This review is for the entire "Emmanuelle Trough Time" series, "Skin City" being only the first episode of seven. The basic concept of the series is fun and full of potential, some of which even ended up on screen. It's a SciFi/Fantasy tale with sex as the common denominator, much more so than in "Lexx" (which is what it reminds me of strongest). As in Lexx, we have a diverse crew on board a giant vessel traveling through genres (in Lexx, it was planets, here it's parallel dimensions). Their means of travel is a "Transdimensional Transporter" powered by sexual energy - nice idea. And as in Lexx, it's nearly 100% parody or satire - some of it done well, some lame. Overall, I'd say the intelligent and fun parts outweigh the dull ones at a ratio of about 60:40. The performances are surprisingly good (the Twilight spoof "Sexy Bite" even features better acting than the original), and the sex scenes (all pretty tame) were done with a lot of enthusiasm but are also quite over-the-top and played for laughs. This is not masturbational stuff despite most of the actors hailing from porn and a lot of naked skin on screen!
Now, the weak points: - Light and camera are amateurish, much of the stuff looks as if filmed with a smartphone; the cuts to stock or other material don't get smoothed over. This is stupid because you can create good atmosphere with very little money, just some thought and playing around with light.
- The sound mix is even worse, parts of the stuff sound as if they've never been through a mixer after the recording.
- The SFX are lame. And I mean, lame even for a very low-budget production as this obviously was.
- There's a lot of lagging in the stories - basically, you could have told every of those 90 minutes episodes in 60 minutes. The most grating lags are when they use the Transporter - every time, it's 5 minutes (feeling like 10) of gyrating bodies pressed against the machine with a nervously circling camera, epilepsy-inducing light and hammering music. Feel free to fast-forward since there's never any point to it.
- Lastly, not really a weak point but a critical remark: Allie Haze as the titular Emmanuelle seems too young - for her role in the series (owner of her own TV channel) as well as for the name - "Emmanuelle" was always a young woman, not a girl. Apart from that, Allie is really cute and sexy and seems to have had a lot of fun with the series.
I've rated the series 6/10, that's pretty generous (some of the episodes are definitely worse) - but as mentioned the fun parts outweigh the dull ones, and the good intentions are clearly visible. Only, in the back of my mind, I can see a much more interesting and better-looking result if the same concept and scripts had been realised by a bunch of film students instead of a crew used to shooting porn.
