Sex and the City creator Darren Star obviously hoped lightning would strike twice in the same place, since Cashmere Mafia shares some of the qualities that distinguished his earlier hit. But even though the series featured successful New York career women juggling their jobs with their personal lives, Cashmere Mafia never clicked with viewers and was pulled after only seven episodes in early 2008, ultimately losing out to the similarly-themed Lipstick Jungle (based on a novel by Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell). The starring quartet, introduced as business-school friends, included publishing-industry shark Mia Mason (Lucy Liu), financial whiz and working mom Zoe Burden (Frances O'Connor), high-powered hotel COO Juliet Draper (Miranda Otto), and makeup company executive Caitlin Dowd (Bonnie Somerville). Underlying each episode was the same basic theme: can women thrive in today's high-pressure corporate environment without alienating their lovers or neglecting their children? Unfortunately, Cashmere Mafia had a tendency to fall back on banal situations overly familiar to fans of TV dramedies ranging from Ally McBeal to Desperate Housewives. In terms of romantic complications, the show offered the relative novelty of Somerville's Caitlin, a confirmed heterosexual, finding herself attracted to a lesbian Latina (played by Lourdes Benedicto), but the New York locale never seemed as integral here as it did in Sex and the City. DVD extras include featurettes on the four main characters. Not a necessary purchase. (E. Hulse)
Cashmere Mafia: The Complete Series
Sony, 2 discs, 294 min., not rated, DVD: $29.95 Volume 24, Issue 1
Cashmere Mafia: The Complete Series
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