September 18th, 2009 10:17 pm

The Beautiful Life

It could be easy to dismiss yet another high society drama from The CW, but there’s actually more to ‘The Beautiful Life’ than meets the eye.

Amidst all the remakes, book adaptations and spin-offs, The CW did actually have an original idea in the production slate this season.

From former model-turned-writer Adam Giaudrone and executive producers Mike Kelley (‘Swingtown’) and Ashton Kutcher, comes ‘The Beautiful Life’, a model centric drama based around the world of high-fashion in New York City.

Said to based on Ashton Kutcher’s early days as a model, the series follows Chris Andrews (Ben Hollingsworth), a gutsy young farm boy from Iowa, whose life is thrown up side down when he’s discovered by a modelling agent whilst visiting New York City.

Completely out of his element, he finds himself being assisted by Raina Mayer (Sara Paxton), a young model whose been tapped as the next big thing.

Mischa Barton marks her return to television in ‘The Beautiful Life’ as Sonja Stone, the former IT girl, who returns after mysteriously fleeing the country for six months.

The series also stars Corbin Bleu (‘High School Musical’) as Issac Taylor, Nico Tortorella (‘Make It or Break It’) as Cole Shepherd, Ashley Madekwe (‘Secret Diary of a Call Girl’) as Marissa Delfina and Australia’s Elle Macpherson as former supermodel Claudia Foster, the owner of Covet Modeling Agency.

What could have been yet another “small-town girl realising her full potential in the big city” cliche, by flipping the character to a male role, it suddenly becomes a whole lot more interesting. We get to see a different perspective on a played out storyline.

Another interesting facet is actually seeing Barton back on the screen, her character Sonja Stone is surprisingly multi-dimension. The reason surrounding her disappearance is unexpected and helps ground the character in reality.

As far as CW pilots this season go, ‘The Beautiful Life’ is by far the most original and distinctive. It has its own real and gritty visual style, which is a refreshing change from the plush, glossy worlds of ‘Gossip Girl’, ‘90210′ and ‘Melrose Place’.

While it’s unlikely that ‘The Beautiful Life’ will set the ratings on fire, having such a niche target audience, the series does hold its own among the other staple dramas on The CW.