Lipstick Jungle: Sex and the City...without the sex.

Following on the heels of Cashmere Mafia, Darren Star's post-Sex and the City series about four career women supporting each other through thick and thin, we have Lipstick Jungle, Candace Bushnell's post-Sex and the City series about three career women supporting each other through thick and thin. I'm actually glad things are trending this way, because I've got a great series idea about two career women supporting each other through thick and thin, called Stiletto Hailstorm. One of them will be a high-powered but sexually frustrated sports agent, and the other will be a free-spirited gallery owner who's thinking of leaving her husband...for another woman! I'm guessing CBS and Fox will get into a bidding war.

Moving on, let's meet the Lipstick ladies:
Victory (Lindsay Price): The faltering (and ironically-named) fashion designer who's suddenly dating a reclusive gazillionaire. Can she possibly have it all? (Probably not.)

Nico (Kim Raver, who was awesome on The Nine): The fashion magazine editor with a sexist boss and back-stabbing co-worker. Oh, and she's in a failing marriage with a boring professor, but having an affair with a hot young stud. Can she possibly have it all??? (Not so much.)

Wendy (Brooke Shields, wasted in this lame part): The high-powered but frazzled film executive. She's a mom, she's a wife, she's a career woman. Can she possibly have it all?!?!?!?!?!?!?! (No.)

In the first installment, Wendy has a crisis at work when she can't get Leonardo DiCaprio to sign on for a project. Luckily, she brilliantly fixes everything, though she's still got a problem with the director she "fired," since he's refusing to shut down his shoot. Which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that she hugged him while firing him. Sigh. Meanwhile, her husband is sick of being a houseboy, and of playing second banana to his well-known wife. Looks like someone's going to need the support of her two best friends to get her through this!

Nico is being held down at work by a sexist boss who thinks he can't promote someone who might start popping out babies and lose focus. The joke's on him, though, because she hasn't had sex with her husband for ages! Luckily for Nico, a steamy younger man seduces her at a party with his sexy, sexy ways. She's completely powerless once he starts calling her hot, overlooking her elderly age.

Victory's fall line has failed miserably, and her commercial partners aren't pleased. Things are looking up, though, now that she's being courted by an adorable billionaire who just happened to notice Victory at her fashion show. Victory, it should be noted, is partial to cupcakes when she's feeling down about her career. Because god knows women love their baked goods.

It should also be noted that all these women seem to inexplicably have time in the middle of their day to have champagne lunches and go street-shopping together. Um, what? I'm not a high-powered anything, but my job is demanding enough that I eat lunch at my desk almost every day. How are these women tearing themselves away for at least an hour in the middle of the workday? Maybe it really is possible to have it all...

As far as the obvious comparison goes, I haven't actually seen Cashmere Mafia, so I can't speak to the differences beyond the obvious. I'm mostly just hoping that now that all the exposition is out of the way, the show will take a much-needed turn for the interesting. Because otherwise, some mighty good actors are being wasted on some mighty weak material.