FINALLY, a soap to sink your teeth into – if you wanted to ever, say, bite into soap that is.
Lifetime’s terrific new, sexy, smart, compelling series, “Army Wives,” is the best new sobber to come along in longer than I care to even remember.
It’s as good as the U.K.’s “Footballers’ Wives” but a lot more accessible to us stateside dames.
And, best of all, despite the name, it is not, repeat not, like “Desperate Housewives,” stuck in some horrid 1960s vision of what a wife should be, (i.e. desperate to bag and keep a man no matter what.)
And unlike the horrifyingly terrible “Ex-Wives Club,” and USA’s almost-as-awful “Starter Wife,” Lifetime has given us two shows this week that neither condescend nor talk down to women.
And because this is 2007, you’ll be happy to know that not all army wives are women. In fact, one of the “army wives” is a man married to a (female) lieutenant colonel who’s just back from two years active duty in Afghanistan.
And while, yes, this male wife is a shrink and may be the only army “wife” with a big-shot profession, you still do not get the idea that the rest of the women exist to only serve their men.
The series, an ensemble deal, revolves around a group of women, all married to career military men in the elite Delta Force, who become friends despite their wildly different backgrounds.
Leader (so far) of the pack is Claudia Joy Holden (Dana Delaney), the wife of Colonel Michael Holden (Brian McNamara).
The other women who will end up in her life include foxy Roxy LeBlanc (Sally Pressman), bartender in a redneck bar who has two kids from two different men. She marries Trevor (Drew Fuller), a soldier, after a few drinks and a few days.
Then there’s Denise (Catherine Bell), wife of Major Frank Sherwood (Terry Serpico) and mother of Jeremy (Richard Bryant). She’s sporting some nasty bruises.
There’s also Pamela (Brigid Brannagh), a former cop who quit to follow her husband Chase (a paratrooper) from base to base. To earn money, she’s rented herself out as a surrogate, which somehow she must keep a secret from army brass.
And finally there’s male army “wife” Roland Burton (Sterling K. Brown), whose wife is suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome and is hanging by her fingertips on the precipice of cuckoo.
So why is this soap so much better than so many of the others out there? Because it’s produced by the folks behind shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Criminal Minds” and “Alias.” The writing’s crisp and the acting is first-rate.
Unfortunately, Serpico’s rivetingly wonderful character, Frank, is shipped out in the first episode to the Mideast which, like real life, is a shame, because he’s great.
But hey – with any luck, they’ll bring him back alive.
“Army Wives”
Tomorrow at 10 p.m. on Lifetime