The Wall Street Journal-20080201-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Entertainment - Culture -- Review - Television- Sex and the Office

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WEEKEND JOURNAL; Entertainment & Culture -- Review / Television: Sex and the Office

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Network promotions for ABC's new drama "Lipstick Jungle" (10-11 p.m. ET, Thursdays) never fail to mention prominently that it is based on a book of that title by "Sex and the City" author Candace Bushnell. That is an understandable enticement to lip licking -- even if, in these days of writers-strike-induced famine, many of us would fall hungrily upon the tiniest seed of fresh programming whatever its provenance.

The truth is that this particular morsel is as much like "Sex and the City" as "Gunsmoke" is to every other TV western. Within any genre -- in the "Lipstick Jungle" case, the genre of best-bud city girls -- certain details and situations must be endlessly recycled. So, as in HBO's "Sex" and ABC's "Cashmere Mafia," a constant theme is man troubles, and there will be an inordinate amount of time for shoe shopping and bonding. True, the two newer shows add an element that HBO's hit hardly touched -- they depict their characters in offices, where the girls cope with work-balance issues and schemers. Oddly, though, the emphasis on careerism adds an element of wild incredulity to the series, since no highflyers in the real world could spend so little time at their desks as the ones here do.

All that aside, "Lipstick Jungle" has some good things going for it, including actresses in roles that call for slightly more maturity than we're accustomed to, and juicy enough meanies to give it a little suspense. The first episodes introduce us to our three New Yorkers, most notably Brooke Shields as movie-studio boss Wendy. She's married to a man who does most of the raising of their two children because, it appears, he can't make it as a restaurateur.

But Wendy is no Harvey Weinstein. She knows how to phone Leonardo DiCaprio and bluff him into signing on for a movie she's making. Otherwise, she is basically a hugger. And, as it turns out, she's a woman who looks after the welfare of a child actress. Those familiar with Ms. Shield's own trajectory will be slack jawed during an episode with a show-business mother from hell who is trying to shove her pubescent daughter into a film that involves sex scenes with an adult man.

Also in the mix is Nico (Kim Raver), editor of a "Vanity Fair"-type magazine called "Bonfire" (get it?). Nico's husband of 17 years ignores her in bed. Meanwhile, a male skunk at the magazine is angling for her job. What's a poor, beleaguered career girl to do except skip work to make crazy love with a much younger guy she meets in a bar?

Also making crazy love, initially at least, is fashion designer Victoria Ford (Lindsay Price, her lovely visage obscured by a ton of eye makeup.) She's not married, and her new line of clothing has just bombed so badly that Vicky has had to close her workspace and move her operation into her apartment, where she forlornly waits for fashion inspiration. Fortunately, a billionaire (Andrew McCarthy) arrives at just that moment to woo her with dinners in Paris and the gift of a dress form once used by Coco Chanel.

Not all of this happens in the first episode, and giving too many details here would spoil the fun Let's just say that "Lipstick's" women have a lot more to deal with than bad or absent sex. Wendy is preyed upon by a vindictive publisher she once dissed, a harridan played by Lorraine Bracco with hideous and perfect menace. Nico's toy boy is not so easy to dispose of as she had (stupidly) hoped; and while Vicky dreams about clawing her way back to the top of the fashion industry, a former assistant is preparing to steal her designs. Compared to this wackiness, "Sex and the City" begins to look like a documentary. Even so, it's not impossible to imagine Carrie Bradshaw and her pals gathering around the TV to hoot at something just like "Lipstick Jungle."

More to my liking, intellectually at least, is another new show this week, CBS's comedy "Welcome to the Captain" (8:30-9 p.m., Tuesday). It's set in sunny California, a blessed relief after the shadowy canyons and dim interiors of New York. The Captain of the title is a Los Angeles apartment building inhabited by many Hollywood has-beens, hopefuls and never-will-bes. These include Uncle Saul, a former "Three's Company" writer played by Jeffrey Tambor. Then there is Raquel Welch as Charlene, a classic old predator of the leopard-skin dress type who is still waiting for her big encore, and fame, at age...? Someone at the building says 53 and Charlene herself says 42, but probably both lines are meant to be funny.

Like the gentle Uncle Saul, everyone at the Captain is a little off their rocker. The cast of eccentrics includes a busybody at the front desk named Jesus (Al Madrigal) and a building manager named Zelma, who looks like a lesbian prison guard. With a building this huge, we can be sure that the oddballs will never cease to emerge and delight.

There's no pushing the humor here, or ramming of jokes down the throat. The characters simply flit by, little bonbons of nuttiness that we observe in transit. Jesus has an uncle who breeds whippets, Zelma is just out of the hospital where, "she got an entirely new pelvis," and Charlene says she has written an "erotic thriller, and I'm going to play the lead." An off-putting thought, and also poignant for being a laugh Ms. Welch sets up at her own expense. No time to think, though, before the next weird thing happens or gets said.

Besides, there is something normal at the heart of it all, which is straight man Josh Flug (Fran Kranz), a young Oscar-winning short-film director who has lost his creative mojo. The newest resident in the building, Josh is the innocent abroad in this strange world. He soon finds a potential partner in the aptly named Hope (Joanna Garcia), a trainee acupuncturist who has just failed her licensing exam for leaving stray needles stuck in her instructor after the test treatment.

If "Welcome to the Captain" can sustain its tone of tender quirkiness, it may find an appreciate audience stretching from those who loved "Arrested Development" to fans of "My Name Is Earl." So far it is a reminder that some of the writers out on strike actually are not easily replaced.

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"Grand Central" tells the story of New York's famous train terminal (9-10 p.m. Monday, but check local listings). Like many documentaries in PBS's "American Experience" series, this one is also about the building of our country itself; full of both reminders of what we have lost and glimmers of comforting continuity.

Like the modern site of the World Trade Center downtown, the area now above and underground at 42nd street was once the scene of horror. In 1902, the old terminus and labyrinth of above-ground tracks was so crowded and dangerous that when a speeding train rammed a stationary one and 15 died, no one was surprised. The disaster was a wrenching experience for New York, as its people and newspapers railed against the Vanderbilt-owned "death trap." The miracle is that by August of 1903, work was under way to move most of the the 23-acre site underground and convert the railway from steam to electricity, and by 1906 the first train arrived at the new, entirely privately financed terminus.

Hearing about this accomplishment, one can't help thinking about the World Trade Center site, still a pit of nothingness after more than six years. Also fascinating is the reminder that the magnificent, iconic building erected at Grand Central was the product of a forced collaboration between a stodgy architectural firm and a brilliant but arrogant visionary named Whitney Warren. Does anyone believe that the forced collaboration of similar characters at the WTC site will produce any structure whose beauty even comes close to surpassing its function?