As the writer's strike continues with no light at the end of this dark tunnel, networks are pulling out all original scripted programming that has yet to air just to offer viewers any sort of alternative to the endless reality shows and reruns. Shows that were once barely viable mid-season options for a network are now going to be given the red carpet treatment like they're the season premiere of Lost or a network's tentpole show. I have to believe that if the strike weren't ongoing someone would have looked again at the premiere episode of the new ABC series Cashmere Mafia and realized that there must be a better option. There are dozens of shows every year that get made and just don't work, but they also don't usually make the air. They're like a minor leaguer who never gets to the majors or a deleted scene from a movie. All intentions are good, but it just doesn't click. Nothing about Cashmere Mafia clicks and it may only be the first week of January, but I can't imagine I'll see many worse shows this year. The network that so far this TV season has given us the three worst new shows on the air - Big Shots, Carpoolers, and Cavemen - have added a fourth weapon to their assault on good taste and common sense. Lost can't come back quickly enough.

Lucy Liu stars in Cashmere Mafia as Mia, the "Carrie Bradshaw" of another quartet of female friends trying to find that Sex in the City magic. Mia is a publisher at Barnstead Media Group who, in the opening scene, gets engaged to her boyfriend (Tom Everett Scott), who also happens to be her main competition for a highly-contested promotion. Can Mia find love and success in business? Of course not. That would be too easy. Mia is friends with Zoe (Frances O'Connor), the married woman who struggles after a neighbor steals away her valued nanny, Juliet (Miranda Otto), the one with the longest and possibly most messed up relationship, and Caitlin (Bonnie Somerville), the one who's so tired of the dating scene that she finds herself strangely attracted to an unexpected colleague at work. All four women, who have been friends since business school, bond together in something they like to call the "cashmere mafia." They counsel each other through good times and bad. It's like Women's Murder Club with stilettos instead of DNA strands. And not a minute of it feels real.

Cashmere Mafia is so clearly trying to follow the Sex and the City formula - four friends who support each other through their personal and professional problems - but they've forgotten a major component of that show - likable characters. The writers of Cashmere Mafia make that classic mistake when it comes to writing successful women - confusing confidence and business sense with general bitchiness. All four women in Cashmere Mafia are the kind of characters that you'd never want to spend a meal with much less devote an entire show to. Sex and the City worked because we rooted for Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha to find love or at least some good sex. Cashmere Mafia gives us no one to root for because it's so busy shoving in its snarky, catty ideas about how women juggle roles in today's society. There are thousands of strong, sexy, powerful women out in this world who have accomplished amazing things when it comes to balancing home, business, and friendship. No one who made Cashmere Mafia spoke to any of them before or during production and its that lack of realism that sinks the show before the first commercial break. The strike can't end soon enough.