USA Network has bombarded the airwaves…. for months now… with sappy commercials starring siren Debra Messing — blubbering to the tune of Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway.” Last night, Messing — dressed like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz in drag — finally spread her wings in the two-hour premiere of USA’s The Starter Wife. The network’s new Thursday night miniseries, based on Gigi Levangie Grazer’s novel of the same name, is about Molly Kagan (Messing), Hollywood first wife, finding herself after le divorce.
Cue an oddly done dream sequence. The show begins with Messing and co. skipping down the yellow brick road. False eyelashes and white eyeliner flutter above Messing in a cheap rendition of Judy Garland’s blue gingham dress. Messing awakes from the nonsense, to field calls about dog poop from her place in satin sheets. We’re not in Will and Grace, anymore.
Scenes at yoga, the “church of perpetual upkeep” (a/k/a the salon), and brunch, in that order, crash USA’s fledgling Sex and the City knock-off into the beaches of Malibu — where Messing’s character relocates after the divorce. Another string of designer-clad clichés, beachside — and, admittedly, I wanted to stop watching. The Starter Wife started that badly.
The New York Times describes the show as a “satire-lite soufflé that follows all the steps of the chick-lit recipe.” But really, The Starter Wife is overdone, satire-trite crap... which can only be likened to prime-time POOP. And it's doubtful even Messing's best fake tears, and runny mascara can save it.
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