Tapeworthy: Surviving The Filthy Rich - Privileged

Privileged - Premiered Tuesday Sept. 9th at 9pm on The CW/City

The OC, Gossip Girl, 90210, Dirty Sexy Money. Do we really need another show about filthy rich white folks?

Apparently we do when it can be this funny and charming, with a teleplay by Rina Mimoun who earned my devotion for being behind both Everwood and Pushing Daisies, with a lovely lead in JoAnna Garcia, a fave from Reba, and some hunky eye candy in both The OC fave Michael Cassidy and newcomer (to me) Brian Hallisay (see below for pics).

Privileged is in fact such a surprising delight that I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more buzz. They may have paired it with the buzzier 90210 but at this point, Privileged is far more entertaining of the two.

The lovable JoAnna Garcia plays Megan, a Yale graduate looking to be a writer and somehow ends up moving back to her hometown of Palm Springs, California to tudor two spoiled rich granddaughters of a mega-millionaire Laurel Limoges (Anne Archer bringing some heft to the proceedings). The two spoiled rich girls are Rose (Lucy Kate Hale, much more likable here than in Bionic Woman) and Sage (Ashley Newbrough, from Canadian faves Degrassi:The Next Generation, Radio Free Roscoe) who accidentally taser Megan when she tries to introduce herself.

Megan's return to Palm Springs means she gets to hang out with her friend Charlie (the immensely likable Michael Cassidy) but she must also deal with her estranged sister Lily (above, Kristina Apgar, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). She gets to meet a hunky next door millionaire Will (Hallisay, above) and gets shepherded around the mansion by gay chef Marco (a sly and hilarious Allen Louis) who whispers great advice to Megan like "have his baby" when Will is in the room.

The show is based on the book How To Teach Filthy Rich Girls by Zoey Dean and had the original (and better) show title of Surviving The Filthy Rich and while I haven't read these books or any of the original Gossip Girl series (not exactly my demographics), I like that Privileged seems to be heading in a slightly different direction than the fellow CW series.

Garcia, Cassidy and the rest of the cast charmed me so much while spitting out some hilarious one liners amongst the light dramatics of it all, that I'm actually looking forward to the next episodes and I'm going to currently give Privileged ***1/2 (3.5 stars out of 5) with a heavy lean towards a 4. I know. Maybe I'm being too nice here but I truly found the show refreshing. Especially after 90210 (so it could be a relative thing).

For more Reviews and Previews of the 2008 Fall TV Season, Check here.

For more photos and the video promo of Privileged:

Here's the promo: