As soapy shows go, "GCB" is very much in the vein of "Desperate Housewives" or "Dallas," only perhaps with an even meaner streak. It's a story of tables turning, as former high school mean girl Amanda Vaughn (Leslie Bibb) moves back to Dallas after her marriage comes to a very scandalous and tragic end. Once home, she finds that the girls she ruthlessly taunted back in high school have risen to society leadership positions, much of it centered around the church and Carlene Cockburn (Kristin Chenoweth).

In fact, it's pretty clearly established in the premiere that this will be a series about the battle between Amanda and Carlene, who refuses to accept the possibility that her former tormentor has changed. For now, Carlene clearly has the upper hand and influence. She manages to keep Amanda from landing a real job by calling in favors with her friends, forcing Amanda to take a job at a bar called Boobylicious.

When a photo of Amanda on the job and in uniform begins to make the rounds, she taunts her former rival relentlessly, calling it sinful and un-Christian. But when Amanda finds out that Boobylicious is ultimately owned by Carlene and her husband's corporation, Amanda lets Carlene have it in the sweetest way possible. She thanks her publicly in prayer at church for her job, outing Carlene as the owner of Boobylicious in the process. It's open season!

While HuffPost TV Critic Maureen Ryan thought the show's general premise of a former mean girl trying to rebuild her life surrounded by the very girls she'd tormented was a great breeding ground for comedy and drama, she was disappointed to find little more than "screechy Texas stereotypes" in a "cartoonish, silly soap."

If there was ever anything to make you wish to God (with a capital G) that Molly Ivins were alive and sitting right next to you with a glass of Maker's, providing a running commentary, it is ABC's new series "GCB." I will not be as good at reviewing this fictional Texas scenarios as Ivins was at critiquing things that actually happened in Texas. Have you ever read her take on the Texas legislature? It was a beautiful thing to behold, but I am not there yet. Additional handicaps: 1) I am from the South and grew up visiting relatives in Texas, but I am not a Lone Star native. 2) My taste in television tends toward "The Bachelor" and "Criminal Minds." Consider your source.

Here's what I do know: Generally speaking, it's not terribly effective to give a film or series that you want people to remember a name that is an acronym -- especially an acronym easily confused with CBGB or BCBG. Fortunately, there's an easy way to remember this one -- just remind yourself what the series was going to be called before a lot of people got very upset: "Good Christian Bitches." (For a while, the title was going to be "Good Christian Belles," which would have been no fun at all.)

Billed as a Texas version of "Desperate Housewives," the show is based on the book "Good Christian Bitches" by Kim Gatlin, who also co-wrote the series. The premise is this: Recently widowed former mean girl Amanda Vaughn (Leslie Bibb) is forced to move back to her hometown of Dallas with her two kids to live with her socialite mother, played by Annie Potts. The women Amanda terrorized in high school, who in her absence have grown up to control the Dallas society machine, are less than thrilled by Ms. Vaughn's return, especially since their husbands definitely are thrilled. The GCBs, led by Carlene Cockburn (Broadway veteran Kristin Chenoweth), thus conspire to make Amanda's life hell. A lot of the conspiring and hell-raising happens to take place in church.

As Brooks Barnes noted in the New York Times, "If the first episode is any guide, the series ... will be way, way (way) over the top."

I'd say so. The entire thing begins with a failed Ponzi scheme and oral sex that proves fatal to both parties.

It's understandable that some Christians feel that this show misrepresents them: God here is made an accessory to the GCBs outfits and their antics. Some have argued that naming any show "______ Bitches" is demeaning to women in general. That's probably true, and if so, an acronym hardly fixes the problem. And I suppose it threatens to misrepresent Texas women, specifically, to the larger world.