"Cashmere Mafia's" Miranda Otto @ L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival Opening

Former "Lord of the Rings" star Miranda Otto, who starred in ABC's low-rated "Sex and the City" rip-off "Cashmere Mafia," attended the opening night party of The L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival at Government House in Melbourne on the weekend.

Otto, who is the official Ambassador of the event, was seen enjoying champagne and canapés whilst soaking in the picturesque surroundings. Australia's most talented designers presented their creations in a 1950s-inspired showcase.

It is highly unlikely that Otto's critically-panned Darren Star-produced drama would return to the Alphabet network next season, as it has averaged a little over 5 million viewers in its final 3 airings last month.

The actress can next be seen in the Australian movie based on a true story titled "How to Change in 9 Weeks" about a 15-year old girl murdered by her babysitter. Guy Pearce and Sam Neill co-star.

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"Cashmere Mafia" Spoilers #107 "Dog Eat Dog" (Series Finale?)

ABC is no longer putting strong effort in promotion of its Wednesday night drama "Cashmere Mafia," which leads me to believe this week's episode may indeed be the show's series finale. In any event, here are spoilers for "Dog Eat Dog."

A charming multibillionaire pursues Juliet (Miranda Otto), both personally and professionally, in an attempt to take over her company.

Caitlin's (Bonnie Sommervile) job is on the line as her boss, cosmetic's titan Lily Parrish (Christine Ebersole), puts mounting pressure on her to produce a big publicity splash during Fashion Week.

Mia (Lucy Liu) falls for a foster dog but is unable to pass the ownership test for pet adoption.

Meanwhile stay-at-home mom Zoe (Frances O'Connor) struggles to be the perfect mother, much as she once aspired to be the perfect executive.

The first season finale of "Cashmere Mafia" titled "Dog Eat Dog" airs Wednesday, February 20, at 10/9c on ABC.

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"Cashmere Mafia" In Style Photo Shoot

ABC's Wednesday night soap "Cashmere Mafia" did not make it onto the network's list of shows intended for 2008/2009 renewals, announced on Monday. As the ratings continue to slide, next week's final episode may be the dramedy's series finale.

Tonight, the show continues with the "Yours, Mine and Hers" episode in which Mia (Lucy Liu) searches for a sex tape; Caitlin (Bonnie Somerville) is stunned when she hears how Alicia wants to raise her baby; Zoe (Miranda Otto) makes a life-changing decision; and Juliet's (Frances O'Connor) divorce battle heats up.

Here is now a photo shoot the ladies did for the January issue of In Style Magazine. The series is not expected to resume production this season (7 out of 13 episodes have been filmed). Its future remains up in the air, but it's not looking good.

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"Cashmere Mafia" Spoilers #105 "Stay With Me"

Sony has unveiled a nifty looking "Cashmere Mafia" e-Magazine at cashmeremafia.com with cool details on the clothes, the set design, the music, and of course the women themselves, a must for any "Cashmere" fan. Meanwhile, here are additional stills and spoilers from tomorrow night's episode along with a couple of video previews.



Zoe and Eric struggle to find time to celebrate their tenth anniversary, as Zoe meets up with a ruggedly handsome colleague in Southampton.

Meanwhile Juliet and Davis, whose marriage is already under fire, discover a provocative photo of Emily on the Internet.

Under mounting pressure at work, Mia is anxious about a new relationship with Jason, even as Eric and Zoe's sexy new manny, Adam, becomes a tempting distraction to her.

Plus for more on Caitlin's storyline, click HERE.

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Cashmere Mafia: Bisexual Caitlin Goes Straight?

"I'm the worst lesbian in the world," says "Cashmere Mafia's" bisexual character Caitlin, played by Bonnie Somerville. According to these images (and a video preview) from the latest episode (airs Wednesday, February 6, 10/9c), the sexually confused cosmetics company executive goes out on a date with a man. Is her lesbian fling over? Spoilers ahead.



In the 5th episode titled "Stay With Me," Alicia drops a bomb on Caitlin that, as ABC put it, "may change their relationship forever."

As you may have heard, there is a bun in the oven, but the question remains - which one of the two ladies is pregnant?

Meanwhile, Caitlin goes out on a date with the man she gave her phone number to in the previous episode.

Trouble ensues when Alicia arrives in the same restaurant. Lourdes Benedicto guest stars as Alicia Lawson.

The season finale airs February 20.

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Who's Afraid of Amanda Woodward?

I usually don't try to solve what Jon Robin Baitz in his blog referred to as "cutesy blind items" of TV Guide's scooper-pooper Michael Ausiello. Call me superficial, but this latest riddle concerning a C-list actress throwing a hissy fit over the casting of Heather Locklear on either ABC's "Cashmere Mafia" or NBC's "Lipstick Jungle" is simply too delicious to miss out on. Plus, it appears the answer is hidden in the casting timeline.

According to Ausiello, a spotlight-hungry C-list diva who was cast as one of the leads in a freshman show for the 2007-2008 season often referred to as "Sex and the City" knock-off, informed the producers she would be leaving the project if they went ahead with their plan to cast former "Melrose Place" vixen Heather Locklear.


Locklear, who began her career in the classic 1980s shows "Dynasty" and "T.J. Hooker" helped save Aaron Spelling's FOX sudser "Melrose Place" when she was added to the cast as a special guest star, transforming the timid twentysomething morality play into one of prime time's most outrageous soap operas in the 1990s.

An unnamed diva on either ABC's "Cashmere Mafia" or NBC's "Lipstick Jungle" was, according to TV Guide, afraid Locklear would overshadow her presence in the new series and demanded that the producers show Locklear the door. They complied by hiring a less imposing lead and giving our C-list heroine a 7-figure salary.



Since NBC's troubled project "Lipstick Jungle" was originally intended for the 2006-2007 season (Gina Gershon and Melissa George were originally cast to headline the pilot in February 2006) and the show's new principal star Brooke Shields was cast before Kim Raver and Lindsay Price joined the pilot in February 2007, the answer may lie over at "Cashmere Mafia."

Although Bonnie Somerville was the last to join the series on March 1, 2007, she actually had a special talent holding deal with the network and Touchstone Television signed in October 2006 calling for her to be cast in one of their projects in development or to develop one around her (at the time referred to as "The Untitled Bonnie Somerville Project").



In the entertainment industry, a holding deal is an agreement made between a studio or network and an actor, producer or writer, that holds the person to be exclusive to that entity for an agreed upon period of time, usually one year or "season", for an agreed upon amount of money.

It is most common for television networks to offer actors in high demand holding deals for an upcoming television season. A holding deal is different from a development deal in that the holding deal is simply looking to place the talent in any project the network sees fit.

For this reason, the holding deal would have given Bonnie Somerville leverage in negotiations and heavily impacted final casting choices.

Lucy Liu, possibly a less imposing lead than Heather Locklear, joined the series on February 28, just one day before Bonnie Somerville officially took over the role originally intended for Miranda Otto.

Both Otto and Frances O'Connor had been cast before that, in the course of February 2007.

Michael Ausiello also says the insiders expect the series in question to have a short life span. "Lipstick Jungle" has yet to premiere, while "Cashmere Mafia" has lost about half the audience that tuned into its inflated post-"Desperate Housewives" debut on January 7.

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"Cashmere Mafia" Star Bonnie Somerville: "We Never Worried About 'Lipstick Jungle'"

Brooklyn-born actress Bonnie Somerville ("Friends," "NYPD Blue") who plays Caitlin Dowd, a bi-curious cosmetics company executive, revealed in a conference call yesterday the season finale of her new ABC drama "Cashmere Mafia" (airs February 20) will end on a juicy cliffhanger.


Somerville explained that although she and her co-stars Lucy Liy, Miranda Otto and Frances O'Connor had never met before working on the series, they got along very well, spending many lunches and dinners together and getting into trouble for laughing too hard on the set.

Somerville's character is based on Sally Susman, an openly gay Estee Lauder Senior Vice President of Communications, whom Somerville herself presented with an award late last year.



Caitlin will make a choice about her relationship with Alicia (played by "The Nine's" Lourdes Benedicto) in the final episode (set to air on February 20). Although the cast was hoping for a quick resolution to the strike, the production was quickly shut down leaving only 7 episodes in the can.

As for comparisons to "Sex and the City" and NBC's upcoming "Lipstick Jungle," Somerville said the cast expected to be heavily compared to the former as it was created by their executive producer Darren Star, but they never really worried about "Lipstick Jungle" since the longer one watches the two shows the more they realize they couldn't be more different.



An all-new episode of "Cashmere Mafia" airs this evening at 10/9c on ABC. The dramedy will then be preempted on January 30 for a 2-hour "LOST" special. The final 3 episodes will air in February. The season finale is scheduled for February 20. "Men In Trees" will take its timeslot a week later.


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Can NBC's "Lipstick Jungle" Fly?

Just one month after the launch of ABC's Darren Starr-produced "Cashmere Mafia," Starr's partner on the critically-acclaimed HBO classic "Sex and the City" Candace Bushnell's novel "Lipstick Jungle" will serve as a basis for yet another female-centric Big Apple-set dramedy. But have the viewers had enough?

According to an official press release from NBC, "Lipstick Jungle," which premieres in "ER's" timeslot on Thursday, February 7 after an all-new "Celebrity Apprentice," follows "three high-powered friends as they weather the ups and downs of lives lived at the top of their game."

My main concern with "Cashmere Mafia," which I seemed to have slightly warmed up to in the show's second hour, is that I continue not to see anything new that the series has brought to a format so well-established by the Sarah Jessica Parker-fronted comedy.



I do find the principal female cast very likable, especially Bonnie Sommerville, who is a charming actress with great comic timing. Her Caitlin is fun to watch as she goes into uncharted territory experimenting with her sexuality. But I still miss that special oomph that made "Sex and the City" an unforgettable classic.

Perhaps it is the producers' inability to go that extra mile in their depiction of the women's lives given the stricter standards that the broadcast networks have to adhere to. There are certain situations and language that had played an important role in the HBO series that we will never see or hear on ABC's "Cashmere Mafia."

Although I am not really sure how to pinpoint the missing ingredient, I do realize that, whatever it is, I may never see it as the writers' strike has cut the episode total to 7 and unless the ratings pick up steam, "Cashmere Mafia" will be gone before the end of February sweeps for good.



Which brings me to the show that has yet to premiere. Although "Lipstick Jungle" comes from the creative mind of the same woman who conceived the original "Sex and the City" characters can she really bring anything new to the table? Early descriptions of the series would indicate that to be unlikely.

If "Desperate Housewives," "Lost" and "Grey's Anatomy" have taught us anything in recent years it is that even mass audiences have become more sophisticated and putting on a "Me Too" show just won't work. One needs to reinvent the old formulas and we haven't seen much of that over the past year (ABC's "Pushing Daisies" being one of the most notable exceptions).

For what it's worth, Brooke Shields-fronted "Lipstick Jungle" will have the same shot at becoming the next great hit dramedy as "Cashmere Mafia" - again due to the writers' strike - only 7 out of 13 episodes ordered have been produced. You can catch the pilot episode on February 7 at 10/9c.

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"Cashmere Mafia" Spoilers #103 "The Deciders"

One famous TV-critic calls ABC's "Sex and the City" knock-off "Cashmere Mafia" in his column today "unspeakable" and he doesn't mean that in any positive sense. In case you found the new dramedy a little more intriguing here are the stills, spoilers and video previews from this week's episode "The Deciders" (airs Wednesday at 10/9c).

Caitlin and Alicia attend a lesbian bridal shower, where an overwhelmed Caitlin finds she still can be attracted to an incredibly hot guy.



Mia, whose parents fix her up on a blind date with a brain surgeon, decides to take the good doctor to a blowout party, hoping to make her ex-fiance, Jack -- who has recently hooked up with a gorgeous news anchor -- jealous.

Meanwhile, after discovering that her colleagues are double-dealing her, Zoe is called on to save an important client's business.



Finally, Juliet struggles to trust her husband, Davis, after catching him in a questionable meeting with his mistress, Cilla Gray. Tom Everett Scott returns as Lucy Liu's ex-fiance. Jack Yang ("Grey's Anatomy") guest stars as Jason Chun.

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