Cashmere Mafia Kaput!

 

With disappointing ratings across the board in a number of key regions, comedy drama Cashmere Mafia will be axed with only seven episodes ever being produced according to reports from the Washington Post.

Throughout its seven episode duration, the program starring Lucy Lui and Miranda Otto lost almost six million of its 10.72 million viewer premiere; the final episode achieved ratings of just 4.77 million, and was only the third highest rating program regularly in its timeslot.

Thirteen episodes were originally to have been produced for Cashmere Mafia’s first and only season, but only seven were ever broadcast due to the writer’s strike.

I have to say, I saw this one coming. If you remember my post comparing Cashmere Mafia with Lipstick Jungle, the former was my clear favorite, and although I’m still not sold on Jungle, it’s won in the Sex and the City wannabe contest– for now.

Cashmere Mafia: Wannabe That Will Never Be

When I heard the rumblings about Cashmere Mafia, marketed as a pseudo Sex and the City, I was ecstatic. Ever since my beloved SATC went off the air 4+ years ago, there has been an empty place in my heart and my weekend nights (ya ya, so what if Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte were the best part of my weekend? Don’t judge.). Cashmere Mafia, produced by Darren Star, was a pick to click.

In theory.

Lucy Liu is Mia, an aggressive magazine publisher and orchestrator of the titular quartet — power-playing pals since business school. (She’s the Carrie, naturally.) Caitlin (the Charlotte at heart, trying to be the Samantha), a cosmetics exec who spends less time at her job than she does contemplating whether she’s a lesbian. As Juliet, (the Miranda, right down to the red hair) is the COO of a hotel group, and befallen with every put-upon woman cliché: mistaken for the secretary and saddled with a cheating husband and snooty daughter. And Zoe (she’s the…well, she’s actually Diane Keaton in Baby Boom), a harried mother of two whose ear must be permanently deformed from the wireless earpiece she wears. We get it. You’re smart, driven, and can do it all while wearing 4 inch stilettos, multi-tasking on your Blackberry and sipping a martini. Yawn. Maybe I just can’t relate… the hottest of the hot Gucci bag, or rent for 3 months…?

It all should work in a Desperate Career Women sort of way, but it really, really doesn’t. The humor is forced: A sample Mia sex-pun groaner is ”Kinda like a little bone voyage.” Carrie Bradshaw she is not. And the plundering of SATC touchstones, down to the jaunty music (lawsuit just waiting to happen) and slo-mo shot of the four women sashaying down a red carpet, are distractingly blatant. (This particular staging doesn’t simulate Sex as much as it looks like a challenge from America’s Next Top Model.)

I might not love this one, or find it terribly satisfying, but, it will keep the bed warm for Candice Bushnell’s Lipstick Jungle which will premiere February 7th. MSNBC has a promising vs. article here.