Emotionally manipulative and groan-worthy, it’s "turn your brain off" television and a guilty pleasure of epic proportions. A recent episode featured a soldier home from Iraq who found his wife in bed with another man. Our girls took this heartbroken man and turned him into a datable stud and reunited him with his young daughter at Disneyland! Aww...
The wives themselves are a mixed bag. The less said about the pulled and phony Maples, the better. Everhart turns on her usual ex-supermodel charm while Char Jackson is bubbly, down to earth, and sincere. A likeable presence, Jackson might just have a future in television. Success, which has notoriously eluded her ex, might just be the best revenge.
Not to be left out of the craze, Lifetime threw its hat in the ring on Sunday with the new drama Army Wives. If you’re expecting a hard-hitting docudrama with pinpoint accuracy, then you are obviously unfamiliar with how Lifetime operates. Naturally, real military wives will roll their eyes at the show’s melodramatic tone while soap fans with a healthy suspension of disbelief are bound to indulge in the program’s charm. I, for one, had low expectations and was pleasantly intrigued by the pilot.
Kim Delaney returns to the peak of her powers as the grand dame of military wives and Sally Pressman shines as Roxy, a bartender who’s new to base life. The dialogue is smart and the storylines are quickly well established. However, there are some problems here. The subplots are plodding, supporting characters are weakly fleshed out, and the look of the show is a tad chintzy. These complaints are minor, really. The fact is Army Wives could have easily been Police Wives or Wall Street Wives. The mission is to tell compelling stories about relationships, regardless of setting. With time and a little tweaking, Army Wives might pull it off.
The main thing each of these shows did was entertain, even if they didn’t always stimulate my intellect. Listen, I like my television diet to be balanced with equal parts protein and junk food. In the summer, it tends to be more of the latter. So thankfully I have a freezer full of fat-free ice cream sandwiches and Ugly Betty reruns to even me out.
Article comments
1 - Sean Paul Mahoney
Could we edit first wives for ex-wives?
2 - TV and Film Guy
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