Completely and utterly useless Euro-trash soap opera Mile High aired on Sky One in England from 2003 to 2005. A big hit on BBC America, I caught a few episodes and immediately realized this totally amoral sex-fest was downright junk. The kind of show where you feel you need to take a shower after viewing, Mile High tries to pass itself off as harmless fun, and I suppose it may be for those viewers who don't mind characters who drug each other for sex, who blackmail each other for sex, who steal stuff for sex, and who fantasize constantly about sex - when they're not actually having sex. After about a half hour of this four-disc, thirteen episode first season, Mile High holds no new surprises, and quickly becomes a boring grind - literally.

Mile High, a title one assumes comes from the phrase "Mile High Club," tells the horny adventures of the Fresh! Airline employees who shuttle back and forth between England, Spain, and Italy. An airline that apparently encourages their employees to openly solicit their passengers for sex, Fresh! is the cheeky little airline that could - could crash, I suppose, since all of the personnel have only one thing on their minds, and it ain't the plane. Just as an opener, the first episode shows the co-pilot of one of Fresh!'s flights flying naked with bunny ears on, after losing a contest with the head pilot (yeah, that happens all the time). Meanwhile, the "trolley dollies," both male and female, cruise up and down the aisles, handing out peanuts and hot towels, while looking for appropriate bedmates once they land on the Continent.

And let's be clear about the exact content of Mile High. This is soft-core porn, plain and simple, so if you're at all squeamish about such things, I should warn you off Mile High right now. I can't begin to guess who the intended audience was for this tripe, but there are graphic scenes of simulated sex, female nudity, as well as huge close-ups of male genitalia included here - certainly that wasn't shown on the edited American versions of Mile High on BBC America. Drug use is plentiful, as well, with a particularly disturbing, cavalier attitude towards the effects of such activity. In a particularly odious moment, a gay attendant spikes a new employee's drink with Ecstasy, in the hopes of tricking him into having sex. It doesn't happen between them, but the scene is shown as comedic, with absolutely no judgement made on the character who did the drugging. We're not talking about someone using drugs recreationally in their own homes (as irresponsible as that may be, it's still someone's own business); Mile High celebrates someone drugging someone else in the hopes of having sex with them. If that's your cup of tea, by all means, buy Mile High.

Equally annoying is the peripatetic method of filming Mile High, where the camera is just as antsy as the pants of the employees. Mile High's cameras are like a junkie kicking it cold turkey; they're incapable of staying still. When Mile High needs to show someone smoking in an airplane john, they don't just film it, they break it up into 22 separate shots, many lasting only a second or two, with pounding synth-pop music blaring on the soundtrack. All to show a person smoking. It's an utterly nonsensical shooting method in service of being "hip" and "visually arresting." But all these cinematic bells and whistles really show up Mile High for the empty shell it is. The dramatics, if they can be called that, are of the lamest soap opera variety, with an almost primal, basic approach to the story arcs: boy meets girl, boy gets girl high or drunk, boy sleeps with girl, girl takes his money, boy meets boy, etc. It would be humorous if it wasn't all so badly done.

The DVD:

The Video:
The full screen video image for Mile High is bright and colorful, with a sharp transfer here.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English 2.0 stereo soundtrack is adequate for the job here. There are no subtitles or close-captioning options.

The Extras:
There are no extras for Mile High.

Final Thoughts:
Hey, I like trash just as much as anybody - well-made trash, that is -- and I wouldn't object to Mile High's hijinks if I thought at least someone connected with it had a conscience. Actually, I wouldn't even mind that (conscience-less pap can be refreshing, actually) if Mile High was at least competently written and directed. But alas, it's an empty, flashy mess that gets old after the first episode -- and there's no justification for guilty-pleasure junk that turns out boring. Look, if you want an empty calorie hour of simulated sex, amoral drug use, thievery, full frontal nudity of men and women, bad dialogue, and worse acting, Mile High just may be your high-flying tonic. All others -- beware. Skip it.