• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, December 2, 2014

About three-quarters into the premiere episode of “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce,” a dramatic confrontation between estranged spouses represents the first honest moment in this show.

Unfortunately, such moments are far and few between. The rest of this dreary, crude new series -- premiering tonight (Tuesday, Dec. 2) on Bravo -- consists of a string of clichés about the lifestyles of wealthy L.A. women -- their divorces, their breast implants, their sex lives (or lack thereof), their lunches at sun-splashed restaurants, and their gossip about each other.

You’ve seen this type of woman a thousand times before in movies and TV shows, most notably on the “Real Housewives” shows for which Bravo is best known.

Now, however, Bravo intends to venture into new territory with “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce” (there’s no “A” or “The” before the word “Girlfriends” in this title for some unknown reason). This show is being billed as Bravo’s first-ever “scripted series,” although most of us have long suspected that the “Real Housewives” shows and a slew of other so-called “reality” series are also scripted, at least partially.

With “Girlfriends’ Guide,” a script is not necessarily an advantage. Aided by this script, the characters in this show are unabashed vulgarians -- casually bandying about words that were once never heard on advertiser-supported TV, but have now become all too commonplace or more to the point, gratuitous on television.

I’m no prude, and I have nothing in particular against grownups using profanity. But the potty-mouthed dialogue in “Girlfriends’ Guide” rarely seems to serve any purpose other than to establish that the women in the show are unhesitant when it comes to the use of dirty words -- a trait that doesn’t exactly advance the plot. Perhaps the writers of this show are trying to establish that we live in a coarse society. If so, then message received.

“Girlfriends’ Guide” derives its title from a series of fictional “Girlfriends’ Guide” books written by an author who is the central character of the show (played by Lisa Edelstein). It’s a series of feelgood, self-help books that dispense advice on how to maintain balance and happiness as a wife, mother and career woman. The books have apparently made this author, Abby McCarthy, rich.

But there’s just one problem: Her own domestic life is nothing like the one she portrays in her books.  So when the word gets out that she’s divorcing her husband, her fan base turns on her and her book sales plummet.  So she seeks solace with two girlfriends – a lawyer (Janeane Garofalo) and an ex-model (Beau Garrett) who doesn’t do much of anything except have sex (or at least talk about having it) and eat lunch.

My main beef with this show is this: For most of two episodes Bravo provided for preview, the subject of divorce is dealt with light-heartedly, as if we should consider this show to be a comedy. And yet, on occasion, as in the scene cited at the top of this blog post, the show dives suddenly into a serious-drama mode that is at odds with the rest of the show.

It just so happens that these dramatic moments are the only ones that get you to sit up and really pay attention. Compared to these scenes, the rest of the show barely registers. 

The dramatic scenes -- rare though they are -- are searing and well-acted. They’re more appropriate too -- much more suited to the main subject of this show, which is divorce. And as anyone well knows who has had any experience with divorce, it is no laughing matter.

The dramatic scenes signal that “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce” might have become a meaningful scripted TV series about the domestic destruction wrought by failed marriages -- on children, on husbands and wives, on relatives, on finances, on careers.  Perhaps that might have been achieved if the show had been produced for some other network such as AMC, for example.

But “Girlfriends’ Guide” is a show for Bravo, which apparently couldn’t decide if its first scripted series was supposed to be sad or funny.

“Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce” premieres Tuesday night (Dec. 2) at 10 Eastern/9 Central on Bravo.