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Dirty Sexy Money was one thing (but Good Christian Bitches?)


GCB co-star Kristin Chenoweth in her official Twitter photo

By ED BARK
The pilot episode for ABC's Good Christian Bitches, still not officially ruled out as the title of the network's adaptation of Kim Gatlin's same-named book, is scheduled to begin filming in Dallas next week.

The Dallas Observer's Unfair Park blog, citing various other announcements and news sources, noted Tuesday that Kristin Chenoweth (Glee, Pushing Daisies) is the latest addition to the prime-time sudser's cast. Other participants in this potential series are Leslie Bibb, Annie Potts, Miriam Shor and Marisol Nichols, with Darren Starr of Sex and the City fame serving as executive producer.

Basically put, GCB is the saga of a scandal-shocked divorced mother of two named Amanda Vaughn (Bibb). She returns to her hometown of Dallas to encounter scorn and overall cattiness from her former Christian schoolmates. Or as it's described on Gatlin's official GCB website: "In the whirling midst of salacious gossip, Botox, and fraud, Amanda turns to those who love her and the faith she's always known. Will the Good Christian Bitches get the best of her, or will everyone see that these GCBs are as counterfeit as their travel jewelry?"

Cover art for the book depicts a grinning, voluptuous blonde in a low-cut blouse with a bejeweled silver cross bisecting her cleavage. "I wasn't trying to win a Pulitzer Prize," Catlin said in a 2008 interview with the New York Post, for which a link is provided on her website.

As noted in this post's headline, ABC had a fairly provocative title a few seasons back with Dirty Sexy Money. And in 1982, the network proudly presented The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch, a made-for-TV movie produced by the late Dallas native Aaron Spelling.

The will-they-or-won't-they-keep-it game surrounding Good Christian Bitches is getting ratings-challenged ABC some publicity mileage at the moment, even though the Parents Television Council already has condemned it as an affront to both women and "the world's largest faith."

"Would they even consider a program title or a plot line based on 'Bitches' who were Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist?" PTC president Tim Winter asks with, in this case, considerable justification. "I suspect not, and I certainly hope not. So why the double standard?"

ABC is certain to change the title if GCB makes the cut for next season. And if for some reason it doesn't, a number of affiliate stations likely will refuse to air it, possibly even including Dallas-based WFAA8. This is the same station, after all, that declined to carry ABC's NYPD Blue for its first two seasons in protest of the series' adult language and occasional glimpses of bared behinds. WFAA8 was the only station in a Top 10 TV market to renounce the series. The station eventually relented after NYPD Blue won a total of nine Emmys in its first two seasons.

Under any title, GCB doesn't look to be anywhere near that league.