'Army Wives': Even In a Soap, War Is A Dirty Business

Earning her stripes: Sally Pressman plays Roxy, bartender and wife of an enlisted man (Drew Fuller). (Lifetime)

One can only imagine the pitch meeting for Lifetime's new summer series, "Army Wives," which premieres tomorrow. "Let's see, what if we take the real-life situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and use it as a backdrop for a 'Desperate Housewives'-style chick-bonding drama set on a military post in Charleston, S.C.? Now, to leaven all that war seriousness, let's have a lot of catfights among those oh-so-hierarchical military wives -- and maybe we'll birth a baby or two on a pool table. It'll be gold!"

As it turns out, it's not quite gold. But it is . . . interesting.

Will viewers tune in to "entertainment" that thrusts upon them repeated reminders of the real-life suffering and loss taking place in our war zones? That's a dicey proposition. But by setting the show where it did, the network gets one particular twist.

On most of these female-friendship shows (think "Housewives" or "Sex and the City"), all the women are at similar economic levels. But on a military post, there is some serious social stratification, and the series starts out hammering hard the fact that rank in the military world applies not only to soldier but also to spouse. The crux of the show, however, involves the random bond that forms among four wives -- and one Army husband -- who come from different social classes.

And trust us, we do mean random. With a preterm labor situation as the catalyst (yes, that's a fancy way of mentioning the scene with the babies born on the pool table), a tentative new community is formed on the fly:

Claudia Joy (Kim Delaney) is the hostess of the formal tea party at which the labor begins; Denise (Catherine Bell) has some nursing training; and Roxy (Sally Pressman) happens to be hanging out with pregnant Pamela (Brigid Brannagh) at the unofficial outcast table.

And Roland (Sterling K. Brown) -- who, for a change, is not the requisite gay friend -- happens to be driving a gargantuan SUV. You know, the kind with real room for a baby to be born in, should they not make it to the hospital.

Delaney (who won an Emmy while on "NYPD Blue") is the headliner and her character, a colonel's wife, is high on the base's spousal pecking order. But the real star is Pressman, whose Roxy is the kind of gal who irons her husband's shirts in leopard-print underwear (even on Lifetime, there are attempts to draw guy viewers) while her young sons eat breakfast a few feet away. She tends bar, she talks a blue streak and she knows how to stand up for herself, her loved ones and her friends.

Roxy and Pamela are wives of enlisted men who live in low-level base housing and whose life choices -- and, in Roxy's case, wardrobe choices -- are the object of snooty-spouse scorn. Denise is married to an officer. And Roland's wife is a lieutenant colonel just back from a two-year tour in Afghanistan and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which she refuses to treat with anything other than sex and alcohol.

Yes, we're back to reality with a thud.

For all its snarkiness, "Army Wives" is still a show about wartime. Soldiers ship out for new tours of duty, boarding buses while their spouses and children fight tears, their faces creased with worry. Television news reports are frequently heard or seen in the background, an eerie way to remind viewers that not only could the fictional characters lose a spouse or parent, but also that real people are losing loved ones almost daily.

And it's that, of course, that underscores the premise of the show: Roxy might not know how to dress for a tea party and Claudia Joy probably couldn't pour a "hooter," but they both know what it's like to worry about a spouse. And that trumps all.