| Army Wives | |
|---|---|
Left to right: Catherine Bell, Kim Delaney, Sally Pressman, Brigid Brannagh and Wendy Davis as Army Wives cast |
|
| Format | Drama |
| Created by | Katherine Fugate |
| Starring | Kim Delaney Sally Pressman Brigid Brannagh Catherine Bell Brian McNamara Sterling K. Brown Wendy Davis Drew Fuller Terry Serpico Katelyn Pippy |
| Theme music composer | Marc Fantini Steffan Fantini |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 81 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company(s) | ABC Studios, The Mark Gordon Company |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Lifetime |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) 720p (HDTV) |
| Original run | June 3, 2007 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Army Wives is an American drama series that follows the lives of four army wives, their families, and an army husband whose wife is in the army. The series, shot at ABC Studios, premiered on Lifetime on June 3, 2007. The show had the largest series premiere in Lifetime's 23-year history, and the largest viewership in the 10:00 pm to 11:00 pm time slot since December for Lifetime.[1]
The second season premiered on Lifetime in the United States on Sunday, June 8, 2008, and had 19 episodes.[2] Season three began airing in June 2009.
In February 2009, Lifetime announced that it ordered a fourth season of the series.[3] Army Wives kicked off its 18-episode fourth season on Sunday, April 11, 2010.[4] On September 23, 2010, it was announced the show would return for a 13-episode fifth season in 2011.[5] Season 5 premiered March 6, 2011. Army Wives has been renewed for a sixth season consisting of 14 episodes.
Contents |
Based on the non-fiction book originally titled Under the Sabers: The Unwritten Code of Army Wives, by Tanya Biank, the series is set at fictional Fort Marshall, at the old Charleston Naval Base, in North Charleston, South Carolina, home to the also fictional 23rd Airborne Division. The show itself is filmed in various locations such as the Charleston Air Force Base and the sound stage off Dorchester Road in the City of North Charleston. Some scenes have been shot in and around the City of Charleston. Fort Marshall is presumably based on the actual 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg.
In the pilot episode of Army Wives, "A Tribe is Born," Roxy (Sally Pressman) impetuously decides to marry Private First Class Trevor LeBlanc (Drew Fuller) and moves with her two children to his Army post. Floundering in her new life as an Army wife, she takes a job as a bartender at a local joint known for being a Jody bar (where civilian men go to hit on enlisted men's wives). While on the post, Roxy meets Claudia Joy Holden (Kim Delaney), who believes that her husband Col. Michael Holden's (Brian McNamara) promotion did not come through because of base politics. Another Army wife, Pamela Moran (Brigid Brannagh), is pregnant with twins; she's secretly acting as a surrogate to get her family out of debt. Pamela's husband Chase is a non-commissioned officer assigned to the highly secretive and often deployed special operations unit Delta Force. Meanwhile, psychiatrist Roland Burton (Sterling K. Brown) is trying to reconnect with his wife, Lieutenant Colonel Joan Burton (Wendy Davis), who has just returned from Afghanistan. And, Denise Sherwood (Catherine Bell) is dealing with her son Jeremy's anger issues and her strict husband; Major Frank Sherwood (Terry Serpico) is about to be deployed. The unlikely group bonds when Pamela unexpectedly goes into labor at Claudia Joy's wives' tea party and subsequently gives birth on the pool table in the bar where Roxy works. Not wanting everyone to know her family's dire financial situation, Pamela relies on these new friends (and Claudia Joy, who was already a good friend) to keep her surrogacy from being exposed.
As the first season progresses, the four women and Roland all become close friends. They face things such as deployments, abuse, hostage situations, adultery, post-traumatic stress disorder death, and prescription drug addiction.
Though the show is based on the book of the same name, and some of the characters echo their book counterparts, significant differences exist. For example, the book counterpart of Claudia Joy lost her husband in a helicopter crash during a mission to find the remains of soldiers in Vietnam.[6]
The series opened its third season with 3.5 million viewers and a 2.4 rating among women 18-49, and a 1.0 rating among men 18-49. That made Wives the top-rated drama premiere in Lifetime's key demographic for 2009, though the show declined 22% among total viewers later in the year.[7]
The series opened its fifth season with a total of 4.2 million viewers up 27% from the fourth season premiere and it scored a 1.4 rating among women 18-49. The episode is Lifetime’s second most watched original season premiere among the key demos, including Women 18+ (3.0 rating) and Adults 18+ (4.0 rating), behind only the season two debut of Army Wives.[8]
Army Wives: The Complete First Season was released on Region 1 DVD on June 10, 2008. The three-disc collection includes all 13 episodes from the First Season.[9]
The second season was released on Region 1 DVD on June 2, 2009. The five-disc collection includes all 19 episodes from the second season.[10]
The third season was released on Region 1 DVD in the United States on February 9, 2010.[11]
The fourth season of Army Wives was released on December 14, 2010 (http://www.amazon.com/Army-Wives-Complete-Fourth-Season/dp/B0040QTNSA)
The series began airing in Ireland on Monday, October 15, 2007, on TG4 (in English) and in New Zealand on Thursday, June 19, 2008, on TV2. The series began airing in Australia on December 1, 2008, on Channel Ten. The series also airs in the United Kingdom on Living, and on the South African network M-Net. The series also airs in the Israel on winter 2008 on Yes stars Drama. The second season ended on M-Net on Monday, January 5, 2009.[12] In French Canada, Historia started airing the first season on January 4, 2010.[13] The series was then brought to an associated channel, Series+, and will start airing episodes starting from season 1 on November 4, 2010, on a daily basis.[14] The series began airing the second season in the Netherlands on Monday, April 26, 2010, on NET 5. The first season and the first 13 episodes of the second were aired in the Arab world on MBC 4 while the third season began on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 on Fox Series. The series airing in Russia on FOX life and in Sweden the series is aired on TV4 Plus.