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STUDIO: Lions Gate
MSRP: $13.99
RATED: Not rated
RUNNING TIME: 250 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Red Carpet Interviews
• Deleted scenes
• The Olly Girls Guides
• Trailers
The Pitch
You can never be too rich, or too tan.
The Humans
Devin Haman, Jeff Bozz, Erin Tietsort, Nick D’Anna, Janelle Perry, Keely Williams, Ania Migdal, Heidi Cortez, Holly Huddleston and Molly Shea.
The Nutshell
This reality show chronicles the goings-on of Sunset Tan, a chain of tanning salons in Los Angeles and the efforts by the two owners to open a new one in Las Vegas at the Palms Casino, and an ad hoc competition they incite in their employees to become the new manager. There’s infighting, backstabbing, sex, but most importantly, tans.
The Lowdown
Shows about nutbag celebrities like Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane are generally the worst of the worst in the reality genre. Shows like Sunset Tan are almost as bad, if only slightly little more tolerable. Watching pampered celebs bitch about how they couldn’t get the designer dress they wanted or preening their pocket Chihuahuas is about as soul sucking as it gets. Watching regular people working at their job on a reality show is much more palatable, to me anyway. Although “Hollywood” regular is light years away from “regular” regular, if that makes any sense. But I do love shows like Deadliest Catch or American Chopper: shows that are more blue collar and aren’t about the celeb life or celebrities. Sunset Tan is similar to those two shows in concept, except for one thing: it’s “Hollywood” regular, and thus not all that much different from celeb shows when it gets right down to it.
Basically the show is about two guys, Devin Haman and Jeff Bozz, who own a string of Hollywood tanning salons. They’re opening a new franchise in Las Vegas at the Palms Casino and the ongoing theme of the show is that essentially there’s a competition between the employees to become the manager of the new store. This spurs on the boilerplate drama, infighting and backstabbing amongst the employees. While this is going on, celebrities drop in, including Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian, Pauly Shore and Tito Ortiz. Some of the more interesting employees of the salon include Erin Tietsort, who just moved to LA from Oklahoma, Heidi Cortez, who used to work at the Bunny Ranch and The “Olly Girls,” promoters Holly Huddleston and Molly Shea who are perfect examples of being busty Hollywood blondes. We get a look at some of the employees lives outside of work as well.
Sunset Tan is definitely in the category of vapid Hollywood reality show, but I’m going to have to admit that I can watch it and not only not want to hang myself, but actually enjoy it. But it’s a sure bet none of these guys would last five minutes on a crab boat.
The Package
The episodes are TV standard and look okay, and audio is in 2.0 Stereo. The packaging itself is of the clear variety and the discs inside sub as the setting sun. Nifty. In the way of special features, there are red carpet interviews with the cast that runs about two minutes and three extended deleted scenes that total approximately five minutes. There’s also the Olly Girls’ Guides To Summer: which feature the Olly Girls giving their takes on how to do various things such as making sandcastles, packing a picnic, throwing a barbecue, playing tackle football, etc. that usually feature them in skimpy clothing and suggestive positions and totals about sixteen minutes. Sure, the girls are hot, but listening to them prattle on in their dimwitted cutesiness is teeth-grindingly hellish. I suggest keeping the audio low on this last one.