Bushnell's 'Lipstick Jungle' Will Ring True for 'Sex and the City' Fans

Lipstick Jungle could be considered, more than anything, the reincarnation of HBO's Sex and the City. Both series are based on books of the same name by author Candace Bushnell. Perhaps a little darker than its predecessor, Jungle follows the private lives of three friends living and working in New York City. Although the series was intended to be essentially an hour-long version of City, the second season premier was light on the comedy and a little heavy on the drama, resembling a daytime soap meant for night crawlers.

Being strongly episodic and entirely character driven, there was no carry over from the strike shortened first season and as was the case with City, there really isn't much plot to speak of. Each episode typically follows a single event in each character's life -- heavy on the angst surrounding their personal and professional relationships, light on the actual events -- which intertwine when Nico Reilly (Kim Raver), Wendy Healy (Brooke Shields), and Victory Ford (Lindsay Price) get together to discuss their woes.

Even while the premier remains undistinguished, it does reflect upon themes that are familiar to every day life in a way that makes you sympathetic to Nico, Wendy, and Victory, even when you can't identify with them personally or in some cases, even professionally. Everyone knows what it's like to have an unbearable boss or a thankless job, but what about being a movie studio executive? It's an intriguing choice for multiple reasons, not the least of which being that there are no studios in New York and that anyone in Wendy Healy's position would almost certainly be working and living in Los Angeles, not New York City. Every show has certain things they need the audience to just accept as the cost of fictional story telling being interesting and dynamic, and this is certainly a good example of one of those things.

Perhaps complimenting oddity rather than contrasting it was the casting of Brooke Shields for the role of Healy. A big name but not necessarily a bankable television talent, Shields is better suited to the drama inherent to Lipstick Jungle and sells herself as a executive as well as anyone could expect.

Although there isn't much carry over from City to Lipstick as far as the writing and production staff goes, any fans of Bushnell's novels or the properties based on them will feel like they never left the fictional world she has created. The similarities extend beyond a simple series premise. It has some funny moments but not so many that you'd consider this a comedy. There is more drama to be had here than in City, but not so much that you'll find yourself in a consistent state of depression right before bed (E.R., I'm looking at you.) The premier actually plays a little better at an hour than its cable counterpart did at half that time, especially when so much attention is paid to the three main characters.

While some series will spend the majority of their time on the main characters all involved in a single story with varying, but always much less time on recurring characters and secondary stories, Lipstick Jungle tries to spend an equal amount of time on a single main story for each main character.

You'll appreciate it, trust me.

And it works, at least as far as the first two episodes of the new fall season are concerned. Even while most shows go all out for their premier only to fall off significantly due to budget and time constraints in subsequent episodes, Jungle is less burdened by complicated plots and the need to build on false jeopardy. It is at its heart a daytime soap transplanted into the evening and given a brain. To the surprise of some I'd imagine as well, Jungle appeals to me as a male critic and TV aficionado as much as it does to the female audience.

Well written television will appeal to anyone who is looking to do more than feed their primeval hunger for quick, thoughtless entertainment that saturates the airwaves in the form of fire-and-forget reality programs. Lipstick Jungle, if anything, is well written television.

This show is unique in that a review of the fall premier is going to be virtually identical to any other episode, in ways that are both a compliment and a criticism. Good shows need to find new ways to entertain their viewers and, hopefully, discover new ones without alienating the old ones. This form of drama tends to find an audience and hold onto it with a death grip without ever really growing, something NBC would like to see it do in order to catch up with the competition.

Then again, no other network really has a competitor for this specific form of show. There may be better dramas out there, and better comedies, all with better casts and maybe even better writers -- and certainly a larger audience -- but shows like Lipstick are infectious and interesting in the way reading a gossip blog is. Watching other people's private lives when they aren't wildly exaggerated appeals to our voyeuristic nature, and that's not something that can easily be replaced.

Ultimately it may not matter. Jungle's season premier came in third for its time slot on Wednesday night behind David Blane (Special/ABC), and the premier of CSI: New York (CBS).

If you're up that late -- 10pm is a tough hour to win against CSI: Anything -- and not really into crime procedurals, Lipstick Jungle ought to provide a nice change of pace. As far as season premiers go, I've seen most of them this year as a TV critic and Jungle is probably tied for second with Worst Week (new CBS comedy) for shows I hadn't seen before that opened my eyes. Neither really provide any kind of competition for the Criminal Minds premier, but it doesn't really have to. Different time slots, different nights, a whole different ballgame that's worth your time.

Lipstick Jungle airs Wednesday nights at 10PM on NBC.