In terms of keeping things moving, the scripts weren't the problem and, had it not hugged homophobia so tightly, it might have been the first hit soap opera of the decade that wasn't a retooling of a 90s Spelling hit. But you couldn't ignore the homophobia and you never should have been exposed to it to begin with.
Chris Andrews (Benjamin Hollingsworth) wants to be a model. Simon (Dusan Dukic) is his agent at Covet Modeling Agency -- run by Claudia (Elle Macpherson). He's sent to the 'group home' of models where a druggie (and too fat to be a male model) guy tells him that there's no room for him in one room and sends him down the hall to the room of 'supermale model' Cole (Nico Tortorella). Cole refuses to room with him and has Chris call Simon. Simon tells Chris he can stay with him causing Cole to purse his lips even more than normal.
Why?
Simon's gay. And Cole says Simon loves to 'sample' the goodies.
Chris' slack jawed face conveys . . . Well who could tell?
But Chris ends up at a party with Simon and Simon sees them as a couple. While presenting Chris as part of the couple to Claudia and a rep from GQ, Chris suddenly goes ballistic and gets physically violent with Simon.
It's ugly.
It's the sort of homophobic crap you rarely see on TV these days and certainly not on the CW which is the WB and UPN merged. CW kiddies grew up watching Jack on Dawson's Creek and Willow on Buffy. The previous generation got a token gay or lesbian on a very special 90210 episode and that was about it. This generation grew up with gay characters and they weren't 'scary' because they were gay.
But there was good guy Chris engaging in a hate crime.
Simon goes to put his arm around Chris and Chris starts hitting him. Simon wasn't trying to kiss him and both men were standing in a crowded club.
As offensive as the moment was -- and we're not done with it -- what happened after was even more offensive.
Claudia's disciplining Simon, we're told after, and he's no longer with her agency. For what reason? Not for sexual harassment because according to Cole, Simon had been sampling for some time. The reason appeared to be because GQ liked Chris' homophobia.
Claudia immediately begins apologizing for Chris behavior but there's no reason to, GQ wants to book him.
Chris' homophobia makes him GQ 'manly.'
Now while an attempted draped arm gets a gay man beat down, no one bats an eye when a White European woman forces the only male of color (Cordbin Bleu) to sleep with her. He doesn't want to. She ensures that he has no jobs. He agrees to sleep with her and she stops blackballing him. And, guess what, happy face for sexual harassment, he actually ends up having a great time! No means "no" until it's enjoyable, kiddies!
The show was disgusting and selling sexual harassment as a good thing is offensive but when you grasp that was the show's mind-set -- and there are many other examples, so many that when an ugly model gets a big shoot, it's assumed she screwed her way onto the job -- and that the show truly believed 'it's all good' as long as it involved the 'beautiful' people, you were left with what was the big deal? What was the problem with Simon?
That he was gay.
And that fact only became more obvious. The series had a huge cast and you quickly realized that except for the quickly exiled Simon, no one was gay. A show about the New York fashion scene and not one damn character's gay? Not the models? Not the agents? Not even the designers?
Let's repeat that last one, not even the designers are gay?
Mischa Barton was the ugly model who got the big shoot. Barton looked like crap and we're not going to pretend otherwise or pretend that it's okay. Her skin looked as if it was fried and she didn't remotely pass for pretty. She should have been fired her first day on the set because she looked so bad she was completely unbelievable as a model -- let alone a supermodel.
Raina was the female lead (Sara) and she didn't look like a super model either. She looked like Jill Goodacre who is a very attractive woman and was a successful model but wasn't a supermodel.
The men were far worse. There was Fatty White Anglo who had a drug problem -- one that apparently didn't keep him thin. Peter DeLouise is a talented actor and not a bad looking guy. But if he had tried to play a successful male model, we would have laughed. We're being very kind and not naming the actor. But who the hell cast him? Who the hell cast any of these people?
We were supposed to buy Nico Torotorella's Cole as a supermodel and the reality is that few men have ever made supermodel status. Those who have? They usually were beautiful and sexy. Torotorella projected no sexual heat and his looks were bland. He also came off heavy on the catty drama in his line readings making you wonder if the beat-down of Simon was so brutal to make it clear that no one else was gay, not even Cole who gave off such a strong vibe that we'd recommend Torotorella play Christian when Clueless goes to Broadway.
If you're playing students at a community college, your looks really may not matter. But when you're casting people to play successful models, it matters. It especially matters when Elle Macpherson is in the cast. As she lunched and clubbed as Claudia, you kept expecting the designers and photographers to tell her, "Stop running an agency! We want you in our fall campaign!"
Of all the performers who have a right to feel short changed, Elle's top of the list because she was giving a great performance. She was outstanding and the show could have made her the new Donna Mills or even Heather Locklear. Ashely Madekwe also gave a strong performance as Marissa.
But the show couldn't overcome the homophobia anymore than Barton could overcome the way her out of control life is reflected on her face. The cancellation, the rejection of the show, should be seen as a sign of progress.