Married to Medicine Houston

Married to Medicine Houston reality stars are revealed in dramatic way

Married to Medicine Houston cast, from left, Rachel Suliburk, Ashandra "Shan" Batiste, Elly Pourasef, Erika Sato, and Monica Patel.

Photo courtesy of Bravo

For months, rumors have swirled about just who exactly are the women who will star in Married to Medicine Houston. Now, Bravo has revealed them, along with a dramatic video touting the reality series that premieres on November 11 in back-to-back episodes, before settling into its regular slot at 8 pm Fridays (see the video below).

While there are five stars, Cindi Harwood Rose, the mother of The Bachelor Season 9 villainess Erica Rose and the wife of famed plastic surgeon Franklin Rose, is a featured player, and from the sneak peek, seems to know how to keep the action going. "I am part African-American," Rose tells a surprised Ashandra Batiste in the video.

Rose's dubious boast notwithstanding, the cast is diverse — one of the most diverse casts Bravo has ever had — and the stars seem accomplished, so we're kind of wondering why they would agree to do this (must be the chance at TV reality fame). As in most reality shows, each star is pegged to provide a certain role (the fun one, the serious one, the bitch, the saint, etc.). Here's what we can ascertain in revealing the cast:

Monica Patel: The Ready-To-Get-Married One

Occupation: Quadruple board certified cardiologist.

Training: After receiving her bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry at Houston Baptist University, Patel attended the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. She completed an internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship at the UTHealth McGovern Medical School in Houston.

Drama: As a first-generation Indian American raised in Houston, Patel comes from a very tight-knit and traditional family. But in the series, the glamorous cardiologist seems more concerned about getting her hunky boyfriend to propose.

Quote: "Say you're going to marry me right now," she shouts at him while she madly drives a golf cart and he holds on for dear life. "Say it! Say it! Say it!"

Erika Sato: The Conflicted One

Occupation: Cosmetic surgeon.

Training: With a doctorate of medicine from the University of Missouri – Columbia, Sato completed her general surgery residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, where she also completed her plastic surgery residency. She now practices at the Houston Plastic Craniofacial & Sinus Surgery where she specializes in cosmetic surgery and breast reconstruction. Her husband is completing his general surgery residency.

Drama: Sato seems conflicted over whether to start a family.

Quote: "We're going to freeze the baby for one year, " she announces at a dinner party. She is also featured in another scene where she says, "I never wanted to be the trophy wife."

Ashandra "Shan" Batiste: The Happily Married One

Occupation: "Batiste is a feisty dental surgeon who will drill your teeth in six-inch heels," according to the Bravo website.

Training: Batiste graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and Howard University College of Dentistry. She her own dental practice, Elite Dental Wellness. She is married to a medical device sales representative. They are parents of a 3-year-old and Batiste's daughter, 10, from her previous marriage.

Drama: All seems happy with Batiste and her too-perfect-to-be-true husband, although she's not always so nice around her other reality colleagues, at one point threatening to take off her stilettos and "whip your ass."

Quote: When Batiste's husband is asking for something from her (sex, we think) four times a week, she responds, "What you're asking for I'm willing to give."

Elly Pourasef: The Google-able One

Occupation: Audiologist.

Training: Pourasef received her bachelor degree and doctorate in audiology at the University of Texas at Austin. She owns Memorial Hearing, a private practice in Houston. Her husband works in the automotive industry.

Drama: A first generation American, Pourasef moved to Houston from Iran at age 5 with her parents and younger sister. She also has an event-planning side business that caters to the Persian community in Houston. But the video preview shows her more concerned about gaining the respect of the other doctors.

Quote: "There is a hierarchy. I'm not as high up as some of the other doctors," she admits. At another point, she shouts, "Did I ever say I was a medical doctor?" And, to confirm her credentials, she says,"You can Google me."

Rachel Suliburk: The Social Climbing One

Occupation: Suliburk is a nursing student at Chamberlain College of Nursing. She is married to Dr. James Suliburk, a surgeon who works in Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at Ben Taub Hospital.

Drama: Bravo describes her as a "sassy Southern Belle" and as an "aspiring socialite." In the first episode, Rose enlists Suliburk to co-chair a charity gala but later offends her, causing a rift with Sato, who originally brought them together.

Quote: "Do not turn the situation on me."

See the Married to Medicine Houston video here:

Movie Review

New comedy I Want Your Sex saddles an all-star cast with a dull story

Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde in I Want Your Sex.

Writer/director Gregg Araki has been making provocative movies for nearly 40 years, releasing his debut — Three Bewildered People in the Night — in 1987. Most of them have had plotlines that revolved around sex in one way or another, and for his latest — his first film in 12 years — he’s putting it right there in the title, I Want Your Sex.

Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) is an aimless twenty-something who can’t even afford the rent for his apartment with best friend, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders). Thankfully, he finds a job at the gallery of artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), who is open with her sexuality both in her artwork and in her day-to-day life. That soon includes Elliot, whom she convinces to enter into a dominant-submissive relationship with her, with sessions taking place both at work and her home.

Elliot, who’s in a going-nowhere coupling with Minerva (Charli XCX), is more than willing to participate, both because it lets him feel something he doesn’t get normally and because Erika offers a perspective on sex that’s much different from people of his generation. But as he gets in deeper with her, he starts to lose a sense of himself, going down a path in which he finds himself talking to police detectives Zem (Johnny Knoxville) and Zola (Margaret Cho).

Araki does his level best to make I Want Your Sex into a broad comedy, and early on it seems as if he might succeed. The deadpan way that sexual objects appear in the film (a penis-shaped rug in Elliot and Apple’s apartment, a vagina artwork with chewed gum as the medium) make for amusing sight gags. He also makes Elliot the bewildered other in multiple twosomes, with Minerva being the funniest, as she’s way more interested in studying than his ham-fisted attempts at sex.

It’s clear that Araki wants the film to be a commentary on the generational differences about sex, but he fumbles his own idea. It starts with an on-the-nose conversation between Erika and Elliot, and continues with the various dalliances, which seem to be more about making Elliot look and feel ridiculous than giving true insight. Their encounters certainly open his mind about what sex can be, but their one-note nature makes them repetitive and frankly boring, odd considering the acts in which the two engage.

The uninspired storytelling makes the 90-minute film drag way more than it should. Araki includes a few other characters to try to vary the tone of the film, including gallery workers Zap (Mason Gooding) and Vikktor (Daveed Diggs), but their early promise yields little results. The framing device of Elliot’s interview with the detectives never works, especially because Araki completely neuters the personalities of Cho and Knoxville for seemingly no good reason.

The cast as a whole goes to waste. Hoffman is showing the promise of his late father (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and even though he’s appealing here, the material pulls him down. Wilde just made her own provocative movie about sex (The Invite), and this one pales in comparison despite her heightened performance. Wonders, Charli XCX, and Gooding are all young stars who deserve to be showcased much better than they are in this film.

A film called I Want Your Sex is announcing itself as daring and alluring, but this film contains almost none of those qualities. Instead, it’s a slog that only occasionally has something interesting to show or say, mostly relying on the power of its actors to hold viewers’ attention — and failing at even that.

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I Want Your Sex is now playing in select theaters.