Remember last season on Army Wives, when the show did an inexplicable (and ill-advised) period episode set during World War II? Remember how terribly awful that was? Well, last night’s Pamela pilot tester was worse.
Now I know what you’re thinking: that’s saying something. And it does … a whole lot of bad stuff. I’m not sure what was worse — the case, Gabrielle Union, or the contrived way in which the episode attempted to keep Pamela’s plot looped into the rest of the show.
Realizing that the first thing can be improved on, and the last won’t exist in a stand-alone series, I still have to argue that Union’s Gina Holt — breaking all the rules and making new ones as she went — was bad enough to bring the entire show down. Whether it’s that Union’s not believable as a cop, Holt’s not enjoyable as a character, or that Union and Brigid Brannagh (Pamela) aren’t well matched (or all of the above), nothing was clicking about the story.
At one point I felt as if, with a strong supporting cast, the show might be decent. Well, that required Glenn Morshower as a constant … once 24‘s Aaron Pierce turned out to be the bad guy, there was no hope for survival.
The story was so bad it’s not really worth spending any more time on it, except to say that the suggested route for Pamela to get to Atlanta for the new show makes no sense. She has a few months on the job … how can she sit for the detective’s exam? Ignoring the fact that that may or may not be skipping a rank or two, aren’t there length-of-service requirements for those types of advancements? And not to knock Pamela, but she was as successful as she was on the case because she both knows the Army and knows people there who can get her information. I know she has it in her, but the episode failed to establish that she has the mind of a detective.
Trevor’s video chat dance was sufficiently embarrassing, but it was nice to see that these couples, separated by a lot more than distance, can still enjoy the little things. Like I’ve speculated on before, I wonder what veterans of less technologically advanced wars think when they see how connected to home deployed soldiers can be today.
If Denise’s baby shower didn’t look sad enough (the set-up seemed so minimal!), the news that Joan delivered to Claudia Joy at the end of the episode certainly managed to put a damper on it. The scene was really weird, though. Joan and Claudia Joy staring at one another until Joan finally said, “We have a situation.” The fact that it was Joan delivering the news made little sense, too. With Michael’s seniority, I would imagine the base commander would have been the one to bring Claudia Joy word.
In any event, we all knew something bad was coming when Michael told Frank to set up a powwow with the remote village elders last week (shouldn’t Frank be in danger too?) I’m absolutely not looking for anyone on the show to die, least of all Michael or Frank, but Army Wives is notorious for dangling lives into harmful waters, only to consistently bring them out safely. For these cliffhangers to mean anything, that predictability has got to change. Now, it should change with someone else, but it has to change for the drama of the show to mean anything.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Aug 16, 2010 @ 12:30 EST5EDT
For once, I will agree with you. What an awful show. It was contrived and implausible. They were uncomfortable and the dynamic was not pretty. I felt like I was reading a James Patterson novel. The pages had very little content and a large font – fluff fluff fluff. Yikes.
Next week’s episode looks a lot better. While they do dangle the soldiers in harms way (especially the enlisted spouses), it makes sense because when the spouse goes kaput, the army wife has to go kaput, too. They did kill off one of the Holden family members already; certainly they will be free of death for the foreseeable future.
*POST AUTHOR*
I know … but not killing Jeremy at the end of last season was a cop-out. And Chase’s death could have better facilitated Pamela’s exit from the show.
While I missed the first season and had to watch via re-runs, I was really surprised at the end of season 3 and beginning of season 4. I thought this was supposed to be a show about army wives and army life. Pamela didn’t give a hoot about her husband and his army career. I thought that when she divorced Chase she should have been off the show then. As far as a new series for her playing a cop?? No Way! I didn’t buy it with her as a rookie and I certainly won’t with her “passing her detective test” and getting her own show. She is a filler actor not a starring role actor. I was hoping Chase would knock some sense into her and they would get remarried – and she could continue as an army wife! Guess not. I do have to add that if they kill off General Holden I will not continue to watch the show. One can only take so much misery in a tv show with all the problems we are having in the real world. What a downer season 4 is!
*POST AUTHOR*
It’s a different show now than it once was. The Army seems to be secondary at times, which is rather surprising for obvious reasons.
Cursed by its own popularity, the show became afraid to show the realistic version of Army life, where frequent moves and the constant shadow of death hang over everything. The show would almost have needed to have a revolving cast, and that’s rarely worked in the past. I remember The White Shadow, which followed a high school basketball team. Since players graduated, they had almost a new team in Season 3, and it killed the show because the new cast members couldn’t compete with the old.
*POST AUTHOR*
I wonder … shows like Greek and Freaks and Geeks, regardless of the plight of the shows themselves, have successfully managed to create two tiers of characters in a school-based world -– the former began with freshmen and juniors, the latter with … I’m not sure what, but Lindsay and Sam Weir were definitely in different grades.
Unlike Saved by the Bell, which failed when it brought in a new class, Greek and Freaks and Geeks could theoretically have graduated a grade and brought in a new one, while still maintaining half a veteran cast.
So too with Army Wives, which hypothetically could ship Trevor and Chase out (the soldiers), while keeping Joan, Michael, and Frank around (the commanders). Then a new crop of soldiers come in, infiltrate the group, and the commanders gradually transfer out, only to be replaced by new people.
It would take a hell of a casting job, and some very intricate balancing, but moving people gradually would help were things to sag after a transfer. That is, it could have been done, if thought out in advance.