Karen Heller: 'Sex' surrogates, big-screen blues

Sex redux, this is what we're experiencing, or, more precisely,

Sex

redux.

Sex

and the City

is on the air with surrogates - ABC's

Cashmere Mafia,

NBC's

Lipstick Jungle

, and

a large-screen version

scheduled for May, because nothing says romance like Manolos blown up to sport 4-foot heels.

The difference between the original

Sex

, on HBO from 1998 to 2004, and its latest incarnations is some long years - a war, a shift in politics, a collapse in the subprime mortgage industry, a fatigue toward collagen-enhanced retreads.

These women are now in their 40s. Kim Cattrall has crossed the International Actress Date Line of 50.

Sex

celebrated the girly girl. While the characters were successful, only Miranda seemed driven, capable of earning enough to live in Manhattan and designer frocks.

The secret to

Sex

was its wistful, antiquated undertone. For all their glamour and shoes, the women seemed unmoored, in debt, without family or roots except for their girl and gay friends. They were waiting for men to save them. Carrie, the most antediluvian of all, was pining for a more successful man to grant her the life she long desired but was never capable of working for.

In

Cashmere

and

Lipstick

, career plays a central role in their happiness. Plus a hedge fund or two. Still, married or married to careers, blessed by a child or two, these BFFs are able to drop work at a BlackBerry's notice to lunch (a verb, not a pale salad at one's desk) or enjoy midweek dinners at some fabulous boite. There is no homework. No Chinese takeout. No school meetings.

In this regard, these shows are porn.

The central difference between porn for men and porn for women is that one involves women peeling off cheap clothing while the other involves women putting on the most expensive clothing imaginable.

Striving for historical accuracy and observing a seismic sartorial shift in accessories,

Cashmere

and

Lipstick

are more invested in handbags than d'Orsay pumps. Shedding a fiance but landing a promotion, Lucy Liu treats herself to a Gucci Aviatrix Medium Boston Bag in bordeaux (for you, $1,890). The women have switched from Cosmopolitans to Champagne, which has the distinction of being twice as expensive with half the calories.

The whole exercise - and, so far, these women don't, unless lifting a Gucci Aviatrix Medium Boston Bag constitutes calisthenics - seems watered down, especially in casting Andrew McCarthy as

Lipstick

's billionaire Mr. Big or, in this case, Mr. So-So.

Andrew McCarthy? Judd Nelson was unavailable?

The

Sex

revival marks not only a mere thong of creativity, but poor timing in a recession and a heated election race. I'm all for seeing middle-aged women held up as the paragons of sexy glamour that we are, but this seems stale, like old pastry. There's something sad about watching Sarah Jessica Parker trying to reenact her youth.

The real problem is these shows aren't campy enough. They've got all the trimmings without the kitsch and wink. This is arrested development.

Prior to the writers strike, Wednesday was the night of guilty-pleasure television with CW's

Gossip Girl

and ABC's

Dirty Sexy Money

, both on hiatus. These shows explore issues of class, cruel social behavior, and damaged families, while presenting serious arguments against inherited wealth.

DSM

has the additional attraction of a cast that can act, not merely swing pocketbooks.

Cashmere

and

Lipstick

cater to women without caring enough to try something new, something programming geniuses would never do in creating shows for younger audiences. They're insulting in their torpor and as dated as their stars' faces and bodies, thanks to modern medicine, are not.