Dirty Sexy Money: season 1 in review

I didn't hop on the bandwagon on time. I miss the first couple episodes and by the time I'd fully committed to the idea of Dirty Sexy Money, abc.com had taken down the first couple episodes. And since I can't watch anything unless I watch it from the beginning, Ive had to wait for the DVD (or at least until abc.com replaced all the episodes online this summer). 

Now that I've had the DVD for a total of a day and a half, I've watched the entire first season (a meager 10 episodes due to the strike) and I have to say, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. 

It's the grown up Gossip Girl. It's Brothers & Sisters on steroids. It's fun and it's funny and it's sinful and giddy and a little indulgent. It's also heartfelt and touching, intelligent and enthralling. 

Your basic family drama mixed in with your basic workplace drama, complete with a simple fish-out-of-water story, a murder mystery, sex, corruption, the nutcracker, a couple of lions, a transsexual mistress and tens of billions of dollars- now that's good entertainment. 

Donald Sutherland and Peter Krause lead the pack brilliantly as Tripp Darling and Nick George, the Darling family's patriarch and reluctant lawyer, respectively, while Samaire Armstrong and Seth Gabel as Jeremy and Juliet, the Darling twins, are almost sinfully perfect. Jill Clayburgh, William Baldwin, Natalie Zea and Glenn Fitzgerald round out the exuberant family while Zoe McLellan keeps Nick grounded as his wife Lisa and Blair Underwood throws everything into question as the sinner/saintly rival billionaire Simon Elder. 

Aside from the wonderfully lush sets and costumes, what Dirty Sexy Money does best is balance. The writers balance comedy with drama, the fantastic with the human and corruption with kindness perfectly. Within every character there is a great deal of good and a big helping of bad- and that's what makes a character worth watching. 

Check out Dirty Sexy Money season 1 online at abc.com or on DVD and be sure to tune into the season 2 premiere, Wednesday Oct 1 at 10pm on ABC.