Jamie (Luke Farrell Kirby, Michelle Borth), call off their impending wedding because of her fears that he can't be monogamous. In their late twenties, both these people seem ill-equipped for marriage. They have sex or get high, rather than talk.
Carolyn and Palek (Sonya Walger and Adam Scott), are well off thirty-somethings who've been trying to get pregnant for over a year. Carolyn, a lawyer, and Palek, a contractor, are both type A personalities with serious father issues. Neither of them has a good relationships with their dad, but worry how that will affect their ability to be good parents. However, in their world — or at least in Carolyn's — all that matters is having that child to the detriment of everything else. At first glance, Carolyn's obsession with having a child makes her the most annoying character on the show, but as anyone who has had fertility issues can tell you, having a baby can quickly become the focus of your life.
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