In Dirty, Sexy Money, Donald Sutherland plays the patriarch of a family of spoiled eccentrics. Their exploits have always been covered up by the lawyer father of Peter Krause’s Nick. Then, as the pilot begins, Nick’s father has died, and Sutherland’s character lures Nick into filling his father’s shoes.

Did you ever watch Arrested Development? (If not, go get rent the discs RIGHT NOW.)  D,S,M is a bit like what AD would be as a drama. While the one sane person’s struggle to rein in a family of crazies plays great in a comedy like AD, it promises to grow tiresome in a drama. Fortunately, the last act of this pilot borrows a note from Veronica Mars, offering a long-term mystery underlying the daily episodes.

Still, while the overall structure and execution was fine, many of the characters remained thin. Yes, it’s too much to expect that a pilot would develop so many characters, but I still needed more from some facet of this show to get me really enjoying Nick’s predicament. I needed them to pick one situation and show us how Nick dealt with it. Instead, we witness each family member’s issues, but not any real conflict or resolution coming from those issues.

Best aspect: The ringtones identifying each member of the Darling Family.

Worst aspect: The opening sequence introducing us to each of the Darlings in turn was a bit much to take.

Verdict: I have too many things to watch, so I’ll pass on giving this one another try.

Odds of Success: There’s nothing completely wrong with this show, per se. But in a world of excellent cable programming, I can’t see too many people going out of their way for Money, dirty and sexy or otherwise.  Then again, in its 10 o’clock slot, it competes only with the new NBC show Life, and with the least of the CSIs, so it’s likely to be around long enough to get a fair shake.

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