TVSquad

Not to be confused with Cashmere Mafia or Legally Blonde or Sweet Charity, Lifetime has a new reality series in the works with the catchy title of Blonde Charity Mafia. It's a docu-reality series, so they say.

Lifetime has ordered six half-hour episodes of Blonde Charity Mafia, following the lives of three young society women in Washington, D.C. who are famous for their work on political and philanthropic fundraisers in the nation's capital. If this sounds something like the Bravo Real Houswives franchise -- Real Housewives of Orange County, Real Housewives of New York and Real Housewives of Atlanta -- it's all intentional.

The Blonde Charity Mafia mavens may not be married ladies, but the very rich, society swirl sounds very much like the well-heeled women on Bravo.

A couple of months ago, I interviewed Lifetime president of entertainment Susanne Daniels for TV Week, asking her about Project Runway jumping from Bravo to her network.

"We know for certain that Heidi (Klum) and Tim (Gunn) are returning. We would love to see the judges back, Michael Kors and Nina Garcia...but we're working on that," she said.

She went on to say that the show will look and feel very much like it did on Bravo; it will be airing in the same time slot, the same day of the week. And she secured Kors and Garcia, so the four important Project Runway principals all will be in place.

Now comes word that in an effort to keep Project Runway as much a hit on Lifetime as it's been on Bravo, Lifetime is bringing in the veteran production team Bunim-Murray to take over as showrunners.

One sign of a show's success is the ability to attract stars in guesting roles. Army Wives, which has been setting new records in ratings for Lifetime, has been a blockbuster hit and now they're starting to book flashy guest stars.

Ana Ortiz, Hilda Suarez on ABC's Ugly Betty, is going to be turning up on Army Wives this summer prior to her return as Betty's big sister on Betty in the fall. Ms. Ortiz will go to Charleston, where AW is filmed, before clocking in to the new New York studios for Ugly Betty.

Ana is going to be playing Sandi, a waitress who becomes involved with Roxy and Trevor in a legal way, something about a lawsuit. While it's hard to project, there are clues in that description that can start the wheels turning. First off, if she has a connection to Trevor and Roxy and we know Trevor is currently in Iraq, will Sandi's story take place after he's home? Or maybe Sandi is a girl from Trevor's past who turns up at Fort Marshall looking for him and finds that he's overseas but has left behind a wife -- Roxy -- and her boys, whom he adopted.

When I interviewed Susanne Daniels, the President for Entertainment at the Lifetime Network, she was high on the success of Army Wives, and anxious to bring more comedy to the network.

"Viewers tell us that they love our comedies, our movies, Army Wives. I would argue that more people identify Reba and Will and Grace with our network now than the networks that launched them. And I was at the WB when Reba launched!" she said in TV Week. Well, now she's launching a new comedy, this time for Lifetime.

Lifetime has ordered 13 episodes of a new sitcom called Rita Rocks for this fall and cast Nicole Sullivan as Rita. The show will be part of a one-hour comedy block with Reba. "We've assembled a fantastic team in front of and behind the camera," said Ms. Daniels in a statement today.