'GCB' in need of saving grace: Television review ABC has been touting its new comedy "GCB" as a cross between "Steel Magnolias" and"Desperate Housewives." While it does have "Steel Magnolia" screenwriter Robert Harling as its creator, we regret to inform you that "GCB" owes more to the "Real Housewives" than it does the desperate ones. Originally, the show's title was that of the book that inspired it - "Good Christian Bitches" by Kim Gatlin - but the network decided that the B-word was too potentially offensive to have in its title. Not too offensive to have as its theme, mind you, and therein lies the problem. In the last few years, TV and screenwriters have come to the decision that there is no more tantalizing or dependable soulless villain than a rich white woman, preferably very thin. White British men come in second, but not a close second. Call it the Cruella Accord. PHOTOS: Texas-based TV shows "GCB" is a product of the Cruella Accord. Where both "Steel Magnolias" and "Desperate Housewives" allowed even the most scheming and silly characters a solid core of humanity, "GCB" offers a parade of women that are such stereotypes of wealthy white Southern femininity they might as well be in drag. The story revolves around Amanda (Leslie Bibb), a Dallas high school Queen Bee who married the quarterback and moved to Los Angeles only to be dumped by her husband who then, fittingly, died in a fellatio-related car accident (tasteless jokes all around) while fleeing to Mexico with the proceeds of a Ponzi-scheme and Amanda's best friend. Her mansion repossessed and her assets frozen, Amanda is forced to pack up her (surprisingly normal) children and move back to Dallas, where she must face her critical cocktail-swigging mother Gigi (Annie Potts) and a coven of former schoolmates just itching for revenge. A potentially funny setup, if the women were not such oddly antiquated sendups. Kristin Chenoweth plays Carlene, the Louboutin-wearing, gold-plated-cellphone-wielding, Sunday-school-teaching ring leader who lives across the street from Gigi and has nothing better to do than report Amanda's every move to her friends. Which include Cricket (Miriam Shor), an ice queen CEO obliviously in a "Brokeback Mountain" marriage; Sharon (Jennifer Aspen), former glamour girl turned carb-hoovering housewife complete with feather shrug and cad husband; and Heather (Marisol Nichols), the timid but essentially decent girl still squirming under Carlene's thumb. They all attend the same church, of course, Our Lady of the Two-Faced Hypocrite. Well no, that's not really the name because for one thing it's a non-specific Protestant church (so no "Our Lady"), but "GCB" does certainly aim to satirize a certain brand of self-defining, self-satisfied Christian. Which, again, is a promising idea executed in such an anti-red state way that the emergence of the tea party suddenly makes perfect sense. Carlene sits smug and evil in the choir, a symbol of Satan quoting Bible verses to suit his needs, while Amanda, wide-eyed and winsome in her hip-huggers and tank tops ("she looks like a migrant worker," Carlene hisses) is forced to confront a grown-up version of her teen self. Never mind that up until three months previous Amanda had been living in an ocean-view L.A. palace with her unscrupulous husband, Amanda is shocked, SHOCKED, by the petty gossip and tyrannies of Dallas (and utterly unmoved by the instant attention she receives from everyone's husbands.) She is now a woman humbled, 18 months sober even, and not too proud (or concerned about her sobriety) to take a job waiting tables in a Hooters-like bar so she can start supporting herself and her children. Chenoweth knows how to deliver a line and a look, but Carlene's cartoon witchiness infects virtually every scene. The show's only saving grace is Potts, who can bring depth to any character and who has been to this particular rodeo before in "Designing Women," which dealt with a similar milieu in a much more interesting and humane way. Mark Deklin, who plays Cricket's gay husband Blake, is also a bright spot with a potentially interesting story line. But only if subsequent episodes can find room for a little heart, or non-denominational charity, amid all the jokes about the silly, shallow, vain lives of rich white Christian women. And for that, dear Lord, we most fervently pray. 'GCB' info Where: ABC When: 10 p.m. Sunday Rating: TV-PG-DL (May be unsuitable for young children, with advisories for suggestive dialogue and coarse language)