Rod Lurie creates new femme series for Showtime
Rod Lurie is no stranger to writing strong female characters. In film, he wrote and directed The Contender, with Joan Allen as a woman who was being considered for the Vice Presidency of the United States.
Then with Commander in Chief on ABC, he made Geena Davis the President and actually showed her in action — until the show was canceled.
Lurie’s working on another female-driven drama now for Showtime, but this time it’s not about politics. Hillary Jones is the name of the show and the character, a police detective working vice in Los Angeles during the week, but moonlighting as a hooker in Nevada during the weekend.
She’s not breaking the law, though, because prostitution — as you and I know from the movies — is legal there.
As a former film critic, Lurie must know that there are scribes out there ready to toss bricks at him for going from celebrating accomplished women with The Contender and Commander to this. It sounds positively prurient. Does she arrest hookers in L.A. and share makeup and fashion tips for her times across the state line? Can’t you just imagine the dialog — “Say, that’s a great top, where did you buy it? Oh, and you’re under arrest for solicitation.”
Launching a preemptive defense, he said, “I hope it doesn’t obliterate my credentials with women. I imagine feminists will have us in their cross hairs, but once they see it, they will realize it is very warm and humanizing.” Lurie will be writing and directing, so if he doesn’t deliver warm and humanizing, he will hear about it.
He claims that he’s using Weeds as a guiding light. “That’s what I want to accomplish with (Hillary).” If Rod Lurie can come up with another Weeds, Showtime will be ecstatic and so will TV fans.
One thing that will matter a lot will be casting. Weeds works as well as it does because of Mary Louise Parker. I would expect that Lurie will lure a strong, charismatic star for Hillary Jones; he’s done so in the past. Geena Davis, for instance, may be available since her CBS cop drama, Exit 19, was not on the fall schedule.
The fashion of Gossip Girl
Every TV season, there is at least one scripted show in which clothes characters wear almost become as important as the characters themselves. I remember when Sex and the City was still offering fresh episodes and I was writing spoilers about the series, some of my readers emailed me asking for information and set pictures of what the ladies would be wearing in upcoming episodes. I received the same type of emails when The O.C. was on the air: fans wanted to know what Marissa and Summer would be wearing so they could try to find the clothes in stores. That information was almost as critical to them as knowing if Marissa and Ryan would hook/break up!
This year, a few series tried to be fashionable such as Lipstick Jungle, which had a partnership with Maybelline and even offered fashion tips during commercial breaks and on the show’s website. However, when I surf the web on general TV websites and boards, the fashion talks seem to be directed more towards one show: Gossip Girl.
On this CW series, about teens from the Upper East Side, fashion is important business. Imagine the drama if Blair showed up wearing clothes bought at Wal-Mart! The horror! Her life would be over and her mother, a fashion designer, would surely disown her on the spot. The show’s official website even has a fashion section sponsored by Old Navy to tell teens where to shop and what to buy in order to be as fashionable as their favorite characters.
Knowing the importance of fashion on Gossip Girl, AOL decided to take a closer look at the clothes the characters wear and came up with a hits and misses list. This list, filled with pictures of the GG fashion, offers comments about various styles seen on the show from uniforms to evening wear. For example, AOL deemed the mother and daughter look, on the right, as one of the worst. I must agree. What was Eleanor thinking?! Some of the styles shown in that gallery are really nice while others are so ugly that they may cause nightmares. So beware!
Do you think AOL got it right in its Gossip Girl fashion hits & misses gallery? What’s your favorite and least favorite GG look?
Gossip Girl returns this Monday with fresh episodes.