October 17, 2007

Dirty Sexy Money

The premise of Dirty Sexy Money is not one that would normally interest me. Spoiled rich people doing spoiled rich things. But, as with Gossip Girl, there's something else to this show.

For starters, it's got Peter Krause and Donald Sutherland. I loved Sports Night and Six Feet Under, so I'll give Peter Krause a chance in anything. And Donald Sutherland's just one of my favorite actors ever, so I'll probably watch him no matter what. If there was a series in development for next fall called White Pages in which Donald Sutherland read from the phone directories of major metropolitan areas, I would watch that too.

The characters are not all that likable, which is to be expected since they're spoiled and rich. But they strike the right balance of being unlikable enough that it's fun to hate them without being so unlikeable as to be repulsive. There's a little bit of a mystery thrown in, and at this point it's not entirely clear if Donald Sutherland's a good or bad guy. I'm really rooting for him to be good, because at this point, he's definitely the most likable person in the whole family, and it would be a shame for the show to lose that.

The pilot suffered a little from making already over the top characters even more over the top so that the audience could pick up quickly on the tone of the show. I'm sure that will smooth out over time, though. One of the best parts of the pilot is that it includes my new favorite phrase of fall TV 2008, "tranny hooker".

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