WHILE it’s not the dirtiest or the sexiest show this season, there is a lotta money thrown around on ABC’s hoot of a soap, “Dirty Sexy Money” – a tongue-in-cheek take-off on the old ’80s dirty, sexy, moneyed family serials.
For once, you can believe the hype. The show, with a terrific cast (for the most part), centers on the Darling family – which seems to be a very popular name on TV this year – who are the richest family practically on the planet. And all that money hasn’t, of course, done them any good whatsoever. Sure, they have giant mansions on Fifth Avenue, expensive cars and drivers, jewels, furs, planes and boats and ‘copters to call their own, but are they happy?
TV is sort of like organized religion in that way – riches can never make humans happy in this lifetime. (Although The Donald and Mayor Bloomberg, to name two, look like pretty happy guys. And so do their kids.)
The miserable Darlings – that’s mom, dad and five little (grown-up) Darlings – spend all of their lives in trouble. That’s why there’s Nick George (Peter Krause), a good, solid family man/attorney who wants nothing to do with them but does anyway. Have everything to do with them, I mean.
The show opens with the realization that Nick’s pop who has been the Darling lawyer since Jesus was a baby, has died/been killed in a small plane crash. Tripp Darling, aka dad Darling, can’t live without a George overseeing their lives, and Mom Darling (Jill Clayburgh) wants what dad wants – on the surface anyway.
But Nick wants no part of them, seeing how his parents’ marriage was destroyed by dad being on the Darling’s speed dial all his life. Nick has become a good-guy lawyer. (If there is such a thing.)
But Tripp makes Nick an offer he can’t refuse: 10 million big ones to run his own charity in his Dad’s name.
Nick jumps right in and becomes embroiled with the horrible family immediately.
There’s Patrick (William Baldwin), the city’s married attorney general/senatorial candidate with a tranny on the side (and I’m not talking side car), Karen (Natalie Zea), who gets married more often than most women get manicured, the Rev. Brian (Glenn Fitzgerald), the meanest of the lot with at least one five-year-old secret, and the twins, Juliet (Samaire Armstrong) and Jeremy (Seth Gabel) – the Paris Hilton and Brandon Davis of the family. Since Peter Krause has the market on the knowing grin, he gets to spend a huge amount of time quitting and knowingly grinning at the horrible antics of the soulless brood.
In the first day alone, Nick handles sex scandals, possible murders, extortion, more sex scandals and did I mention extortion? Wait a minute here – everybody’s having too much fun – and that will include the viewers.
“Dirty Sexy Money”
Tonight at 10 on ABC