There's phone fun tonight on Hot Properties (9:30 on ABC and A-Channel).

The second episode of this brand new sitcom finds the former party animal owner of the Hot Properties real estate agency, Ava Summerlin (NYPD Blue's Gail O'Grady) hosting a little gal pal party at her killer Manhattan apartment. Her posse (MADtv's Nicole Sullivan, Sofia Vergara and Christina Moore) all wind up getting nicely sloshed.

The next day, they figure they probably got a little giggly and dialed up their ex-boyfriends. Instead, they spilled the beans to Chloe's (Sullivan) domineering mother (guest star Christine Estabrook) about her dating disasters. Hilarity ensues.

Or not. This series about four sizzling real estate agents is so desperate to be Designing Women meets Sex And The City you can smell the perfume.

"Obviously, this show is a bit of melding of the two of those," says executive producer Suzanne Martin (Frasier). "But mostly, it's just a show that I would watch."

Evan Handler, who played Carrie's gay friend on Sex And The City, plays a divorced therapist/neighbour here, adding to the Sex-ual confusion.

Over six million Americans caught the debut last week, a modest start but up from its ABC lead-in, Hope And Faith (5.73 million viewers).

Are real real estate agents like this? Probably not, as Sullivan observed last July on the ABC portion of the network press tour. "My favourite ones are the ones on the bus stops, you know, the pictures?" she says. "Second to that are the married people that are real estate people together. Wouldn't you kill them?"

Now there's a TV show. Too bad Sullivan didn't brainstorm this one with Martin before the pilot was shot.

Usually the life of a series can be judged from the press tour session. A thin transcript (like the one from Hot Properties) usually means the show is doomed. Critics ran out of things to ask early, with one scribe actually inquiring, "Which of you ladies do you think has the most shoes in your closet?" (The answer, if anybody cares, was Amy Hill, who plays a gossipy receptionist.)

The cast and producers were also asked what qualities they look for in a real estate agent. O'Grady said they should listen well and be familiar with the area. Martin said she looks for people who are "matchmakers for people and homes."

Sullivan said somebody who would "kick in a little bit of money for the house."

Sullivan, always the kooky sister or girlfriend, ditched her dog-walker role on King Of Queens to be part of this series. "I love, love, love, love working with Kevin James and Leah Remini, and of course Jerry Stiller, who's my favourite person in the world," she says.

She makes one last appearance in Queens this Monday, telling Stiller she's moving to Manhattan.

The writers just ran out of things for her to do over there, including making her, in her Sullivan's words, "a drunk who sleeps around." (Although there is an element of that in her new character, Chloe, described in the ABC press binder as "a self-help book junkie" who is just digesting that "no one has ever been that 'into' her.")

Sullivan also does voice-over work on Family Guy (there it is again -- "Drunk Chick") as well as other animated fare.

While it was fun playing third fiddle to James and Stiller on Queens, she felt it was time to "dig my heels in myself" on this series.

Let's hope she digs in her heels and quickly works married real estate agents into this not-so-hot property.