DOESN'T PASS CREDIBILITY BAR.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

DAVID E. KELLEY, creator of Fox's new lawyer show ``girls club,'' suggests that it will be more ``realistic'' than his previous legal dramas ``The Practice'' and ``Ally McBeal.'' The first two episodes deal with a murder trial sporting sexual frisson between client and attorney, a case involving a gynecologist who fainted into a patient's exposed lap, and a possible case or two of sexual harassment in the firm between partners and young associates.

As Fox News Channel might put it, ``We report. You decide.''

Gretchen Mol, Kathleen Robertson and Chyler Leigh (who, at 20, is scarcely old enough to graduate from college, let alone law school) play longtime friends who matriculated together and wound up at the same law firm (echoes of the quickly canceled NBC nonstarter ``First Years'').

Mol stars as Lynn, whose first trial is a murder case in which the accused confesses to her that he fantasizes about her while gratifying himself; it gets more far-fetched from there next week. Robertson plays Jeannie, who's oblivious - though everyone around her understands - that a partner has designs upon her and is manipulating her to get what he wants. Leigh essays Sarah, whose efforts to move up the career ladder are thwarted by scheming and cynical colleagues. Their boyfriends are scoundrels, or thereabouts.

The young women routinely refer to their colleagues in epithets that can't be printed in family newspapers - they clearly think they should be running things; anyone else at the firm as ambitious as they are is portrayed as evil. That they're almost always overheard incautiously and embarrassingly employing these coarse pejoratives doesn't seem to ever make them more circumspect about spewing their petty venom in the future.

These gals come off as distinctly spoiled, bitter and not much fun to hang out with. Even though story lines suggest they have much to learn, they're not about to back down to the more mature know-nothings who they perceive are oppressing them.

Kelley's show doesn't so much comment on aspiring female attorneys as it does young Hollywood actresses possessing whopping amounts of entitlement who naturally assume the world should be handed to them on a silver platter. Only because Kelley's fantasy world omits characters who would truly be discriminated against do these women emerge as victims.

Kelley professes to be championing his young heroines, but in fact he's performing a kind of backhanded sexism. They're a little like the pouty leads in the WB's superhero series ``Birds of Prey,'' except that instead of protecting the downtrodden from psycho-villains, they're fighting to make lots of money with which to buy cute new fashionable outfits. Which may be ``realistic,'' but not a whole lot of fun to watch.

GIRLS CLUB - Two stars

What: ``Ally McBeal'' x 3 - fantasy sequences = attractive young associates at a San Francisco law firm contending with sex and more sex, professionally and personally.

Where: Fox (Channel 11).

When: 9 tonight.

In a nutshell: The characters are cute, but their incessant griping and sense of entitlement makes them fairly unattractive to spend time with.

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Photo:

Kathleen Robertson, left, Chyler Leigh and Gretchen Mol try cases and outfits in David E. Kelly's new drama ``girls club.''