Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (October 10, 2008)

READY! SET! STARTER WIFE! OR NOT.
Friday October 10th marks the return of USA's miniseries The Starter Wife as a full-blown series. Alas, this is one series that barely gets out of the starting gate, much less crosses the finish line.

Based on the book of the same name by Gigi Levangie Grazer, The Starter Wife stars Debra Messing (Will & Grace) as Molly Kagan, Judy Davis (Husbands and Wives) as Joan McAllister, and most noteworthy for our purposes Chris Diamantopolous as Rodney who is Molly's best gay friend. It isn't for nothing Rodney doesn't have a last name in the credits. Yep, he's your basic run of the mill "barely there" gay character.

Rodney pops up now and then to give Molly fashion advice, naturally. And he's also there to listen to her relationship woes. Rodney does get a love interest — sort of — in the form of Felix (James Black) an action movie start. Um, didn't we already see this on Dirt? 

Chris Diamantopolous, James Black

Alas, their entire storyline in the first five episodes wouldn't take up too much more space than that one thirty second clip. Perhaps things will pick up after that, but given how much I disliked the whole series, I can't imagine sticking around just to see how the very obvious Rodney/Felix storyline plays out.

Messing isn't nearly as funny as she is clearly meant to be (especially annoying are the classic movie "scenes" about her life including ones from Frankenstein and Elizabeth that are just hacknyed and lame). Messing's voice-over narration is so cloyingly cute and sweet I went into diabetic shock every time she opened her mouth. And the series never met a cliche it didn't like from a disastrous movie premiere to the the writers' group Molly joins where the other writers read passages they've written that are meant to be eloquent, moving and profound in that "very special TV" way, but are merely so obvious and annoying that I wanted to beat my television to death with a baseball bat.

Judy Davis is the sole breath of fresh air here, a healthy dollop of vinegar and sass in this otherwise sticky wad of cotton candy. Which isn't to say the show won't do well -- I can totally see it appealing to it's demographic of frustrated housewives and other women looking for some escape from plummeting real estate values. But for us gay boys? It's nothing we haven't seen done before and done better. If I were you, I'd stick to watching clips of As The World Turns. Yes, The Starter Wife is that bad. And I'll just save the guys the work and give the first five episodes down arrows now so we don't have to bother later.

Brian, Brent, Dennis and Steven, you can thank me later.

It relly is too bad as Diamantopolous is a fine actor and this version of Rodney is definitely toned done from the "fabulous" one in the miniseries. But he still has precious little to do and it annoys me that USA's promo clips make it look otherwise. You've been warned. 

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