Leap of Faith (2002)

Leap of Faith was created by Jenny Bicks, a former writer-producer for HBO's ''Sex and the City'' who contributed a lot to that show's wisecracky, sexually explicit tone. ''Leap of Faith'' takes the basic structure of ''Sex and the City'' -- four single friends in Manhattan who spend a lot of time in restaurants, dining out on tales of dating woe -- and transposes it to network television, which means no nudity or naughty words. In other words, it's pretty much a complete disaster.

Sarah Paulson (''Jack & Jill'') stars as Faith Wardwell, an advertising copywriter who, in the premiere, breaks off her engagement with a stuffed-shirt fellow (Bradley White) and sleeps with an actor who auditioned for a commercial campaign she's working on (he's played by Brad Rowe).

This patently faithless Faith finds support among her trio of best friends: brash Patty (''Felicity'''s Lisa Edelstein), who crows ''outrageous'' things like ''It's 2002 -- women watch porn!''; Cynthia (Regina King), in whom, after viewing two episodes, I could discern no distinguishing personality; and Andy (Ken Marino), a writer for Rolling Stone. (What's the point of specifying his place of employment if the show isn't going to get off a few jocular shots at Jann Wenner and company?) Jill Clayburgh pops up occasionally in a dreadful role as Faith's shrieky socialite mother.

Everybody says the word sex a lot; desperate attempts are made to coin new comic phrases such as ''You have sex hair!'' and ''eye sex'' (that's a lustful gaze, in the words of Faith's boss, Tim Meadows, from ''Saturday Night Live'' and ''The Michael Richards Show''!). The whole enterprise is depressing.

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