Disney/Buena Vista | 2008 | 560 mins. | PG
After two short seasons consisting of just twenty-three episodes, Dirty Sexy Money (DSM) was axed by ABC. Unfortunately, the series is likely another victim of the 2008 writers strike. While DSM was still finding its audience, the show was marred in ABC’s somewhat ridiculous post strike strategy, which left most of their dramas off the air for ten months. As any regular television viewer knows, that’s an eternity; shows that people aren’t very familiar with get forgotten and the audience moves on. When DSM finally returned for its second season the ratings fell from 7.4 million viewers for the premiere to 3.4 million viewers for the last pre-cancellation episode; the series fate was sealed.
Brought to us by Six Feet Under scribe Craig Wright, the series brought us inside the life of the Darling family, a clan whose wealth seemed to be limitless. The series revolved around lawyer Nick George (Peter Krause.) When his father mysteriously dies in a plane crash, Nick agrees to take his father’s job as the Darling family lawyer in an effort to find out who killed him. The Darlings make constant demands of Nick’s time, which makes it hard for him to balance his own personal life.
The calm, even tempered Nick is a saint compared to the spoiled, hot headed Darlings. Family patriarch Tripp (Donald Sutherland) wields influence over everyone and everything he touches and is always sure to use it to his advantage. Then there’s his mysteriously sexy wife Letitia (Jill Clayburgh) who often appears to have limited involvement in the family’s business dealings, but always manages to be up to something. The couple has some interesting children: there’s Patrick (William Baldwin) who is trying to juggle his rub for the senate with his loving, if extra-marital relationship with a transgender woman named Carmelita (Candis Cayne). And Brian (Glenn Fitzgerald), who is pretty much, the worst minister ever. Rounding out the brood are twins Jeremy (Seth Gabel) and Juliet (Samaire Armstrong); Jeremy is an easygoing party boy, while Juliet had left the family fold for some private island by the start of the second season.
Because season one was only ten episodes, the second season feels largely like a continuation of the first. The central issue of the first season was who killed Nick’s father. While nothing was resolved, the audience was introduced to the wealthy and mysterious Simon Elder (Blair Underwood) who clearly knew something about the mysterious death.
As the second season opens, all eyes are on Letitia as she is charged with the murder of Nick’s father. Enter Mrs. Darling’s prosecutor, Nola Lyons (Lucy Liu). Liu’s presence is a welcome one; she brings the attitude, sexiness and smarm to her character that made her work on Ally McBeal so memorable. Lyons’ secret connections with the other established characters (particularly Simon Elder) drive many of the remaining episodes. It’s when her storyline starts to wrap up that the rest of the show begins to falter.
The biggest miscalculation of the writers was to have Nick and his wife Lisa (Zoe McLellan) separate. Worse yet, Nick lusted after Karen Darling (Natalie Zea) which doesn’t fit with the personality they had built for him. Prior to that, Nick represented the good guy, the moral center; in the blink of an eye he went over to the dark side. Maybe the writers new cancellation was coming and they were trying to do in a few episodes, what they had planned for five seasons.
If the series had been given a third season perhaps Nick would have seen the error of his ways; gone back to his wife and sought some sort of redemption. We’ll never know; while the cliffhanger ending does manage to answer at least part of the central question, plenty of threads are left dangling. The biggest one might be if the writers’ strike hadn’t happened, would Dirty Sexy Money have found a loyal audience?
Each episode is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, matching the original aspect ratio of digital broadcasts. The episodes are clear and free of any digital debris. Solid job for a brand new show.
Audio comes by way of a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track. This being a television show created for broadcast in stereo sound, the audio is primarily limited to the front channels. The center speaker sees the most action, with occasional rear channel enforcement in the score.
The set comes with the following special features:
• Directing the Darlings (11:30) Director Jamie Babbit takes us behind the scenes of “The Summer House” and shares his experiences.
• A Total Knockout (8:41) takes a look at Natalie Zea, the actress who plays Karen Darling. Basically, colleagues sing her praises.
• Dirty Sexy Crafty (9:15), this one spends some time with Josh Kuhn, a craft services guy who the cast and crew have affectionately nicknamed “Dirty Sexy Crafty”. Another reel of people saying nice or tongue-in-cheek not-so-nice things about Mr. Crafty.
• Faux Pas: Bloopers from Season 2 (1:51) Standard outtakes reel.
• Deleted Scenes: There are seven in all.
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