GREAT CAST, WRONG SHOW, WITH WOMEN PORTRAYED AS EVIL THIEVES-STEALING ALL THE GOOD JOBS THAT MEN SHOULD HAVE

I do remember seeing this advertised on TV and hyped up a lot but I did not get round to watching it. Mmm I wonder why. I give this 3 stars for excellent casting, acting and production and an ok script. So overall this is very watchable but it makes a lot of faux pas and a great Producer and cast will only get you so far if the fundamentals of the script are not there. BTW, this cannot be compared to SATC in any way, any such comparison is ludicrous.

To start with, where DO these women find the time for all these chats and where do the casting Directors find all these spoilt, ungrateful kids resentful of their mother’s success whilst they live in luxury? I wish we women had all this time but it is unrealistic to say that such high-powered women meet for lunch with their friends so often. Why SATC worked and this does not is because it follows 30 something women who had the time for this. Why did they have the time?? Because they were not in steady relationships, married with kids etc etc. Desperate Housewives also works and the regular interaction between the women is plausible because all the women live on the same street. This is the very reason why Cashmere Mafia does not work. The idea that you would have these regular lunches just because they went to Business school together when the women live in different parts of the city is insane-that is what makes this whole thing dumber than dumber. We would only be so lucky to have all this spare time!

As for the Producers, do they actually speak to modern woman to see and understand how they actually live? Men deserting women in their droves for having a decent job? What should women do? Stay at home, and if so does this change the behaviour of men positively? Will the men have less affairs? No, they won’t hence the arrival of women’s lib in the first place, so this debate is really null and void which is why it should not have been put on screen. In a book, maybe it was ok (although I have not read the book), but to base a TV series around all of these old, tired issues I am not too sure. This series takes this political, social agenda and puts it on screen but I am not sure it needs to be put on screen because how is this entertaining or adding value to a woman’s life who uses TV as a mode of escapism?

I have nothing negative to say about any cast member for a change. They were all perfect, the kids, the husbands, the wives and execs, even the extras were well cast. They just need another show to act on! Zoe’s husband, so cute, wonderful casting, excellent production, great acting, Miranda Otto and Lucy Liu sensational. The whole cast need to be transported onto another series, not sure to what but they all gel so well and were fabulous.

For the first time ever on this type of show, there are many ethnic minorities in this series and one is an almost main character-an attractive black woman- so what do they decide to do? To make her a lesbian…….Non-sop lesbian activity from episode one and series one….Mmmmm I am sure there were people up in arms when this came out. Not sure what kind of message this tries to send out or why there was such a big storyline on this. Was this just the fantasy of the male producers I wonder????

Male secretaries…..again, how many offices have these Producers attended? My secretary has always been female….and I have always worked in trendy media and communications organisations. I have never even seen a male PA before and how many men do you see attending secretarial schools? Is this just an American thing perhaps?? So why do these trendy shows keep showing male secretaries and PAs as if to communicate the fact that the roles of men and women are changing in the workplace to such an extent that all the men are now secretaries following women around and being lead on a leash? This is all really nonsense in any case. The men are still ruling the Boardrooms. Do these Producers look at statistics?

The other problem with this show is that it condemns women for supposedly daring to leave men to do all the housework whilst they go out to work……Leaving things in the home for men to sort out? Get real! All professional women I know JUGGLE home and career. That means that they are the ones making decisions about the home, making sure kids go to school on time and have their lunchboxes etc…not saying men don’t do anything but this series is not realistic because men typically do not take interest in these things and rely on the woman 100% whether she is in a career or not. So the notion that there are all these men doing typical female roles is nonsense because they always rely on the woman to do it! But this whole series blames women. Now I understand why this never made it to season 2 ( Writer’s Guild strike or no Writer’s Guild strike!).

To be in a career as a woman is a disaster according to this show, either your boyfriend breaks up with you, you get confused about your sexuality or your husband has affairs…mmm and the women seem to think that they can get by without a man somehow or that if the men cheat it is ok because after all men have to put up with all that comes with being with a career woman who will always upstage him, pinching his job and earn a higher salary than him. Not really positive is it? This show is about women who have it all but just can’t stop complaining. At least with SATC there was optimism and humour because with all the problems the characters had they were looking for love or fun filled relationships and believed in it- career or no career- and they all achieved their goal in the end. Desperate Housewives is also very simple as it is about women who want the simple things in life; happiness and to look after their families no matter whatever dramatic event is going on around them. That is what made women watch these shows because they could relate to the characters and their plights and because the writers realised that women are all the same in that way-hopeless romantics not jaded individuals!