“How to Make it in America”

Starring: Bryan Greenberg, Victor Rasuk, Lake… “How to Make it in America”

Starring: Bryan Greenberg, Victor Rasuk, Lake Bell

Creator: Ian Edelman

HBO

Sundays, 10 p.m.

Grade: C+

In 1998, Darren Star created a series for HBO that took New York and turned it into one of the glossiest, most fabulous characters on television. That show was “Sex and the City,” and aside from making the Cosmopolitan the official drink of tourists wishing to emulate Carrie Bradshaw, it brought New York into the limelight — millions of viewers from Anchorage, Alaska, to Portland, Maine, saw the Big Apple in a new light: one tinted pink with glitter.

Now, in 2010, another HBO show is trying to emulate that shifting mass perception effect, except it’s been updated to reflect the poor state of the economy. Unfortunately, everything about the show — at least its pilot — is just mediocre. For now, New York is going to remain untouched.

“How to Make it in America” concerns itself with a group of 20-somethings who all fall within the range of desperately broke and struggling to get by. Ben (Bryan Greenberg) is a jeans salesman who sometimes moonlights as an illegal street vendor of stolen goods with his buddy Cam (Victor Rasuk). But what he really wants to do is graphic and fashion design. Of course he does — he is young and struggling and living in Manhattan. If it weren’t for having his own jean line, he would want to be a writer.

Also circulating in his social periphery is Gingy (Shannyn Sossamon), a previous trust fund brat who strives to maintain financial independence and run an art gallery. Of course she does — nothing like some offsetting of the wealthy guilt to round out the show’s cast of oh-so-urban pretty actors.

There is the “Dork From High School” who sold out and manages a hedge fund (Eddie Kaye Thomas), and there is the beautiful ex-girlfriend (Lake Bell) of Ben’s, who also appears to be the one that has her sh*t together the most.

The show’s filming style makes it often resemble pseudo-reality shows like “The Hills” and “The City.” When the characters are on the screen, you almost expect the white captioning to let you know which character is exchanging witty banter, and whose “friend” they are. Hell, you almost expect a Whitney Port appearance.

The show isn’t horrible by any means. It’s produced by the same team that did “Entourage.” The writing, acting and production values are all there. The problems lie in the concept.

Watching a show about men and women not much older than myself whine and complain about not having money or not being able to find work is certainly not what I want to see two-and-a-half months before graduation. Right now, escapist fantasy dramas where a group of English majors all find incredibly fulfilling and high-paying jobs would be ideal. A show about someone who has to buy stolen leather jackets and peddle them to tourists? I don’t think so — those tourists are probably still lost in the decadence of the “Sex and the City” image of New York, not the muted reality of “How to Make it in America.”

And though I will have to give the show a few more episodes to redeem itself, for now, I’ll stick with the tourists.