Once upon a time that statement could have been used to describe the relationship between veteran TV producer Darren Star and Candace Bushnell, the author whose book “Sex and the City” lent Star’s hit series its concept. Instead, the statement is the tag line for “Cashmere Mafia,” a new Star-produced series that bowed last month on ABC. “Mafia” is about a quartet of stylish, successful Manhattan girls fighting to prevent their professional lives from encroaching further into their personal lives.

Sound familiar? It’s not only because the concept sounds similar to “Sex,” it’s also because of the resemblance to “Lipstick Jungle,” a show produced by Bushnell that premieres Thursday night on NBC. According to a New York Times article, Star and Bushnell developed a close friendship after working together on “Sex and the City.” But that didn’t stop Star from developing “Mafia” after he was outbid for the option on the novel on which Bushnell’s new show is based. When Bushnell called to tell Star that her show was picked up, he informed her that he had developed a similar show on his own. Awk. Ward.

There’s nothing new about having two very similar shows emerge at the same time, for example, “Wife Swap” and “Trading Spouses.” Last season “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” and “30 Rock,” both about the inner workings of a “Saturday Night Live”-style sketch comedy show, debuted on the same network. But it’s the back story between Bushnell and Star–with all the treachery and betrayal one would expect of a Darren Star production–that has pitted the shows against each other. Celebrity spats can’t help but look silly, but this one will look even sillier after “Jungle” bows tonight, when it will become clear that Star and Bushnell were fighting for the title of Best Poor Man’s “Sex and the City.”

For whatever it’s worth, Star’s “Mafia” is the slightly superior of the two. It stars Lucy Liu as magazine publisher Mia Mason and her three high-powered exec gal pals played by Bonnie Somerville, Miranda Otto and Frances O’Connor. In the “Mafia” premiere, Mia is pitted against her co-worker and fiancé Jack (Tom Everett Scott) to hook a major advertiser. The winner, says their boss, will be promoted. The loser will be shown the door. Naturally, Mia wins, adding another rung to her career ladder, but an ego-bruised Jack calls off their engagement. That single storyline is a neat summary of “Mafia”’s theme, which is all about the deep cuts women get when they break through the glass ceiling. But it would take a very subtle show to explore the realities of being a tough woman in corporate America, and this is not it. The characters aren’t having personal problems because they’re women, but rather because they are consumed by their work, allowing it to seep into every corner of their lives. The show presents the fallacious argument that it’s their gender, not their workaholism that is plaguing them.

“Lipstick Jungle” presents the same themes, perhaps more deftly than “Mafia,” but it lags behind its competitor in just about every other area. Brooke Shields is movie studio executive Wendy Healy, Kim Raver plays magazine publisher (yes, again) Nico Reilly and Lindsay Price is fashion designer Victory Ford. Their problems are as follows: Wendy’s husband resents her for making him take care of the kids while she works; Nico has a great career but a passionless marriage and starts an affair with a young hottie; Victory, once a hot designer, is in a career slump and is being wooed by a powerful millionaire. Nico’s storyline is slightly interesting, if you can swallow the ridiculous idea that a woman this career-oriented would have a fling in a public bathroom during a work function, but the other two fall flat. Shields has never been more wooden, and Price’s character gives such strong airhead vibes that you wonder how she wriggled into this friendship to begin with. Also, some of the lines are so bad you can almost hear them thud.

So, which show to watch, the bad one or … the lil’ bit worse one? Bushnell vs. Star. Whoever wins, we lose.