Unnatural Daughter 1

TV Miniseries fans have "The Thornbirds" as an all-time classic, and I was looking forward with much anticipation to the Lesbian porn series "Thornhill Diaries" as something special in the XXX universe. Alas, the first three installments in the ongoing saga, made a decade ago, are truly terrible.

From Girlfriends Films, the concept here was an amazing innovation. It takes feature films from individual series (Girls in White, Field of Schemes,Twisted Passions and others) and knits them together in a portmanteau separately linked series dramatizing the history of the fictional California town of Thornhill, a hotbed of all things lesbian. The overlap and crossover (maybe a sophisticated version of currently popular Marvel Universe movies, or the occasional crossover episodes of related TV series like NCIS and NCIS: New Orleans) thrilled me on paper but is so far a bust. The series is already up to 31 volumes (though sloppy Girlfriends has erroneously numbered both 30 and 31 as #30) so there's plenty of room for improvement.

Alternately called Episode 3 or Part 3 of the Diaries, "Unnatural Daughter Part 1" concerns a whack job played by Courtney who exhibits some strange behavior in this first of a two-parter. But it doesn't go anywhere -her actions come off as cryptic, merely ciphers so we'll know "she's crazy". Note that in this oddball system, Part 2 of "Unnatural Daughter" is not the next Diary entry, but rather designated Episode 8 of Thornhill Diaries.

Worse yet the uncredited writer and director garbles the central premise, namely an incestuous relationship between Courtney and Susan. Watching carefully and even replaying several dialog exchanges I could not make out clearly whether the two women are indeed blood-related or perhaps a real mother is lurking out there somewhere. It was not even clearly established that Susan is a step-mother instead, and judging from ploys frequently used in the same label's famous "Mother-Daughter Exchange Club" series, their living together could just be a ruse.

With that shaky foundation, I developed little interest in the inevitable four lesbian sex scenes enjoyed by the cast. As in the previous 2 Diaries episodes, the sex seemed mechanical, lacking the promised affection and so-called realism that Girlfriends delivers in its other shows. So instead of a crowning masterpiece, this saga is bottom-of-the-barrel, at least in its earliest installments.

The linkage to the previous 2 "Girl in White" segments is that co-star Veronica Snow is a mysterious boarder in the principals' home, having returned to Thornhill after suffering the deep embarrassment and despair when her new fiancée cheated on her in those films. There's plenty of room for soap operatics to come, and the episode ends with lots of foreshadowing (the hint of the "real" mother's existence via a letter promising a visit from same) so I'm going to try and slog through another 28 editions (not binge-watching, thank God!) in hopes of improvement. The good news is that Nica Noelle, my favorite current director, made Episode 4 - that inspires confidence.