The Starter Wife

Actors always think they can go on beyond their most famous roles and have continued success. That the public will go with them and embrace the new challenges that they are striving for.

Debra Messing strikes me as being one of these people.

Unfortunately she falls flat on her face here, in a dire little show that doesn't prove to be half as smart, witty or charming as it thinks it is.

It's not much fun to watch, and while you can see that Messing is trying her best, you do wish she'd admit defeat, and just go and head up another studio based sitcom, as this is where her true talent lies.

It's better than that film 'The Wedding Date' she made.

I love Hollywood insider satires, and this is a great one, with convincing atmosphere and characters. Messing is delicious as a high-functioning Hollywood wife who is dumped by her narcissistic and spoiled movie executive husband after catering to his every need and whim efficiently for years. Needless to say, he's dumping her for a bimbo -- a Britney Spears-ish singer/starlet. In a self-imposed exile in the Malibu home of her oldest friend (Judy Davis), she meets an enigmatic surfer (Stephen Moyer) and has an ambiguous flirtation with her husband's boss, studio head Joe Mantegna. The triangle is very, very satisfying -- you're not quite sure which of these men you want her to end up with, and you like them both.

Dropped instantly by all the grasping, climbing manipulators and their wives, non-person Molly ends up falling back on her core of friends -- the wife of a director whose husband wants her to to drop Molly for tactical reasons, her wealthy dipso friend, and her gay decorator friend (Chris Diamantopoulos, who is broke after having to eat the cost of 12 hideous custom chairs a client insisted upon and then wouldn't pay for). She also becomes friends with the young black woman who works as the Malibu compound's security guard, and her mother. At one point, they all end up holed up in Judy Davis's house, like the treehouse crew in "The Grass Harp." The series is very well directed (by Jon Avnet) and the characters are very sharply drawn. Messing's husband is a monster of selfishness, but not consistently so, and he can't let go his habit of calling on Molly for (now inappropriate) favors. There isn't a line or a bit of business that Messing doesn't play to the hilt. Again and again Molly demonstrates the resourcefulness and elan that makes her husband such a fool for ditching her. There's a scene where she catches a cricket her husband has assigned his executive assistant to remove from the house (until she locates the annoying insect, she can't attend her grandfather's 80th birthday party) in no time flat that was particularly piquant.

This is a woman's story, but I think a lot of men will appreciate the sardonic portrait of a materialistic and phony Hollywood milieu, and I don't know how anybody could not want to look at all these gorgeous residences.

I've only seen two episodes - and hadn't seen any that aired last summer - but this is really a charming, funny series. Messing and Davis are the reasons to watch - and they really get to show a stunning variety of emotions. The plot is clear, fast-moving, and great fun. I've mixed feelings about the use of the dream sequences to indicate how she feels at particular moments - but I'm sure there are many who love them.

This is really a fine series - it seems the female counterpart to the male-oriented Californication - the quality is similar - and they're very much the same kind of series - very modern, witty, well-designed continuing comedy (each program's dilemmas, new characters, very much lead into the next). They're both programs about very superficial, selfish and materialistic people, set in contemporary Los Angeles obsessed with fame and fleeting success.

I'm a conservative Catholic man living in the East, clearly not the intended audience for the series - but I enjoy it. And I'm surprised there aren't more comments. (The series was heavily promoted in New York City -- and Messing and Davis are both famously talented).

It's hard to imagine that people who decide to tune in - won't be caught up in it.

I sat through the whole first episode just to see if something good might be embedded in this story about some talent-free, self-absorbed, pathetic person who had been sponging off her equally obnoxious and worthless husband while raising her mouthy spoiled brat. Sorry folks, but there just wasn't anything there other than a bunch of catty, narcissistic, cutthroat losers with the usual assortment of tedious neuroses that, for some unfathomable reason, are supposed to be entertaining.

I suspected something was wrong when USA Network began to frantically run their continuous promos for over two months. I've noticed that they will do this whenever they're trying to convince viewers that some piece of cr@p they've spent a lot of money on is actually worth watching. They even ran the promo for the episode that was in progress while it was airing. Pretty sad!

My biggest regret is that my TiVo can't give this awful program more than three "thumbs down". There should be an infinite-number-button for shows like this.

Grazer is a spoiled self-centered Hollywood wife recently dumped by her producer husband...Her characters resemble her..shallow, too light-weight to be interesting. In Sex and the City, the female characters were actually struggling to understand life, but here...it's sophomoric and silly... A disappointment

I've read her other two books, Rescue Me and Maneater and as much as I wanted to enjoy them...with both books, I stopped in the middle...because she couldn't sustain my interest. And the "potty" jokes are embarrassing for a woman of Grazer's age....It's as Stephen King says a quality writer doesn't have to resort to shock tactics...he/she has enough skill to ensnare the reader's attention in better ways.. Only the inept/starter/unskilled writers go for the sophomoric "toilet humor"...her main problem is the conflict is not deep or important enough....a silly airhead spoiled self-indulgent pampered wife gets dumped....for a younger version of same...where's the gravitas..the searing soul-deep conflict? a wrong that needs to be righted...she got what she deserved...end of story....It gets sillier and stupider as it goes along. Grazer, get a day job you can handle.