Big Bow Wow

Alluvial Filmworks

This Dublin-set nighttime drama from the U.K. knows how to push buttons and boundaries. A sort of Celtic Sex and the City, the provocative soap courted controversy with its frank portrayals of pretty young people having sex, doing drugs, and generally behaving badly, along with its major (and majorly annoying) gay character. The title refers to a local club that, along with a posh condo building, is an intersection for the show's loose band of friends and acquaintances to gather to gossip and stab each other in the back. Despite some good performances and promising plotlines, the show isn't exactly good. Heck, it isn't even a show exactly, but a product; its modest success depends as much on its cool soundtrack of northern soul and its slick visuals, which blend bleak city shots with impressive camerawork and editing to create a sleazily alluring portrait of Dublin, as on old fashioned ideas like plot and character. But, that said, Big Bow Wow definitely provides cheesy fun in a no-brainer vein, and fans of shows like Desperate Housewives and Dirty Sexy Money should check it out.