Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed Review: Cliffhanger Galore

Cliffhangers ironically were first named cliffhangers because 1914 film serial The Perils of Pauline which aired in bi-weekly installments ended one of these episodes with the lead character Pauline literally hanging off of a cliff. This wasn’t the first cliffhanger in a motion picture, but it was certainly the most important one at the time considering it’s where the plot device got its name and fame. Ever since, it’s fair to say there have been a million cliffhangers since, ranging from soap operas to movie franchises to TV episodes to TV finales. 

All that to say, cliffhangers in motion pictures are tried and tested. They’ve stood the test of time considering they’ve been around for over a century as a plot device and while they may have changed in scope, the primary goal is and will always be to get the viewer back watching the next installment. It’s the hook to get you back and when done right, the viewer feels like they have to know what happens next. It would be an understatement to say Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed loves cliffhangers. If I ever have to sell someone on a show, I would end my own pitch with a cliffhanger.

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed follows Paula Saunders (Tatiana Maslany) who gets caught up in a web of conspiracies when the webcam boy she’s been seeing online gets kidnapped while on video with her which leads to her getting ransom calls she can’t afford to pay amidst custody battles with her ex-husband over her daughter. Later on, Trevor ends ho being killed which Paula ends up being a witness to that muddies up the whole situation and puts her right in the line of action.

For all the buildup I’ve given on cliffhangers and how this show loves cliffhangers, it’s clear to see why. The cliffhangers are admittedly good, for the most part they are very effective at getting me back ready for the next episode. The episodes are relatively short for a drama series, about 30-ish minutes and they’re all packed with just enough suspense and thrills each episode to keep you afloat even if they don’t quite move the plot or conspiracy enough to justify them. Hence, the real hook isn’t the conspiracy, it’s how they end with Paula in another crazy, murderous situation at the end of episodes with some sort of reveal or twist that requires the next episode to delve into how she gets out of gets into another mess. Even the season finale is a massive twist that attempts to hook the viewer to come back.

What’s interesting with season-based cliffhangers is that they’re inherently more effective than episodic cliffhangers because by virtue of the format, the twist at the end has to the biggest one because it’s harder to get someone back for the next season than it is for the next episode. But also in this streaming era where each season sometimes takes 2-3 years or even cancelled (luckily Apple rarely does the latter), as a viewer it’s easy to forget what the cliffhanger was and so the hook that was once deep into your body slowly loses its grip. The problem with Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is that outside of these twists and cliffhangers, the show doesn’t do enough to keep you hooked. It needs those cliffhangers to get you back and despite their effectiveness, they’re also nothing groundbreaking. They can only do so much when the show never truly explores the conspiracy with any depth despite spending 10 episodes on it. The side characters are also largely a mixed bag. Everything surrounding the crime elements, especially the cops, ends up being very flat characters that don’t matter as much as they should.

Perhaps the hope is for future seasons to do this but once the viewer forgets the cliffhanger, what gets them to come back? Luckily this show does have something special—Tatiana Maslany. She is absolutely wonderful in this show no matter what. She’s as fantastic when she’s put in precarious, scary situations as she is in the smaller moments with her daughter. This is perhaps one of the best performances on TV this year which elevates the show beyond belief. Sadly, outside of her I’m not sure the conspiratorial elements and the murder mystery really work. She does her best in these storylines which helps a lot but only so much seasoning can save the taste of a rotting vegetable. 

While I do wish elements of this show worked better in isolation, I was still entertained for the most part mostly off the power of Tatiana Maslany’s wonderful performance and some fun cliffhangers despite there being too many of them to be wholly effective. If this show ends up getting a second season, I hope it can build out the conspiracy element better because that’s the big thing that brought the show down for me. The amount of cliffhangers is excessive and does make some of them less impactful as a result but that’s much more of a fixable issue.

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed stars Tatiana Maslany, Jake Johnson, Jessy Hodges. Jon Michael Hill, Charlie Hall, Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg, and Dolly de Leon.

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