Big Shots [TV Series] (2007)

Created by Jon Harmon Feldman (whose previous credits included such worthwhile weeklies as American Dreams), the semi-serious Big Shots was pigeonholed in the trade press as a "Sex and the City for guys." The series traced the activities of four upscale male friends who regularly commiserated over their lives and careers at a posh country club. The designated "moral center" of the series was James Walker (Michael Vartan), who'd become CEO of Amerimart Industries by a fluke (his boss had been killed in a freak accident just before James was to have been fired), but who was determined to be a standard bearer of integrity both in and out of the workplace -- and to tactfully ignore the fact that his wife, Stacey (Wendy Moniz), had been having an affair with his former employer. James' best buds included Brody Johns (Christopher Titus), senior vice president of Alpha Crisis Management, who had trouble "managing" his contentious spouse, Janelle (Charisma Carpenter); Karl Mixworthy (Joshua Malina), chief exec of a huge pharmaceutical conglomerate, tolerably married to Wendy (Amy Sloan) while having an affair with hyper-possessive Marla (Jessica Collins); and Duncan Collinsworth (Dylan McDermott), top man at Reveal Cosmetics, who though long divorced somehow found it difficult to resist the sexual charms of his ex-wife, Lisbeth (Paige Turco), and whose future was jeopardized by an unfortunate one-night stand with a hooker named Dontrelle (Jazzmun), who turned out to be a transsexual. Nor did Duncan's emotional entanglements end there; he also had a lot of trouble relating to his estranged 19-year-old daughter, Cameron (Peyton List), and seemed oblivious to the fact that he was worshipped by his attractive business associate Katie Graham (Nia Long). Also in the cast was Francesca P. Roberts as therapist Dr. Seaver-Filner, who was kept solvent by the repeated visits from the Walkers and the Collinsworths. Big Shots premiered on ABC on September 27, 2007. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi