The Riches

[Erin L]

I had never seen this series when it was on, but I got curious when I found out that one of the characters was a young boy who liked to dress in his sister's clothes. The actor, Aiden Mitchell, looks really pretty as a girl - there's a video of the character, Sam Malloy, on Youtube.

Anyway, I got curious about it and I downloaded the first season from I-tunes. The premise of the show seemed interesting - a family of con artists moves into a dead couple's new house in an upscale neighborhood and passes themselves off as the new neighbors, looking to pull schemes. But after watching a several episodes, I decided I really didn't like the hard edge that the series had, and I didn't find the characters, except for Sam, at all sympathetic.

What was interesting was the way the family accepted Sam's dressing. In the pilot, the mother, played by Minnie Driver, has just gotten out of jail on parole. She asks her husband if Sam still likes to wear his sister's clothes, and when he says that he does, she shrugs and says, "There's worse things." But it remains a sideline of the plot and his character is never (from what I could tell) really developed.

I guess the most surprising thing to me was that it actually stayed on the air for two full seasons.

[Gaven McLaren]

The funny thing is it has the main male star is the action transvestite Eddie Izzard.

[DonnaT]

I liked the first season, but then it seemed to 'jump the shark' during the second season.