Women's Murder Club

It's funny and smart, with affably quirky characters who aren't cut from cardboard.

Laura Harris as Jill Bernhardt, the platinum-blonde district attorney, Paula Newsome as Claire Washburn, the surprisingly jolly medical examiner, and Aubrey Dollar as Cindy Thomas, the impossibly young newspaper reporter, do not add up to a Kaffeeklatsch or a therapy group. I’m not saying that they don’t occasionally discuss emotions (usually Angie/Lindsay’s), but it’s more grad-school seminar than touchy-feely hot-tub hangout.

Neither self-serious nor campy, the new ABC police drama is just what I've been craving amid all the businesslike "Law & Orders" and "CSIs."

Realism, in other words, is not the show's strong suit; pretty much all of it (the detecting, the lawyering, the examining and the reporting) can be described as "lite.

The women's friendship radiates authentic undertones, beneath all the gooed-up personal drivel, although it's way too convenient how they always show up simultaneously at the same crime scenes.

Everything other than Harmon, who has thrown her "Law & Order" reserve out the window, feels unnatural and contrived.

This "women's" show is such an embarrassing mess, it makes me ashamed to be a woman.