Review: The Shooters Are The Best Part Of "Big Shots"

Tall, skinny shotglasses were the swag at the "Big Shots" press conference this summer. I snagged two. Still using them. But the show...eh.

Debuting tonight on ABC, "Big Shots" is a weird demographic pretzel. It's cast with hunks - Dylan McDermott, Michael Vartan, Christopher Titus and lovable nebbish Joshua Malina - in what seems an obvious attempt to retain the women who watch "Grey's Anatomy." But it's also a show for guys, as these four sit around talking about their problems with women. Dang women. But wait a minute! What they're really doing is sitting around talking about their feelings. So isn't that a chick show?

It's possible that the hunks will attract women viewers and the guy talk will attract, well, guys. But it seems more likely that the women will be turned off by the things these guys say, and the men will be turned off by the fact that they're talking about their emotions at all.

All four play powerful New York businessmen who stumble when it comes to their relations with the opposite sex. Vartan is James, who suffers a business reverse and then finds out wifey is bonking the boss. Titus is Brody, outgoing in the world, oppressed at home. McDermott is the divorced cosmetics exec Duncan; his "woman" problem is a hooker who, as Homer would say, turned out to be a dude. D'oh! And then there's Malina, so good as the brainiac on "West Wing." He was born to play likable losers. Here he's a drug company CEO who takes his wife and his mistress to the same couples therapist. Right. It all just seems labored and contrived and decidedly unfunny, despite the actors' charms.

"Big Shots" supposedly sprang from producer Jon Harmon Feldman's desire to explore "what it means to be a man in 2007." Apparently it means sitting around at a fancy country club and bitching about your problems with wife, girlfriend and/or tranny hooker. As McDermott's Duncan says, in what seems intended to be the show's tag line, "Men - we're the new women." I'm not sure what that means. I'm even less sure that it makes for a show that men OR women will want to watch.

(P.S. Is there something in the water at ABC? This is their second show in two nights with a tranny hooker problem, after "Dirty Sexy Money." Are such problems really that common? I'm just askin'.)