Welcome to The $treet, folks. I'm $tee, I'll be your tour guide. Over here we have one Darren Star, creator of Sex and the City, among other shows. And over here we have one Fox Network, a network desperate for another Ally McBeal-esque hit, but sexier (And younger. And hipper.) -- particularly after losing Beverly Hills and Party of Five at the end of last season. A network, like all other networks, trying hard to figure out a way to reclaim some of the viewers away from the HBOs and Showtimes, but forced to do it without the swearing and the titties. And over here is a young cast of mostly white actors who the network hopes possess a likable balance of smarm and charisma. And over here is your tour guide $tee, already crying. And the show hasn't even begun. I don't know, folks. I've got a bad feeling about this. Fuck it. Let's go downtown...
Obligatory stock ticker shot. Dramatic sound as the title is shown. I understand why the "$," but really, is it a good idea to follow in the footsteps of Vega$ and particularly Arli$$? I'm not $o $ure. So we get an upside-down shot of that annoyingly three-named actor Tom Everett Scott, the loveable scamp from That Thing You Do!, lying on a bed watching the financial news, making pained expressions. The camera swivels, and...ah yes, a woman slides up his naked body from under the covers. Okay, Network Suit lesson one, kids. If you're going to make a show about something as actually boring as the stock market, don't waste even a second before equating it with sex. How do we do that? Fuck it: first shot, blowjob. Ba-bing! So the American Werewolf in SoHo annouces that he has to leave, and his lady friend responds that "the market doesn't open for three hours." Huh. It's pretty bright out for 5:30 AM. "The market's always open somewhere," responds Charles Martin Smith. So we immediately set up that she's not just a subservient blowjob giver as awkward exposition reveals that she's a banker who works a ninety-hour week. When she hypothesizes that the whole reason he wants to marry her is that she makes even more money than he does, he responds, "What a lucky girl I am." She is so excited by the expedient character development and the way she's managed to hold the sheet over her breasts the entire conversation that she cackles hysterically and throws a five-hundred thread-count pillow at Hans Christian Anderson; he punishes her by jumping on the bed and kissing her with his morning stank-breath. Oh, I forgot, wealthy young pretty white people don't get halitosis. My bad.
Obligatory medium shot of New York city pedestrian traffic in which Ol' Three Name is found importantly looking at his watch. So Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio arrives in the lobby of a building and lovingly cups the ass of a male co-worker, who upon first glance of his bloated Alan Rickman-ish face, we know is the smarmy, unlikable one.