TV is the New Reading

Figuring out who's-who

in ‘Army Wives’

I think people ought to wear nametags for the first three or four episodes of a show, especially when there are wives and husbands and kids to keep track of and all of the who’s-with-who drama is part of the pilot episode.

Not that I’m complaining. Shows get shoved off the air so quickly these days for so many different reasons (most of them having something to do with ratings) that it’s hard to blame a writer for wanting to front-load as much of the drama as possible, which is essentially what happened in the debut of Lifetime's "Army Wives."

We have Roxy, who met and married her soul mate two weeks ago and hasn’t really gotten the whole “army wife” thing down yet. We have someone else – Claudia, I think – whose husband was passed over for a promotion. We have a guy whose wife, a lieutenant colonel, just got back from an extended tour in Afghanistan and is not reintegrating well. We have an extremely pregnant surrogate mom who’s being gossiped about mercilessly, and we have another woman who’s suffering physical abuse at the hands of her teenage son.

Yep, there’s tensions and problems in every direction, pressures to put up with all sorts of issues, but mainly I’m concerned about figuring out who all these people are.

I get the feeling it’s a worthwhile effort. The show is interesting. It’s way more interesting to me than “The Unit” and “Over There.” It’s reasonably complex, the characters and situations, while familiar, are also plausibly different enough to carry unique storytelling. Is it written perfectly? Nah. But it’s not awful, either, and sometimes dialogue improves when every phrase isn’t basically trying to introduce the viewer to something and someone new.

It ultimately feels like the show is being put together by people who know what they’re talking about. The built-in hierarchies seem reasonably authentic and the struggles and frustrations included in the pilot episode have a ring of truth to them.

Claudia’s daughter and the abusive son seem to have a little vibe going and I’m certain that’s not going to end well. Tying everyone together at the end of the pilot episode is the surrogate mother, Pamela, giving birth to twins in a bar, surrounded by the main cast of Roxy, Claudia, Denise and Roland.

I’m hoping to get to know them all a little bit better this summer.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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