"Dirty Sexy Money" Spoilers

Prime-time soaps about filthy rich people reached their peak over 20 years ago when "Dallas" and "Dynasty" began their respective declines. Has "Dirty Sexy Money" from Greg Berlanti ("Brothers & Sisters") managed to tweak the original format well enough to succeed in the millennium? Here's a quick look at some of the storylines in its early episodes.



"Dirty Sexy Money" taps into people's obsession with celebrity. Behind the glitzy multi-billion dollar facade of the great American family, the Darlings of New York, lies the story of utter dysfunction.


Donald Sutherland plays the powerful Tripp Darling, not your typical loving grandfather type. A scandalous family patriarch, Tripp has amassed absurd wealth as an owner of vineyards and property across the globe.



He is the father to 5 troubled children and a husband to Letitia (Jill Clayburgh), a graceful, posh, philanthropic, Chanel-suit-clad socialite with vodka on the rocks in her hand.



The show's central character is however Nick George (Six Feet Under's Peter Krause), an idealistic lawyer for the disadvantaged whose father works for the Darlings. In the pilot episode, Nick's father is killed in a plane crash. But was it an accident?



Although he has vowed to avoid the Darlings at all cost, Nick succumbs to the power of their dirty, sexy money, as Trip offers him the job to represent the family and protect their secrets. But has he sold his soul to the devil?



Nick realizes there is something fishy about his father' death and on a business trip to Italy he finds out his father was trying to dig up dirty intel (contained in a missing silver suitcase) on both his employer Tripp Darling and his arch enemy Simon Elder (Sex and the City's Blair Underwood). Who did he really work for? Was he killed?



Meanwhile, we meet the Darling children. Patrick Darling (William Baldwin) is a respected politician, married with children, running for Senate. The problem is, he is having sex with a transsexual called Carmelita (Candys Cane), who refuses to go away.



Karen Darling (Natalie Zea) may be the most beautiful, but the also saddest of all Darlings. She has been in love with Nick (who is married to a very patient Lisa) since she was a little girl. And her gorgeous but bland fiance Freddy (90210's Daniel Cosgrove) cannot seem to help her forget Nick.


Brian Darling (Glenn Fitzgerald) may be the funniest of all. He is the man of cloth, and also the meanest priest you have seen in your life. He loathes Nick as much as he loathed his father. But Brian has a little illegitimate secret of his own and it has something to do with a blonde and a boy who attends Francis Lewis Elementary.



Twins Jeremy (Seth Gabel) and Juliet Darling (Samaire Armstrong) are the Paris Hilton types. He is a complete chain-smoking drug-taking trouble-seeking disaster of a playboy, while she is a spoilt celebutante who longs to be taken seriously as an actress, but fails miserably. Should anyone upset her, she quips: "You're poor!"





At least one of these children however may not be a Darling. And surprisingly we learn that from the old devil himself. As Tripp confides in his fraudulent friend Peter, Letitia may have conceived one of these children with another man. Could she have had an affair with Nick's father?

"Dirty Sexy Money" premieres Wednesday, September 26, 10:00-11:00 p.m. EST/PST on ABC, after the premiere of "Private Practice."

You Can't Get Filthy Rich...
...Unless You Get a Little Dirty

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