Testing its ‘Sex’ appeal

The “Sex and the City” audience is to TV what Baltimore Colts fans once were to football -- obsessively devoted and almost impossible to regroup behind another team. Though not for lack of trying.

This year, two midseason replacements were touted as the natural inheritors of “Sex,” mainly because they came from two of the show’s creators. NBC’s “Lipstick Jungle” was adapted from “Sex and the City” columnist Candace Bushnell’s novel, while ABC’s “Cashmere Mafia” came from Darren Star, creator of the hit TV show. “Cashmere Mafia” is first out of the box, debuting at 10 tonight before settling into its normal spot on at 10 p.m. Wednesdays.

Showcasing the glamorous and high-octane lives of women 10 years older and 10 years more successful than the “Sex” gals, “Cashmere” has at its core a foursome with all the requisite cheek, talent and disparate hair color/back stories. As Mia, an ad rep who becomes a publisher, Lucy Liu tries to balance a career and a personal life; Zoe (Frances O’Connor) juggles career and motherhood while Miranda Otto’s chief executive, Juliet, takes on the collision of career and marriage. Fashion designer Caitlin (Bonnie Somerville) gets a pass on the career versus real-life thing but only because she is too busy discovering her (very) late-blooming sexuality.

That women can count on only their girlfriends (as opposed to mates, co-workers or family members) to see them through remains a troubling if popular TV theme. Mercifully, the strong ensemble brings a depth that keeps the characters, at least in early episodes, from slipping into total power-babe cliches.

(“Cashmere Mafia,” ABC, today and Wed., 10 p.m.)

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-- Mary McNamara