Lifetime Steps Further Away From Its Usual Female Fare: New Dramas Have Strong Women – and Nice Guys
By David Zurawik, The Baltimore Sun
Jul. 11–There used to be a television industry joke about Lifetime, the self-described “channel for women,” that the reason its murder-mystery movies and series kept failing is that there was no suspense: The killers always had Y chromosomes.
Behind the joke was almost two decades of one-dimensional characters in dramas that were drawn with heavy hands along stereotypical — and sometimes biased — gender lines.
The tide started to turn in 2000 and 2001 with the debut of Strong Medicine and The Division, a pair of dramas with more nuanced characterizations of doctors and cops.
This summer marks the arrival of Lifetime as a prime location for richly drawn storytelling, thanks largely to Army Wives, the highest-rated series in the 23-year history of the channel. More than 3 million viewers a week have been following the lives of military spouses on a fictional base in South Carolina from which the troop planes regularly depart for Iraq and Afghanistan — and often return with body bags in their cargo holds.
Two more dramas join the lineup Sunday: State of Mind, featuring Lili Taylor (Six Feet Under) as a psychiatrist with plenty of her own issues, and Side Order of Life, starring Marisa Coughlan (Boston Legal) as a young magazine photographer coming to grips with some of the harsher realities of adult life.
While neither is as culturally resonant or emotionally compelling as the military drama starring Kim Delaney (NYPD Blue), each helps make cable the place to be for the most interesting summertime TV.
State of Mind is by far the better of the two, due in large part to the performance of indie film star Taylor as Dr. Ann Bellowes, a psychiatrist working out of a large Victorian dreamhouse in New Haven, Conn. The house, which serves as professional home to several therapists and a lawyer, plays an important role in the series.
One of the primary attractions of the drama looks to be the fantasy it offers of office mates becoming a community of friends who are continually dropping in on each other to offer companionship and support. Think of the best times with the best friends in a college dorm.
Bellowes, however, goes into a tailspin in the pilot as a result of dropping in unannounced at the office of her psychiatrist husband (Chris Diamantopoulos), only to find him in flagrante delicto with a marriage counselor. The rest of the hour is spent with Bellowes trying to regain her emotional balance — and find a new tenant for the office of her departing spouse.
While the cheating husband scenario starts to play like a cliche from the bad old Lifetime days, the script by best-selling author and practicing psychiatrist Amy Bloom is far too textured and wise to rely on such a simplistic narrative. By the end of the hour, viewers see and feel the pain on both sides of the relationship between Bellowes and her husband.
There are two fresh and great scenes in the pilot. The first involves a spiritually weary and somewhat cranky Bellowes unloading on a husband and wife whose sessions have been dominated by one spouse whining about the others’ shortcomings.
In a speech delivered with edge and dramatic thunder by Taylor, the testy shrink tells them life is basically an uncertain walk across a dark and scary landscape — and if they care a whit about each other, they should extend a helping hand instead of constant criticism. She also insists that no one automatically deserves happiness — something characters rarely say on prime-time TV, where almost every ad promises happiness as a birthright to those willing to buy the products in the ads.
The final scene features Dr. James LeCroix (Derek Riddell) offering comfort to a lonely Bellowes at the end of a long day. He does it by talking to her with the help of a hand puppet that he uses in his practice counseling children.
The puppet takes an existential tack with the psychiatrist quoting Henry James: “We work in the dark. We do what we can. We give what we have.”
Trust me, James-spouting puppets have never been seen on TV, and the moment is genuinely touching.
Side Order of Life, a series aimed at viewers in their 20s, also offers a savvy take on real life versus media fantasies. Jenny McIntyre looks to have it all: a glamorous job, good friends and a doting boyfriend (Jason Priestley) who can’t wait for their wedding day to arrive.
But just as the viewer is starting to despise Jenny for her superficiality and good fortune, life slaps the self-confident young professional in the face with some horrible news about her best friend.
There is nothing as original in Side Order of Life as the metaphysical puppet, but there is enough promise to return for a second week — to see whether Jenny is wise enough to learn from the pain.
And, for the record, the puppet in State of Mind is male. Talk about a network coming of age.
david.zurawik@baltsun.com
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