CW
If watching morally bereft richies scream at each other is your kind of entertainment, well, have I got a show for you! The CW's new reality show, High Society, which premieres tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET, centers on Manhattan socialite Tinsley Mortimer and the filthy rich, filthy-mouthed high rollers that populate her insular world.
Mortimer, 33, has just divorced her husband, Topper Mortimer, an heir to the Standard Oil fortune. The marriage didn't work, she explains, because she's the sort of modern woman who likes to attend high profile events--which attract paparazzi and gossip column mentions. His high-class family didn't approve.
To be fair, High Society clearly knows that it's campy and outrageous, and the characters joyfully play up their wealth and brattiness to the cameras. While partying at a club, Mortimer's flamboyant acquaintance Paul Johnson Calderon (a.k.a. PJC) gets in a spat and throws his Jameson and soda in a woman's face. When the police are called, he simply jumps in his limo and parties on. "I'm just coming off of a huge 'Page Six' scandal, where I was accused of lifting some girl's purse," he tells the camera. "The Village Voice compared me to Winona Ryder and Lindsay Lohan. That purse was like my Paris Hilton porno." That last celebutante -- whose Brazilian beer commercial was recently yanked off the air -- seems to be his oh-so-tasteful inspiration for how to live.
Another friend and trust-fund party girl, Jules Kirby, says, "I don't have a censor button." After declaring that she wouldn't want to be friends with fat people, gays, blacks or Jews, she says, "I'd like to work at the U.N. some day." Ridiculously, Kirby is obviously trying to cultivate a "silly villain" persona, like, say, Austin Powers' Dr. Evil.
The show lacks a clear plot at this early stage, but Mortimer is dating again, so that's something. In the first episode, it's German royalty: Prince Casimir Wittgenstein-Sayn. But promos of future episodes promise lots of other men, including former American Idol contestant and current Broadway star Constantine Maroulis.
Longtime TV viewers may remember another show called High Society -- a CBS sitcom with Jean Smart and Mary McDonnell that aired in 1995. It lasted 13 episodes before it was canceled. Will this High Society last that long? The smart money says... No. But stranger things have happened!
PHOTOS: 12 Guiltiest TV Pleasures
Do you plan to watch the reality series High Society? Chime in below!
