Shonda Rhime's Sexy, New Cat & Mouse Chic Thriller, ABC's "The Catch."

By Laura Medina

 ABC's "The Catch" Thursday Night at 10pm.

 

Last Monday night was the sneak preview of ABC's "The Catch" at the up & coming private clue, NeueHouse Hollywood.

Still ironing out the kinks, Shonda Rhimes' latest TV series, "The Catch," is ABC trying to keep its Thursday prime time line-up, staying hot and juicy.  The new guilty pleasure tv is a modern women dilemma, a successful career woman being conned by a smart, educated, and handsome total package, in the form of Peter Krause.

Shonda's approach to today's smart career ladies being conned is re-treading "The Thomas Crown Affair" for today's audience who became successful "Sex and the City" ladies...and the men who chased them.  It's the grown-up gal's version of a revenge fantasy.

Alice Vaughan (played by Broadway actress Mirelle Enos) is a ass-kicking, sophisticated sexy private detective armed with degrees in art history and marital arts, providing security against international art theft.

Peter Krause plays Christopher Hall/Mr. X, an international art theft/con artist who chased and baited her for her rich clients then literally cleaned her out of her house and bank account.

On a justified, vengeful chase, Alice is aided by an Interpol agent who's also chasing after Mr.X.

"The Catch" is a double entendre.  At first, Christopher Hall, the faux investment banker is a "catch" of an husband until his rouse is up.  Then, Alice realized she was "the catch" because he used her for money, contacts, clients, and access to her clients' art work and personal information.

This is where "the cat and mouse" chase begins.

Allan Heinberg, one of the writers, is a juicy prime time soap opera veteran, having written steamy and trendy "The O.C." and "Sex and the City."  He met Shonda as a "Grey's Anatomy" writer.

Through him, "The Catch" shows the elite and glamorous world of Los Angeles' emerging role as an high-end, up & comer to New York's elite, insular international art world.  A portrait of a kiss symbolizes Mr. X's mysterious but appealing sex appeal...as bait.

"The Catch" takes places in the Downtown L.A.'s renaissance, at the new Broad Museum on Grand Avenue, the fictional location of Alice's private detective agency for the rich.  She was working an event at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Little Tokyo in Northern Downtown Los Angeles.  Mr. X, sleeping with his real lady friend, is an hip, urbane bachelor apartment in the exciting but noisy Sunset Boulevard and Vine and Hollywood Boulevard in revamped Hollywood, complete with neon, traffic snarl, and tv crime-chasing choppers.

Yes, this is a modern woman's revenge done up as eye candy.

ABC's newest guilty pleasure.