Media Musings: 'Army Wives' worth the commitment
I have this friend who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons.
She followed her Army husband when he was posted overseas because that's what good wives do and an international adventure sounded fun.
It didn't take, she never felt she fit in, and she tried to find things off the post that piqued her interest. Then, when she got her birth control prescription refilled and suddenly every wife on the post confronted her wondering why she didn't want children, she gave up and was on the first plane back to the States.
I think of that friend when I watch Lifetime's new hit show, "Army Wives."
Yes, the words "hit show" and "Lifetime" correctly appear together in a sentence. Three weeks after its pilot, "Army Wives" has become the highest-debuting show in the cable network's 23-year history. And while viewership of 3.5 million people doesn't sound that fabulous in today's splintered TV market, it's more than nearly all of the NHL playoff games could claim.
It's no accident that it's been a success. The series has found an interesting niche within the conventional soap/drama/almost comedy format with an excellent soundtrack that has proved so successful for other recent series such as "Grey's Anatomy," "Brothers and Sisters" and "Desperate Housewives." It's no coincidence, really; "Army Wives" is produced by "Grey's Anatomy" boss Mark Gordon, and Lifetime, like ABC, is part of the Disney empire.
"Army Wives" homes in on the lives of Army families at fictional Fort Marshall in South Carolina. It kicked off as many series do, with a fish out of water being plunked into the middle of something completely new and baffling.
The fish out of water would be Roxy (Sally Pressman), a straight-talking bartender who marries a soldier on leave just four days after they met. He brings her and her two children to Fort Marshall, where she and all her halter tops don't quite fit in. But she tries to make the best of it, and strange circumstances create a bond between Roxy and four other Army spouses.
There's Claudia Joy (Kim Delaney), the queen bee of the Army wives known for her fabulous tea parties; Denise (Catherine Bell), who tries to keep peace at home while her husband is in Iraq; Pamela Moran (Brigid Brannagh), a former cop whose marriage is troubled by financial woes; and Roland Burton (Sterling K. Brown), a psychologist who just welcomed his wife home from Afghanistan.
I can't say that the series gets life as an Army wife correct. I've never been one (although I did spend two very nervous years as an Air Force girlfriend). But it seems to hit many correct notes in balancing plain old entertaining television with moments that make you stop and think.
There's the standard television melodrama -- the first two episodes alone brought us a surrogate birth and a son who beats up his mother. And the rivalry among some of the women is right out of "Dynasty." Roxy gets a job in a local bar to give us some "Coyote Ugly" moments, too.
All around that, however, are vignettes of a life too few people give much thought to these days, and that's a shame. Scenes show buses coming and going, and anyone with half a brain knows those buses are taking soldiers on their way to fates unknown. When Roxy buys some shirts for her husband, he calmly has to tell her that synthetic fibers aren't acceptable because they'll only worsen any burn injuries he might get in Iraq.
To its credit, "Army Wives" mostly saves the melodrama for the non-military scenes and presents the Army moments so matter-of-factly that it adds to the poignance. It drives home the sense that the moments that are played out on this show -- worrying over a spouse in harm's way, raising children alone, hearing the latest bad news from Iraq on TV, a couple trying to deal with reconnecting after a long separation -- are played out tens of thousands of times every day right here in this country.
But because the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are something most of us aren't required to think about on a daily basis, we just don't get it. Except for news programming and preachy moments in "Boston Legal" and "Brothers and Sisters," the war is barely a blip on the television screen.
Leave it to Lifetime, the unlikeliest of sources, to make the point that the real drama is out there for so many families every day. Lifetime has been famous for its "women in peril" programming, but it turns the tables this time. Ignoring the "Army Wives" -- real or fictional -- is something we all do at our own peril.
"Army Wives" is on at 9 p.m. Sundays on Lifetime, with repeats throughout the week. Watch previous episodes at www.lifetimetv.com.
E-mail: jburns@madison.com
Megan Tantillo/Lifetime Television
Sally Pressman plays Roxy LeBlanc, who married her husband, Trevor (Drew Fuller), four days after meeting him in Lifetime's new series, "Army Wives."
