After watching two episodes of Cashmere Mafia, Darren Star's entry in this season's Sex and The City knock-off competition, the bitchtasticness of which I had high hopes for, my verdict is: Meh. I mean, it's okay, and I'll continue to watch it as long as nothing better competes in the time slot, but I doubt I'll ever get to the point where I look forward to seeing it each Wednesday with eager anticipation.

The main disappointment (which may be a symptom of bigger issues) is that Lucy Liu's character, Mia, is (horrors!) sort of nice. I mean, that is just wrong. Now, she's not perfect, and her ruthless work battle with her fiancée, Jack, caused him to break off her engagement. (Although it wasn't the battle tactics that were a deal breaker for him, so much as the fact that she won.) Now that she's been jilted, there's a little hope for Mia to connect with her inner bitch, but the other three women on the show suffer from the same problem. They're all nice, smart, sympathetic characters with relatable problems. None of them are even a little crazy or anything. (The closest any of them come is Bonnie Somerville's Caitlin, who thinks she might be a lesbian, but confusion about one's sexuality is a far cry from crazy.) To put it bluntly? They're kind of boring.

This week, Cilla Gray stirred up trouble with a poison-pen blog taking cheap shots at the four members of the CM. This caused trouble primarily for Caitlin, whose boss went on the hunt for the lesbian executive mentioned in the blog, and Juliet, because the blog took a shot at her family, and because she knew Cilla was out to get back at her because of the affair with Davis. It turned out to be a good thing for Caitlin, as it was the catalyst (along with a giant zit), for her to confront her feelings. Juliet confronted Cilla about the blog and promised to get her penthouse purchase approved if she'd stop writing it. Juliet also contemplated an affair (contemplated to the point of reaching second base), with a cute out-of-town acquaintance, but chickened out at the last minute. That didn't stop her from telling Davis that they were even, though.

Mia's breakup with Jack spilled over into work; it turned out that the last cover he approved before leaving was about strong professional women "eating men for breakfast." She fired back by printing a letter from the publisher that said she wanted maybe oatmeal or bacon and eggs for breakfast, really. And she finalized the breakup by boxing up his stuff and telling her mother the engagement was off. Zoe's family life seems just fine, but she had to deal with a younger (blonder) subordinate's affair with a colleague.

It was all fine and entertaining, really, but it just doesn't feel new or fresh. It would help if the score didn't sound exactly like the plinky-plunky music used on Sex and The City.

If Darren Star wants a new show that capitalizes on his prior success as a producer, I think he should look a little further back on his resume, to Melrose Place. Cashmere Mafia has the potential to be good if only he camps it up a little bit. Bring on Heather Locklear as a bitchy rival publisher for Mia, who hires ex-fiancée Jack and then starts sleeping with him. Give Caitlin a new lesbian love interest who turns out to be a post-operative transsexual...and a pyromaniac. Juliet should have an affair after all, with a much younger intern at her company...who turns out to be under 18 AND dating her daughter. Solve Zoe's nanny problem by bringing in her slacker younger brother, played by Adam Brody (he's not too busy now that The OC is off the air, is he?), who becomes an alternate love interest for Mia. Just a few humble suggestions...but this is the type of thing it's going to take for Cashmere Mafia to climb the ladder of my TiVo season pass list.

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Amy Kane spends as much quality time with her television as possible, when she's not busy at her day job as a cube dweller.

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