Members of the family include the billionaire patriarch (Donald Sutherland) and his posh wife (Jill Clayburgh); an attorney general (Billy Baldwin) and his transgender girlfriend (Candis Cayne); a nasty Episcopal man of the cloth (Glenn Fitzgerald), hiding an illegitimate son; a thrice-married socialite (The Shield's Natalie Zea); a suicidal celebutante (The O.C.'s Samaire Armstrong); and a club kid (Nip/Tuck's Seth Gabel). Starting in Episode 4, Blair Underwood will appear as Darling archnemesis Simon Elder.

Wright is especially excited about the casting of Cayne, and he says the network is totally behind it. "She becomes one of the most sensible people on the show," he says. "I'm really proud that we get to take a person who's made a bold choice in terms of an alternative lifestyle and make them not just an onlooker or part of a joke but actually give the difference that they represent a real voice in the show."

Unfortunately, despite such first-class actors as Sutherland and Clayburgh as the top Darlings, the family comes across as a comic book roman à clef, with each child representing some form of bad behavior you've read about in the tabloids. They're too studiously larger-than-life, while Krause is somehow smaller, a drab presence on the fringe when he needs to be holding the center.

Great title, though. We'll see if that's enough.

Multiple sources confirm that production on ABC's highly touted family drama Dirty Sexy Money shut down for at least eight days {after the 5th episode wrapped} as producers do a little "fine tuning."

ABC has pretty well cornered the market on the primetime soap in recent seasons, and its latest foray into sudsy territory, "Dirty Sexy Money," should further increase its lock on the genre. Simply put, "Dirty Sexy Money" is a gas to watch, showcasing bad behavior and outlandish situations to spare.

The tone, however, is more sardonic and the characters more wittily conceived than on those soaps of yore that tried to pass themselves off as serious drama. Peter Krause, who impressed many a viewer as the principal nut in HBO's "Six Feet Under," leads a glitteringly impressive ensemble cast, which includes Donald Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh doing the patriarch-matriarch polka.

She says Baldwin couldn’t be nicer. “He is so amazing,” she says. “So sweet and generous and open to this whole new world. He’s just really giving and made me feel really comfortable.”

Well, they better be comfortable with each other, because Cayne and Baldwin do have some steamy moments together. “There are a lot of love scenes,” Cayne says with a laugh.

So, how does Baldwin rate as a kisser? “Well, it’s an acting kiss,” she says with another laugh. “For acting kisses, he’s great.”

We were going to take a hiatus and let the writers catch up and then we discovered that, based upon some work we did after the second episode, we wanted to go back and retool episode number two
....
So what actually happened?
We found that we struck a tone, and the style for the show in episodes three and four was really working and there were things in episode two which needed to change to fit in with the show that we're developing and finding.
.....
There were certain story elements that needed to be more grounded than they were during the initial version of episode two. We don't want the audience to have a difficult time taking our characters seriously

E!will repeat episodes of ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money" and "Big Shots" on Sunday as part of a stunt the cable network is calling ""Super Filthy Freakin' Fabulous Weekend."

it's the Darlings that best capture the Zeitgeist. We watch them for an hour without finding out the source of their affluence, because it really doesn't matter. Our interest in wealthy families isn't just the wealth—it's the dysfunction that the wealth creates. "The unattractive parts of these people's lives have been systematically marketed to us by a culture that likes selling a feeling of superiority to people who are doing without a lot," Wright says. There's so much more information available to us about the Hiltons than there ever was about the Rockefellers, thanks to blogs, "Access: Hollywood" and ill-advised Facebook posts. Therein lies the brilliance of the title "Dirty Sexy Money": our wealthy families are poured through a filter, sifting out all the voyeuristic pleasures—the dirt, the sex and the tragicomedy—which get served to us on a silver platter.

TV Guide: ......In what other ways, going forward, might the show push the envelope?
Krause: Gosh, I don't want to give anything away, but there are a number of things. Suffice it to say that Letitia Darling (Clayburgh) had an affair with Nick's father Dutch for 40 years... so there is the chance that some of those kids might not be Tripp's.

It isn't a simple story where Nick takes the job just for the $10 million he can give to charity," Krause said of his character's difficult decision to fill the void his dad left behind. "There's all sorts of things going on. There's the unconsciousness desire to be close to Karen [Darling, who he had a relationship with when he was a teen]. This guilt-fueled desire to find out if Tripp [Darling] killed his father. And of course, his feelings about Letitia [Darling, who he discovers had an affair with his father]."

Other new shows scoring well, acording to TiVo, were "Journeyman, "Dirty Sexy Money," "Back to You," "Cane," "Chuck" and Ken Burns' multipart documentary "The War."

My jaw dropped for number two. Not what I was expecting.

I'm pretty sure Tripp said he'd call them the Buffalo WINGS.

This just in: They've located Peter Krause's late father Dutch, and he looks just like veteran actor Peter Strauss!

According to Interbridge’s Late Night Page, Peter Krause will be on The View on November 9 th.