The mid-season premieres have begun and the first one out of the gate is this new take on the lives of women who aspire to a "Sex in the City"-lifestyle, but spend more time juggling family and romance with their time-consuming professions. The title is in reference to how much power they have because of their jobs. It's not just how high-up they are in their company's roster, but how those jobs give them perks and connections to almost anything they want: the best restaurants, the best apartments, the highest honors, etc. As much as they can have anything they want is as much as they can make sure that their enemies don't ever get the same advantages. Hence, their mafia moniker.
Lucy Lui plays Mia, a competitive ad shark, who vies for the publisher's job against her new fiance, Jack (Tom Everett Scott from Because I Said So)--and uses all of her friend's connections to bag a client--and subsequently gets dumped seconds after she is successfully promoted. Francis O'Connor (Timeline) plays Zoe, a mother of two, who is understaffed when it comes to the nitwit 20-somethings who fail to assist her or babysit her kids properly and has a husband (Julian Ovenden from "Related") who's just been promoted to a job that requires a lot of travel. A husband who is never around and two unsupervised children equals a businesswoman who is about to be renamed "stay-at-home mom" or "recent divorcee." Bonnie Somerville ("Kitchen Confidential") plays Caitlin, the single girl, who is in and out of relationships quicker than you can say..."quickie" and has suddenly realized her interests in the same sex. Last but not least, my personal favorite, Miranda Otto (Lord of the Rings) plays Juliet, a mother of a hateful teenager and a wife to a man she allows to cheat on her. Wait a sec. Don't lose respect for her just yet. When one of her friends spots him cheating in the city with someone she knows--against the rules--she figuratively grabs his balls with a frightening whisper during a banquet in her honor that informs him that she will be taking one of his friends as a lover and once she's done with him they'll be even. Then she blacklists his lover from all the great restaurants and asks Caitlin to get her housing application rejected, demoting her socially.
So if we want to make comparisons to other estrogen-induced shows (Sex in the City & Desperate Housewives), I'd say Juliet was very much a cold-hearted, keep-up-appearances Brie with a touch of that seductive Edie. Caitlin's like the hard-to-impress, no-bullshit-taking Miranda. Zoe is the sweet-natured, push-over Charlotte mixed with a little of the desperate-to-please-the-family Lynette. And Mia has a mix of the ball-busting vamp that's in both Samantha and Lynette mixed with the loving affection of Charlotte. What I'm trying to say is there are no clutzy Susan's or attention-hogging Carrie's. The shows about all the ladies and the power that they wield. Now all they need is better dialogue and I'd be hooked. So far only Juliet's promise to get herself a revenge-lover has got me tuning in this Wednesday for a 2nd episode in their official time slot at 10pm on ABC.
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