New Showtime Comedy: Secret Diary of a Call Girl

Cable’s Showtime has a new comedy called Secret Diary of a Call Girl premiering Monday night at 10:30pm EST that stars former Doctor Who companion Billie Piper as a companion of a whole ‘nother kind.

The U.K. series already aired across the pond from September to November 2007, where it quickly gained popularity. Based on a book based on a blog — yes, a blog, and one hosted by Blogger at that! — anonymously written by a person who claims to be a London prostitute, the show follows her life and times as she mostly contentedly plies her trade.

In other words, the central character, 27-year-old college graduate Hannah Baxter aka Belle, is a relatively Happy Ho (they say “call girl,” but it’s all the same to me), not a drug-addicted one down on her luck getting knocked senseless by her pimp and johns everyday — that would be too depressing and realistic for a comedy.

I guess the fact that she’s all Billie Piper cute and whatnot also means viewers are supposed to relate to her better, kind of like Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, but getting paid instead of just writing a column about her sexual exploits and hanging out with her talkative girlfriends all day.

Get a first look at the series in the sneak peek after the jump. Since the second and third seasons are already on order in the show’s country of origin, we can look forward to at least a couple more years of Hannah/Belle, as well.