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There is so much female bonding on the telly, it almost has you longing for the days when strong silent things like diamonds were a girl's best friend.
We now have the Women's Murder Club (TV3, Mondays, 8.30pm) to add to all those shows - Cashmere Mafia, Burying Brian, even True Dare Kiss has a foursome of fearsome sisters - featuring a quartet of gal pals angsting about blokes while doing it for themselves.
The chick flick and telly capital of the world, Manhattan, is somewhat overcrowded, so this latest effort at least offers a refreshing change of venue. Women's Murder Club is set in San Francisco and it's a crime show, so there's less emphasis on fashion.
The friends make a nice matching set of crime solvers - a cop, a lawyer, a medical examiner. Trailing along in their wake in last night's first episode was a keen young reporter, who is an aspiring member of the gang.
The show is based on the books by best-selling crime writer James Patterson, which explains its strange hybrid nature as a gritty crime show with more than a touch of the chick flick. This leads to some strange scenes. Not even the well-out-there Six Feet Under ever featured comments on a corpse's bikini wax.
It certainly had the best shock start we've seen in a while, with cop Lindsay's cellphone call rudely interrupted by a falling body crashing on to the roof of her car, parked just a couple of metres from where she was standing in the street.
The policing part of the show has an old-fashioned feel. Some scenes, such as gun-toting Lindsay sprinting down fire escapes in her tight jeans and heels in hot pursuit of a villain, are pure Charlie's Angels.
But while the quartet had the murder of a top investigative journalist to solve, there was plenty of time to learn about the status of their sex lives: Lindsay's had a lonely two years, obsessed with work, since her marriage split up. Her ex-husband Tom is trying to get hold of her, prompting much speculation by the rest of the club members that he wants to get back together.
The lawyer is one of those chicks who finds it hard to commit and is wavering about moving in with her boyfriend. A strong contender for the most irritating newcomer on telly drama, she also supplied the most ridiculous scene of office passion, with her old flame, a fearful old cliche, sweeping everything on to the floor before bedding her on her desk.
The medical examiner is the happily married one, who dispenses words of wisdom to the rest. Reporter Cindy's love life remains a mystery but we're sure to find out sooner rather than later. These gals always have a minute for girl talk: "I need probable cause!" is immediately followed by, "So, have you called Tom back yet?"
At the end of the episode, we learned that Lindsay's nemesis, a murderer called the "Kiss Me Not" man, has struck again. So next week, the foursome will be hot on the tail of a serial killer, who sews up the lips of his female victims. You have a certain sympathy for the monster's methods. Perhaps he just got sick of all the girl talk.
