Money may be the root of all evil, but it's also the inspiration for a lot of satire as well, so it's hard to stay mad at cash for long.

"Dirty Sexy Money" goggles at the Darling family - an unholy mash-up of the Kennedys and the Hiltons - in much the same manner that we drop our jaws at real-life celebutards, wallowing luxuriantly and bemusedly in their self-destructive peccadilloes.

Peter Krause ("Six Feet Under") is wryly winning as Nick George, an idealistic lawyer for charitable causes whose father was the Darlings' family attorney until he died when his private plane crashed under mysterious circumstances.

Darling patriarch Tripp (Donald Sutherland in another in his series of most-sinister-man-in-the-world turns) aggressively recruits Nick to replace his father. Nick, wisely, wants nothing to do with the Darlings; he nonetheless unwisely takes the job when the money becomes impossible to refuse.

Nick, naturally, has a history with the Darlings. Karen (a witty Natalie Zea) has been in love with him since childhood, and he's the one thing she has been denied, so she fritters her time away in a series of loveless marriages. Brian (Glenn Fitzgerald), a heinous Episcopal priest with enough skeletons to necessitate a large walk-in closet, hates Nick, probably because the guy actually has some principles.

Patrick (William Baldwin, amusing enough) is reluctantly running for Senate, even though he has enough scandal in his background to make him fit for government work. And Jeremy (Seth Gabel) and Juliet (Samaire Armstrong) are young, spoiled twits and twins with a talent only for humiliating the Darling name.

When Juliet blubbers, "I want to be a human being!" her long-suffering mother Letitia (Jill Clayburgh) replies, "And someday you'll be one."

But not likely anytime soon. Nick promises his wife (Zoe McLennan) that his new job won't cut into family quality time, but the Darlings' attendant disasters and hissy fits pull him hither and yon across Manhattan (his cell phone has wittily specific ring tones for each of the Darlings), putting out fires and delivering sycophantic pep talks. And, all the while, surreptitiously investigating who killed his father.

"Dirty Sexy Money" was created by Craig Wright, who has written for "Six Feet Under," "Lost" and "Brothers & Sisters." In a weird way, this is a perfect amalgam of those shows, the quintessential embodiment of Al Pacino's line in "Godfather III": "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"

And while a lot of this is good, sudsy fun, sometimes it lapses too far into parody: By episode three, a sex tape already has become a plot point, and a catfight on the red carpet the night Patrick declares his candidacy is idiocy even the Paris Hiltons of the world should be able to avoid.

Nonetheless, "Dirty Sexy Money" has plenty of intrigue, and humor, and humorous intrigue. It's the soap for those who enjoy schadenfreude.

David Kronke, (818) 713-3638 david.kronke@dailynews.com www.insidesocal.com/tv

DIRTY SEXY MONEY 

>What: Sardonic soap about a dynastic clan's peccadilloes and the family lawyer who must rein them in.
>Where: ABC (Channel 7).
>When: 10 tonight.
>In a nutshell: Droll, well-performed melodrama about bad behavior.