This series is jarring. Coming off a period where sitcoms had been very family oriented and touching female friendships were all over the television, this show is a complete turnaround. The comedy on High Society is brittle and fast-paced -- audiences need a score card just to keep up with all the wisecracking. Every line of dialogue is strewn with innuendo, double meaning, or insult. Nothing and no one is sacred. What's more, the brash language is enough to send network censors to their graves. The characters are so deliciously dramatic and shallow that it's almost impossible to get enough. I mean -- no one behaves this way!!!

These women are neurotic, shallow, and over the top. Yes, the ladies have a deep and long-lasting friendship (bordering on co-dependency), but they aren't Mary and Rhoda. Trashy romance novelist Ellie Walker -- played to perfection by Jean Smart -- is a socially elite, spoiled, self-centered, drugged-out, alcoholic nymphomaniac. Mary McDonnell portrays her ever-loyal best friend, publishing mogul Dott Emerson -- the only person who understands and excepts Ellie for who she is. The relationship between these two is rather interesting to watch, as Dott is often having to act as the parent to Ellie's tantrums and bouts of irrationality. Nothing is off limits though (one running gag being Ellie's sexual plays for Dott's 17 year old son).

In steps frumpish housewife Val -- an old college friend of the ladies who is leaving her cheating husband. Val is everything that Ellie worked so many years to leave behind, and has none of the style and drama that the ladies have come to know as a way of life. The character is intentionally annoying but makes a great target for Ellie's snippy remarks and insults. Someone obviously thought the character was unnecessary or wasn't working though because she disappears after 6 episodes with no explanation. Other characters include Dott's cradle-robbing business partner Peter and her son Brendan -- plus Dott's justifiably arrogant, gay, immigrant secretary/assistant Stephano. Jayne Meadows is as brittle and deliciously ludicrous and equally shallow in the recurring role of Dott's ever-marrying mother, Alice Morgan-Dupont-Sutton-Cushing-Ferruke. The interaction between Ellie and each of these characters is priceless -- each bit of dialogue sharp and stinging.

Critics had mixed reactions to the series. Most loved its brittle sniping, but some panned the show -- comparing it to completely different types of shows like Cybill simply because both series had forty-something ladies as best friends. This show was never meant to fit that traditional sitcom mold -- also then labeled an American rip-off of the British phenomenon Absolutely Fabulous. Though audiences were starting to latch on to the show's campy outrageousness, CBS asked that the dialogue be softened for future episodes to make the characters warmer. Knowing that such a change would ruin the whole series, the production team opted not to continue. CBS finished its initial 13 episode run and sent the show on hiatus -- from whence it never returned.