Nate Fisher cleans up nice. ABC: PATRICK HARBRON
Test Pilot is a semiregular feature this summer sharing my first impressions of the pilots for next fall’s shows. These aren’t reviews, since these pilots can be rewritten, recast and retooled before airing, and the shows that eventually get on the air can prove much better or worse. But, premature opinions are why God invented the Internet, so let’s get on with…
The Show: Dirty Sexy Money, ABC
The Premise: Suppose Arrested Development were a drama instead of a sitcom, and the protagonist was not Michael Bluth but Barry Zuckerkorn? That’s the (slightly unfair) nutshell for this dramesoapedy about an idealistic lawyer (Peter Krause) who ends up becoming the lawyer for the Darlings, a dysfunctional, superwealthy family that employed his father, made him rich, and in some ways ruined his life. Soon he finds himself at the family’s beck and call, fixing their minor legal scrapes, getting their kids into private school and, possibly, stumbling across a major coverup.
First Impressions: To be honest, I was not really sure TV needed yet another tongue-in-cheek soap about rich people and their problems, a genre ABC is quickly becoming overinvested in. But there’s some sharp writing, Peter Krause does his classic pious-yet-sympathetic thing and while some of the rich characters are cliches (Samaire Armstrong as a spoiled daughter, Donald Sutherland as an evil Donald Sutherland type), there’s enough originality to pique my interest. In particular, Glenn Fitzgerald as the most obnoxious Darling son–who happens to be a reverend–is a good creation. Oh, also, I hate the title, which tries way too hard to say, “Look! Guilty pleasure here, folks!”
Do I Want to Watch Another One? Up until the last few minutes I’d have said “eh,” but the mystery revealed at the end of the pilot should keep me at least TiVoing this for a couple episodes more.