Say Goodbye to ‘Cashmere Mafia’
Please Don’t Come Back
The first of broadcast television’s Sex in the City knockoffs, ABC’s Cashmere Mafia, signs off tonight at 10pm EST. Only seven episodes aired because the writers strike derailed production on the five remaining installments in the original order of thirteen. I doubt I’m the only TV watcher who feels this is a good thing.
Mafia stars Americans Lucy Liu (Ally McBeal) and Bonnie Somerville (NYPD Blue), alongside Australians Frances O’Connor (Artificial Intelligence: AI) and Miranda Otto (The Lord of the Rings). Each actress plays a character who’s supposed to be a variation of what series creator Kevin Wade and the numerous showrunners, including Sex and the City creator Darren Star, believe are high-powered professional women based in New York City.
Whether or not the series succeeds in accurately portraying such individuals is beside the point, in my opinion. The main issue is why with so many people involved in the series, not one of the four characters is interesting.
As a person who was never infatuated with Sex and the City, I don’t care if new shows focused on career women are as groundbreaking as the HBO program was. What I would appreciate for my time bothering to watch, however, is at least an occasional plotline that doesn’t predictably rehash what’s come before.
This is the major problem that afflicts both Mafia and its NBC rival Lipstick Jungle. Each show is unimpressive because neither has enough originality to make viewers forget they’ve already seen most of what happens.
Are you surprised that one Mafia character questions her sexuality, one is going through a contentious divorce with an adulterous husband, one broke up with a man who couldn’t handle her professional ambition, and another strives for but never quite attains perfection? Of course not.
And, you also probably aren’t moved to learn that one Jungle character is having an affair with a young stud because her middle-aged husband doesn’t appreciate her anymore, another is trying to redefine herself after very public professional failure, and the third is coping with a heated rivalry started by another career woman.
My message to the people who create these kinds of shows is simple: Give us something new, already, and stop dishing out the same old same-old. As the lackluster ratings for both series demonstrate, the public won’t watch just because it’s on.
Related Post: NBC’s Jungle Takes on ABC’s Mafia
Cashmere Mafia photo courtesy of ABC
