TV Review - Dark Desire (Oscuro Deseo)

This year, I became more aware of Netflix's Spanish-language original programming or just the films and TV shows from Spanish-speaking countries that it has adopted and embraced, making stars out of certain Latin American or European actors. One such star is Mario Casas, a terrific young actor from Spain who could be the future Antonio Banderas who I spotlighted in his recent flick The Paramedic (El Practicante). Another such star is Alejandro Speitzer, another talented young actor but from Mexico who is younger than Casas. Speitzer has been acting since he was a child, mainly appearing in Mexican telenovelas. This past year, he's done three more serious TV shows for Netflix. The latter two came out within the past four months and have leaned more on Speitzer's sex appeal. Speitzer's other series, Someone Has To Die (Alguien Tiene Que Morir) (2020), was all about repression, specifically sexual repression. This series, created by Leticia López Margalli, is all about the opposite. It's about unleashing sexual inhibitions and giving into one's lustful urges.

Alejandro Speitzer stars as Darío Guerra who is ostensibly a college student, although it's not clear what he's studying or what degree he's hoping to get. His attending college seems almost incidental. It seems as though he's only attending college as an excuse to see one professor in particular. He claims to be in love with that female professor but yet he comes across as essentially stalking her. In the first, few episodes, it seems as if it's going to be another gender-swapped version of Fatal Attraction (1987), which we already had with Latino characters in The Boy Next Door (2015). Yet, it doesn't go in that Fatal Attraction direction, meaning that Darío doesn't become a psychopath, simply because the female professor with whom he has an affair won't leave her husband. The series instead takes a different turn.

Maite Perroni also stars as Alma Solares, the aforementioned college professor who becomes the object of affection or obsession of Darío. She's married with a teenage daughter. Her husband is a wealthy and powerful judge. Unfortunately, she's having problems in her marriage. She suspects that her husband is cheating on her. She practically gets confirmation. When she goes with her best friend on a trip, she runs into Darío, which may or may not be an accident. She's obviously taken with him and thus a raw passion forms between the two. She discovers though that her meeting him wasn't random. The rest of the series becomes about Alma learning the truth behind what Darío is doing and why.

This is an interesting and compelling premise. It's fueled by a lot of eroticism and comes close to being soft-core porn. It's very steamy and sexy. Unfortunately, it goes on for too long. In several ways, it's akin to broadcast shows like How To Get Away With Murder (2014). Yet, the pacing for that show had a propulsion that kept the momentum up. There's something about the pacing here that doesn't keep that momentum. The steaminess and the sexiness eventually gets repetitive and dull. Instead of being 18 episodes, Margalli and her writers should have found a way to cut it down to 13 or possibly 10. Some things that could've gotten the cut involve Alma's daughter and her brother-in-law.

Erik Hayser (Sense8 and Ingobernable) co-stars as Esteban Solares, the brother-in-law to Alma. He's a police detective who was having an affair with Alma's best friend, Brenda Castillo. When Brenda dies under suspicious circumstances, Esteban sets out to solve the case. Other than being Alma's best friend, it ties into the series because Esteban thinks that Darío is the one who killed Brenda. While this is a very soapy hook, where it ultimately goes felt like a waste of time, only leading to a setup for next season, a weird setup though.

Regina Pavón plays Zoe, the daughter to Alma. She's revealed to be a lesbian or at least she has same-sex attraction. She specifically has feelings for her best friend. Zoe even goes as far as to kiss her female best friend. When things don't go well with her female best friend, she decides to have an affair with a man. That man turns out to be Darío after he's rebuffed by Alma. It's a saucy, soap opera twist to have a sexy man hook up with both mother and daughter, but, again, given where the series ultimately goes, this twist only feels like a waste of time.

Both the stuff with Zoe and the stuff with Esteban feel like the writers of this series trying to find a way to stretch out or fill 18 episodes. They felt like left turns to the plot that were left turns for the sake of left turns. They never really felt organic or concordant with anything else. They felt there simply for the shock value. Given real-life documentary series like Tiger King (2020), which trafficked in shock value moments, it's not surprising that writers would try but the pacing and direction here don't feel enough to support those shocking things.

Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 30 mins. / 18 eps.

Available on Netflix.