Personal Affairs

In an instance of surprising if rather dispiriting coincidence, both the BBC and ITV1 have made new comedy dramas about PAs. BBC Three's Personal Affairs began last night; in July arrrives ITV1's Monday, Monday. Neither will make TV history, and it is interesting that the BBC scheduled Personal Affairs at the same time as Occupation: thus putting the two dramas head to head, which is normally a no-no for the corporation unless it wants to bury one of them...

The BBC Three show has at least been made by people with wildly overactive imaginations. Yesterday, the director had decorated one of the PAs with cartoon red blobs and another had cartoon birds flying around her. (Although, oddly, only the first time we met them.) Also, sometimes, when other characters viewed the secretaries, they appeared nude or dressed up in Mad Men-style Sixties garb depending on the particular viewer's fantasy.

This reminded me of those old Smirnoff ads when the world became exciting when the drinker viewed things through the prism of a vodka bottle. But it didn't do enough to divert from the sea of vaguely male-chauvinist cliches swilling around elsewhere. There was the blonde bimbo who's actually really clever; the sexually voracious brunette; the moody one who was made to look ugly but isn't. It was all very glossy, but no amount of visual trickery could veil this strange show's vacant heart.

Personal Affairs is tripe TV, but as evidence of gender relations in 2009, it is fascinating. The drama follows the working life of four personal assistants. One got the job because she was raped by the boss when aged 14, loves him for it, and spends most of her day having sex in the stationery cupboard, which must be inconvenient for those who have run out of staplers. Another has sex in the office lift with someone who asked her to "show us your tits". A third is sexually harassed by the boss and loves it. I won't even begin to tell you what kind of humour was attempted with a Hasidic Jew.

It wishes it was Sex and the City, it aims for Ally McBeal, it is actually a poorly constructed porn flick for a sub-group of men who get a thrill out of sexual violence against women but are at the same time also really interested in the latest kind of belts and handbags that secretaries buy from Zara.

Personal Affairs put me in mind of Superman. Not because it had superheroic powers, far from it, but because it had the whole 'is it a bird, is it a plane' thing going on. As in 'is it a comedy, is it a thriller, is it a drama?' The short answer is that this London-based spin on Sex And The City is a bit of a shambles. Someone should have told writer Gabbie Asher that everyone having sex in lifts and cupboards doesn't make you edgy and modern, it just makes you look a bit desperate.

As ludicrous plot contrivance piled upon contrivance - it's all to do with a bunch of put-upon PAs and their struggles with men/jobs - the relentless man-hating (sample line: 'you're a man, your infidelity Occupation, BBC1 was inevitable') bored my rocks off.

Personal Affairs is about four glamorous PAs who work in an investment bank in the City. It takes a little while to realise that it has nothing to do with the real world, and accept instead that it's just television's answer to fantasy chick-lit. This is one of those banks that can function only thanks to the beautiful, resourceful girls who work there; the male partners are salacious or inept, the female partners are aggressive or out-and-out lesbian, and it is up to the four PAs to hold it all together. In terms of plot, one of them disappears mysteriously, just as an overqualified temp in the typing pool is plotting a cyber fraud. It is Mills & Boon given the Sex and the City treatment.

Much more sure of itself is this distinct and colourful offbeat comedy about four female PAs working for a selection of unhinged execs in a swish London office. Cheerily, the dialogue matches the pacing when it comes to being pert and bouncy: 'Why play the footsie,' says one lovestruck boss, 'when we could have the Nasdaq?' Quite.

Sex And The City comparisons are inevitable although the city here is London, while the animated bluebirds of happiness fluttering about on screen show that Ally McBeal still has a lot to answer for, too.

Silly fantasy sequences are rife in this new, wilfully surreal and frequently saucy British comedy drama about four exceedingly glamourous personal assistants.

Office life for these girls - Grace, Lucy, Midge and Nicole - includes a lesbian boss with a Latin-speaking beehive, a love-struck Texan head honcho called Rock van Gelder and dreams of TV fame on a talent show looking for a new Dorothy to star in The Wizard Of Oz.

It is extraordinarily hard to care about characters you can't even believe in - but if this sounds anything like your own 9-to-5 life, you should consider selling the film rights to your in-tray.

It would be lazy to call this BBC3's answer to Sex and the City so we won't... although it is, kind of. The story centres around City PAs Lucy, Midge, Nicole, Sid and Grace, each of them different - a bit like a hedgefund version of the Spice Girls. What with marriage proposals, desk sex and trying to keep their skeletons firmly in the stationery closet, it's a wonder the girls get any work done at all. And, in fact, they don't, really: by the end of the first episode they have to face something much more serious than a photocopier mis-feed. If you like Mistresses, then you'll etc etc...