Sleazy 'Money' will make you feel dirty
Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 25, 2007 by Doug Elfman
'DIRTY SEXY MONEY' Zero stars
'Dirty Sexy Money," ABC's dull new drama starring Peter Krause ("Six Feet Under") and Donald Sutherland, contrives for your viewing displeasure one of the world's stupidest, richest and hate-worthy families called the Darlings. That could be fine if the show weren't a "Dallas"-type soap that asks us to sympathize with these clowns.
How vile is the Darling family? A journalist improbably says to one of them (a thespian), "The rumor is you can't act at all," and the Darling yells, "Well, you're poor!"
The Darlings are so depraved, their legal demands destroyed their lawyer's life. When that lawyer dies, his son Nick (Krause) goes to Dad's funeral and sees the Darlings wreck it with sneers.
"Please, God," Nick's wife says, "tell me we never have to see these people again."
"Done," Nick assures her with vigor.
So what does Nick do? A blink later, he takes over his dad's lawyerly job for the Darling family. But first, Nick turns down the offer with a moral speech.
"I really did have to share Dad with you guys, and I didn't like it. I won't do that to my wife, and I certainly won't do that to my daughter," he says.
Literally, 89 seconds later (I counted), Nick takes the job and forgets his wife and daughter. His resolve lasts one minute and 29 seconds. He doesn't talk about this career change with his betrothed. He doesn't talk it over with his stupid brain. He just bites.
On Wednesday's debut and one future episode, the show serves up a druggie, an arrestee, a politician's potential sex scandal, a tranny, an adult virgin, a death mystery, a sex tape, an overdose, a blackmail scheme and a catfight on a catwalk.
This family racks up more high-class problems in 12 hours than the Kennedys pile up in a year or 10. "Dirty Sexy Money" is so unconfident, it blends together every lame plot it can get its dirty unsexy money-grubbing hands on. How long before someone acquires amnesia?
Normally, I wait till a show ends before I figure how many stars to give it. But midway through watching "Dirty," I knew it was on the fence between zero stars and a half-star. I then wrote in my notes it would get zero stars if a scene arrived where a woman kissed Nick in a back room while his wife just happened to walk in at the exact wrong moment. Hey, wouldya look at that. Zero stars.
Here's another problem. Nick wants to know if the Darlings were involved in his father's death. But if he finds the family is implicated, he may have to compromise his attorney-client privilege, possibly spoiling any prosecutor's case. Nick should know this since, you know, he's a lawyer.
Co-creator Greg Berlanti has said he helped craft the show in the vein of "Dallas" and "Dynasty": "I probably represent the person who sort of watched more 'Dallas' than you humanly should.' "
I hated "Dallas" with the heat of a thousand suns.
Half the "Dirty Sexy" actors are terrible, terrible, terrible. And the first episode is glitzy, but production values drop fast after that.
If you suspect I'm merely being moralistic or anti-money, I'll point you to my devotion to Linda Fiorentino's "The Last Seduction," plus a bunch of movies and TV shows I love where anti-heroic villains are rich and compelling in sketchy touches of evil.
The tone of "Dirty Sexy Money" is, however: Hey, here are some boring, entitled rich people who you should think are super cool merely because they're wacky and wealthy!
No. I choose no.
If "Dirty Sexy Money" --the worst new show of the fall -- sticks around and remains this dreary, I will find solace only in that it puts Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh (playing the parents) in small, cardboard roles they salvage with mad skills. Krause and William Baldwin (as a tranny-loving Senate candidate) are fine, too.
But anything good here is negated by a corruption of creativity and trite and tiresome execution. It's like this: If you toss good food into a sewer, it is good no more. It is garbage by association. A waste.
'DIRTY SEXY MONEY' Zero stars
'Dirty Sexy Money," ABC's dull new drama starring Peter Krause ("Six Feet Under") and Donald Sutherland, contrives for your viewing displeasure one of the world's stupidest, richest and hate-worthy families called the Darlings. That could be fine if the show weren't a "Dallas"-type soap that asks us to sympathize with these clowns.
How vile is the Darling family? A journalist improbably says to one of them (a thespian), "The rumor is you can't act at all," and the Darling yells, "Well, you're poor!"
The Darlings are so depraved, their legal demands destroyed their lawyer's life. When that lawyer dies, his son Nick (Krause) goes to Dad's funeral and sees the Darlings wreck it with sneers.
"Please, God," Nick's wife says, "tell me we never have to see these people again."
"Done," Nick assures her with vigor.
So what does Nick do? A blink later, he takes over his dad's lawyerly job for the Darling family. But first, Nick turns down the offer with a moral speech.
"I really did have to share Dad with you guys, and I didn't like it. I won't do that to my wife, and I certainly won't do that to my daughter," he says.
Literally, 89 seconds later (I counted), Nick takes the job and forgets his wife and daughter. His resolve lasts one minute and 29 seconds. He doesn't talk about this career change with his betrothed. He doesn't talk it over with his stupid brain. He just bites.
On Wednesday's debut and one future episode, the show serves up a druggie, an arrestee, a politician's potential sex scandal, a tranny, an adult virgin, a death mystery, a sex tape, an overdose, a blackmail scheme and a catfight on a catwalk.
This family racks up more high-class problems in 12 hours than the Kennedys pile up in a year or 10. "Dirty Sexy Money" is so unconfident, it blends together every lame plot it can get its dirty unsexy money-grubbing hands on. How long before someone acquires amnesia?
Normally, I wait till a show ends before I figure how many stars to give it. But midway through watching "Dirty," I knew it was on the fence between zero stars and a half-star. I then wrote in my notes it would get zero stars if a scene arrived where a woman kissed Nick in a back room while his wife just happened to walk in at the exact wrong moment. Hey, wouldya look at that. Zero stars.
Here's another problem. Nick wants to know if the Darlings were involved in his father's death. But if he finds the family is implicated, he may have to compromise his attorney-client privilege, possibly spoiling any prosecutor's case. Nick should know this since, you know, he's a lawyer.
Co-creator Greg Berlanti has said he helped craft the show in the vein of "Dallas" and "Dynasty": "I probably represent the person who sort of watched more 'Dallas' than you humanly should.' "
I hated "Dallas" with the heat of a thousand suns.
Half the "Dirty Sexy" actors are terrible, terrible, terrible. And the first episode is glitzy, but production values drop fast after that.
If you suspect I'm merely being moralistic or anti-money, I'll point you to my devotion to Linda Fiorentino's "The Last Seduction," plus a bunch of movies and TV shows I love where anti-heroic villains are rich and compelling in sketchy touches of evil.
The tone of "Dirty Sexy Money" is, however: Hey, here are some boring, entitled rich people who you should think are super cool merely because they're wacky and wealthy!
No. I choose no.
If "Dirty Sexy Money" --the worst new show of the fall -- sticks around and remains this dreary, I will find solace only in that it puts Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh (playing the parents) in small, cardboard roles they salvage with mad skills. Krause and William Baldwin (as a tranny-loving Senate candidate) are fine, too.
But anything good here is negated by a corruption of creativity and trite and tiresome execution. It's like this: If you toss good food into a sewer, it is good no more. It is garbage by association. A waste.
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