When Apple began its TV streaming service several years ago, I tried watching the sitcom Acapulco but gave up after one episode. It seemed like a pretty conventional sitcom that was set in Mexico.
Then not too long ago I noticed that there were four seasons of the show available. Perhaps I had been too hasty in my judgment, so I gave it another look.
After viewing several episodes, I find I’m enjoying it. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes claims that of 15 critics’ reviews, 100% are positive, and it is “as sweetly nostalgic as it is utterly charming.” That sounds about right.
It has a framing device set in the present day, where a successful hotel mogul named Maximo Gallardo Ramos tells the story of his life to his young nephew beginning with his humble working-class roots, but the bulk of the time is spent in the 1980’s where we see the young Maximo and his friend Memo as well as his mother and sister and how he gradually rose through the ranks.
While in many ways the sitcom is a conventional rags to riches story, albeit set in Mexico, there are plenty of surprising plot twists. And of course, it is the cast, led by Enrique Arrizon as the young Maximo and Camila Perez as Julia, a receptionist and potential love interest of the young Maximo, that make the show engaging. So many of the TV shows that I’ve watched recently have characters that I pretty much despise, it’s a pleasure to find a program that’s populated by mostly likable folks.
Here’s a brief scene between Maximo and Chad, who is Maximo’s rival for Julia, where Maximo tries to teach Chad the difference between a continent and a country.
About 90% of the language is in English, while the rest is in Spanish with the requisite English subtitles.
Meanwhile, I made a ghastly blunder.
Generally, when I watch a show, I like to wait until all of a season’s episodes are available, or nearly all of them. That way, I don’t have to wait a week between episodes, and I can watch it at my own pace, typically one episode per day. I usually don’t mind if I have to wait for the final episode; that gives me a little bit of anticipation.
But I badly miscalculated with Apple TV’s Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed.
For some reason I thought it was an eight episode show, so I started to watch it when only six episodes were available. But to my great horror, it’s a ten episode show! Egads!
Oh, well. I guess I’ll simply have to wait until the middle of July to find out how it ends.
I got hooked on the first episode. As it’s a thriller (with lots of comic sequences) and has plenty of twists and turns along the way, I’m not going to reveal too much about the plot.
Tatiana Maslany stars as Paula Saunders, a recently divorced woman, based in Queens, New York, who is in a custody dispute with her ex-husband played by Jake Johnson whose new squeeze, played by Jessy Hodges, has gotten a job offer in Boise.
Wait a minute! Why the hell would anyone in Queens even consider a job offer Boise of all places? That may as well be on Pluto, which isn’t a planet. I mean, is Idaho even a state anymore?
Do I have any readers in Idaho? Probably not after that previous paragraph.
But I digress.
As the first episode opens we find that Paula is paying for the online services of Trevor, who is called a cam boy, and with whom she has built up a fairly intimate relationship. As this is a thriller, needless to say there is soon an event, the police are called, Paula panics, she takes matters into her own hands, and the first episode ends with a cliff hanger.
While I found it difficult to sympathize with Paula during the first episode and thought her ex-husband had the better of it, it’s not because of her use of a cam boy, but because she revealed so much of her personal life to him. Happily, in subsequent episodes, she became a more sympathetic person, and the balance among the three leads evened out.
One of the things I really like about the show is that it moves quickly. There isn’t much, if any, filler in the episodes. Instead of being puffed up to fit an arbitrary time slot, some of the episodes clock in at a brisk 36 minutes or so.
I only wish I had waited a bit longer to start watching it.