Depending how you feel about Wysteria Lane, you will be forgiven for wanting to run the other way. But a sexy British comedy- drama about a quartet of 30-somethings who’ve been pals since college and their active, not to mention adulterous sex lives, has its American debut tonight. It just may be addicting.
“Mistresses,” premiering at 7 on BBC America, is “Desperate Housewives” with gravitas.
The dialogue is even saucier and the melodrama is much less goofy. “Mistresses” drains the over-the-top idiocy of “Desperate Housewives” from the idea of gossipy girlfriends and actually makes us care about the women and their choices.
Their illicit affairs are just the beginning.
Katie the doctor (played by Sarah Parish of “Viva Blackpool”) is the anchor of the group. She has been having an affair with a terminally ill patient. Trudi (Sharon Small) is a 9/11 widow with two kids, unable to move on.
Siobhan (Orla Brady of “Nip/Tuck”) is a married lawyer whose husband desperately wants to have a baby.
Jessica (Shelley Conn) is the fun-loving commitment-phobe, a serial mistress not unlike Samantha in “Sex and the City.”
For Anglophiles at least, the series is a refreshing departure from the familiar.
“Taking Chance”
No politics, no melodrama. “Taking Chance,” debuting Saturday at 6 on HBO, is a deeply moving film based on an article written by the deskbound Lt. Col. Michael Strobl. He escorted the body of Chance Phelps, a young Marine who was killed in Iraq in 2004, to his burial plot in Wyoming. Kevin Bacon portrays Strobl in a somber, understated performance. It is a remarkably personal piece, devoid of political leanings regarding Iraq.
The sight of ice being loaded into caskets and a stream of flag-draped caskets being loaded into a cargo plane is just the beginning.
As the words “Dover Air Force Base” linger onscreen, the Bush Administration’s ban on such pictures is never far from viewers’ minds.
When Strobl volunteers for escort duty, the idea of analysts sitting in cubicles writing about casualties collides with the reality of those casualties. The mortuary’s grim daily process of “disposition of remains” — from plastic bag to X-ray to bar coding — is chronicled without comment. The feet-first travel rules for the body and requirements for the handling of personal effects are recounted unemotionally. The washing of bodies is documented, sometimes in slow motion.
“At no point are you to discuss the nature of the deceased’s death,” instructs an officer. The undignified mechanics of death, the loading, conveyor belts and such, are as eye-opening to Bacon’s character as to viewers.
The emotional journey, wordlessly depicted, is profoundly affecting.
“Breaking Bad”
In advance of the March 8 return of the Bryan Cranston drama, “Breaking Bad,” AMC will unveil five stand-alone shorts, webisodes 3-5 minutes long. They’ll debut Tuesday on AMC’s site and .
“Walt’s Warning,” a first-person viral video featuring Cranston (hosted at .), will allow viewers to choose their own adventure and interact with Cranston’s character, a desperate high-school science teacher trying to provide for his family by selling meth.
For catch-up purposes, seven episodes from the first season have been condensed into five- to seven-minute summary videos, available on AOL and Hulu.
“Rescue Me”
Season five of FX’s “Rescue Me” begins April 7. Denis Leary will churn out 22 episodes this season and 18 additional episodes for a Season 6.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
