Next in the City

Cashmere Mafia, the newest attempt to be the next Sex in the City (and from the same producer) premiered Sunday and encored last night to prep for its regular timeslot tonight. Whew – that's a lot of Lucy Liu in one week.

In attempting to inherit Sex in the City's tiara, Mafia follows it pretty much note for note. A foursome of sexy sassy gals take the Big Apple by storm, leaving a trail of guys in their wake. There are a few differences – they seem to have more money than SJP and crew, one of them really might be a lesbian for more than just one episode, and all the male characters seem to have been crossbred with swine to prove the cliche that men are pigs.

The pilot certainly suffers from what I'll call Startup Syndrome, where a season's worth of themes, character traits and subplots have to be shoehorned into forty-four minutes, often resulting in some awkward plot contrivances. Like when Mia (apparently a media buyer pit against her fiance for a promotion) calls the Cashmere Mafia together for an URGENT! meeting... by emailing them all individually. By scrolling across the address bar, we learn that Zoe's a VP of this, Juliet's a VP of that, and Caitlin's a VP of the other thing. Or when their rival, fresh from a nooner with one of their husbands, stops by their lunchtable and proclaims "The Cashmere Mafia... that's what they call you, you know." Thanks. Got it.

We also learn about the men in their lives, all of which exist to showcase how awesomely full of Grrl Power the titular characters are. One of them calls off an engagement because he can't compete with her at the office. One of them cheats on his wife because he's jealous of her in the bedroom. One of them makes whiny objections to everything because he can't keep up with her at home. And one of them complains about what he's not getting from the relationship, because he can't satisfy the (maybe) lesbian.

It's not like we don't need more examples of strong female characters in the media – guys are fairly well represented, so it's not an unforgivable crime that the male element of the show is a little weak. What won't work over the long haul is that the show is so one-note. It has potential, particularly in some of the performers – Bonnie Somerville was pretty terrific on NYPD Blue and Kitchen Confidential, and Miranda Otto (Eowyn from Lord of the Rings) is a stage-trained actress who, in explaining the unspoken bargain she's arranged with her cheating husband, provides the best scene in the show. And once the showrunners stop trying to illustrate how crazy sexy busy everyone is by having them constantly flash their blackberries, the characters might get some room to breathe and develop.

So it passes the Pilot Hurdle, particularly because the next one's on tonight and we're mired in the writer's strike. When Lipstick Jungle, the next next Sex in the City clone, premieres in February, we'll see which one sleeps with the fishes.