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Cries of a rip off of Sex and the City were heard when the much anticipated pilot of Cashmere Mafia come to the small screen on Wednesday. The latest series by S&TC creator, Darren Star was due to air last year but a certain writer's strike put a halt to that. The plot is a no brainer, four high flying women who meet while doing their MBA's form a deep and loyal friendship.Mia Mason played by Lucy Liu is a go getter who will do anything to win and when she is pitted against her fiance in her publishing firm, she puts out all the stops to win. Zoe Burden played by Frances O'Connor, lives an unorthodox life where she goes out to earn the bacon in her investment banking role while her sexy hubby stays at home and looks after their kids. Unfortunately, life is not so blissful with Juliet Harper who is played by Miranda Otto. She may be the big honcho of a massive hotel chain with a fantastic home but this is marred by her cheating husband and rebellious daughter. Then there is Caitlin Dowd, played by Bonnie Somerville, a marketing exec who is muddling through life and discovering her sexuality on the way.
My first impressions of Cashmere Mafia was how similar it is to Lipstick Jungle (TV series based on a book by Candace Bushnell - read my previous blog about it here) in terms of the look of the programme. However as we move on into the show the similarities stop. While all the characters in Lipstick Jungle were well developed and very distinctive, the Cashmere set come across as very contrived. Mia is forgettable, Juliet is disappointing as the down trodden wife but Caitlin takes the biscuit. She goes from being in a relationship, single and a lesbian in all of 30 minutes. A record if you ask me and downright ridiculous. This character reeks of tokenism and it is so obvious that she has just been thrown in as the 'lesbian.' The only shining light is Zoe and her husband whose charm and humour rescues this show from being a total dismal affair. I love the scene at her daughter's ballet show, she was so cute. However, I hated the bit where Juliet prances into her awards ceremony in her red dress with her posse behind her. Is this a TV series or an R&B video?
Another grip I have is that these women spend so much time discussing their woes over breakfast, lunch and dinner that it is a wonder that they get any work done at all. Oh and what is with the Blackberries going off every second? That is so unreal, if any corporate professional behaved like that she would be out on her cute ass.
