Gefährliche Liebschaften

There is some excellent casting in this show but unfortunately the lead isn't one of them. Valmont isn't sexy or charming or attractive. He's smarmy and unappealing and not too bright. And he looks like a 16-year-old boy; not someone wealthy Parisian women would want in their beds.

Character development is seriously flawed. Personalities go from angelic to evil to meh back to angelic in the course of one episode. So much flip-flopping.

And why add the murder story line? Completely unnecessary and didn't really develop into anything plot wise. A bug dud. Same w/the kid being alive. Why? It went nowhere.

Six stars b/c I'm still entertained by just about any period piece. Shame on me.

Ok a lot people reviewing this obviously didn't bother to read the synopsis or watch the trailer. This is a television show so they are expanding on the novel. The show starts by giving origin stories to Merteuil and Valmont. The direction for their origin stories is kind of weird to me. Merteuil and Valmont being snobbish aristocratics is part of their appeal and says a lot about who they are personally. The show instead tries to give them a Dickensian type of humble beginnings origin. I'm guessing they are trying to make them more relatable but I find it kind of boring. Merteuil and Valmont are rich jerks who look down on people. Aside from that the show obviously is shot well. The female lead is descent. Not sold on the male lead though. The supporting actors are good. I'll keep watching but I'm going to manage my expectations.

This production is another example of today's media trend of dumbing down great past works of art that appealed to mind, body and heart and instead writing sophomoric scripts full of insultingly expository dialogue, gratuitous sex, and non-existent character development. Oh...and somehow it's ok to anachronistically race flip historical characters, but not gender flip any. Instead, this adaptation reinforces cliche false sex stereotypes about men and women and turns the delightful cat and mouse game of the original tale between a female and her male equal into a cringeworthy catfight between two women spewing the comically insulting female tropes we (unfortunately) see everywhere else these days. Skip it. I had to go back and watch the Glenn Close/John Malkovich (1988) and Annette Bening/Colin Firth (1989) versions just to cleanse my palette. Oh, what Leslie Manville could have done with scripts of that caliber! But...now we'll never know...

I don't agree with the reviews that were discontent over the series departing from the original source material. I do not mind if a film strays from an original story as long as it's well written and directed. Sadly this series not only changed the story but replaced it with something much worse.

The dialogue was dull and boring, the story uninspired and convoluted, and the pace was painfully slow. It's a mystery as to how these shows get green lit. I really like the Starz network's historical dramas but this one was a major disappointment. I suppose the actors did the best they could with terrible dialogue but not even good actors could save this.

First of all, it's not really an adaptation. If you read carefully even here on IMDB, you will find out that Harriet Warner, who have written the first episode, was merely inspired by the original story. So it's more like a story based on the characters rather than adaptation of the classics, which could be enough for some people to skip it. The story in the series is so different that it actually puzzled me at first: what am I even watching? Character names are known, there seems to be the same period as in the novel, but that's where resemblance ends and it is in a bad way.

Don't be fooled, that's just another attempt to make money on the story with fancy name with the hope that viewer had never read it. Because if you did, there's no other answer to the omnipresent question: why diverting so much from the original novel while keeping character names and the name of the story?

Picture is good and there seems to be an intrigue, but once again, this is not original de Laclos writing and competing with him while keeping the name of his novel seems insulting.

I have only seen the first episode of the show and will not continue with it. If you have never read the story, better read it or watch one of the many successful films: Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999) or more dated French version from 1960.