New TV - Big Shots

This show can best be described as Desperate Husbands, and I'll understand if you want to stop reading here. There really is very little you need to know apart from that. If you are still watching Desperate Housewives with any amount of enthusiasm, then you will probably like this show. If, like me, you dropped DH somewhere towards the end of season 2, then don't bother investing in Big Shots. It's not as clever or as dark as Season 1, but it has all the nonsense and slapstick of DH sophomore slump.

Four male friends enjoy successful and lucrative careers. Their love lives are interesting, if not always successful and they have an assortment of wives, ex-wives, mistresses, hookers and offspring. They play golf a lot, attend upscale social events with dramatic interruptions, and try to unravel the mystery that is the female. Dylan McDermot (the handsome but bland guy from The Practice) plays the CEO of a cosmetic company. He has a daughter he barely speaks to and an ex-wife he shags in unusual places. His most pressing concern is that he had a liaison with a hooker who turned out to be a guy and it's about to be exposed to the press. Michael Vartan (the handsome but bland guy from Alias), is James, whose personal life is collapsing just as his career is rocketing. The third friend is an adulterous family man, played for feeble laughs by Joshua Malina (the bland and not handsome press officer from The West Wing), and the last of the quartet (an actor unknown to me) is of an unclear occupation, hen-pecked by a wife unseen.

The main issue I had with the pilot was the performances. McDermot struts around with an arrogance and stupidity that makes him instantly unlikeable. Malina's gormless antics makes me think he wandered into the wrong show. And as much as I loved Alias and Vartan's character in that show, he is all wrong in this role. His storyline in the pilot is the most emotional and although he has that handsome sincerity to endear us to his character, his performance is so wooden and lacking in emotion it is distracting. His reaction to a shocking revelation is no different to if he discovered his Merlot was corked. (I don't think I had an opinion on the other guy.)

I'm not sure who this appeals to. It's too slapstick and soapy for guys, but it misses out on an emotional level that hooks in a discerning female audience. The script is not clever and the plot is predictable. The familiar faces may bring in the audience initially but I doubt they will stay there.

http://abc.go.com/fallpreview/bigshots/