Army Wives

For the 1944 film, see Army Wives (1944 film).

Army Wives
Catherine Bell, Kim Delaney, Sally Pressman, Brigid Brannagh and Wendy Davis as the Army Wives cast
Format	Drama
Created by	Katherine Fugate
Starring	List of Cast Members
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 (2007-06-03) – 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.

Army Wives has currently aired five seasons and has been renewed for a sixth season consisting of 23 episodes set to premiere March 4, 2012.

Premise

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.

Episodes

Main article: List of Army Wives episodes

Cast

Main cast

• Kim Delaney as Claudia Joy Holden
• Catherine Bell as Denise Sherwood
• Sally Pressman as Roxanne Marie "Roxy" LeBlanc
• Brigid Brannagh as Officer Pamela Moran
• Brian McNamara as Major General Michael James Holden
• Sterling K. Brown as Dr. Roland Burton
• Wendy Davis as COL Joan Burton
• Drew Fuller as Trevor LeBlanc
• Katelyn Pippy as Emmalin Jane Holden (seasons 2 through 4, guest season 5)
• Terry Serpico as LTC Frank Sherwood (seasons 3-present, recurring seasons 1-2)

Recurring cast

• Jeremy Davidson as MSG Chase Moran
• Richard Bryant as SPC Jeremy Sherwood (seasons 1-6)
• John White, Jr. as Finn LeBlanc
• Luke Bartelme as Toby Jack "T.J." LeBlanc (seasons 1-4)
• Connor Christie as Toby Jack "T.J." LeBlanc (season 5-)
• Jake Johnson as Lucas Moran
• Chloe J. Taylor as Katherine Eileen "Katie" Moran
• Antjuan Tobias as PFC Guy Riggs (seasons 4-5)
• Gigi Rice as Marda Brooks
• Melissa Ponzio as Angie
• Rhoda Griffis as Lenore Baker Ludwig
• Kim Allen as Amanda Joy Holden (season 1, season 2 - 1 episode)
• Caroline Pires as Emmalin Holden (season 1)
• Patricia French as Betty Camden (season 1-2)
• Kate Kneeland as Marilyn Polarski (season 1)
• Seamus Dever as Dr. Chris Ferlhingetti (season 2)
• Jeff Rose as MAJ Bryce Ogden
• Mayte Garcia as Jennifer Connor
• Tim Parati as Chief, cook at the Hump Bar (season 3-present)
• Harry Hamlin as Grant Chandler (seasons 4-present)
• Erin Kraków as SPC Tanya Gabriel (seasons 4-present)
• Lee Tergesen as Officer Clayton Boone (seasons 4-5)
• Cory Hart as Whit Carter (season 5)

Ratings

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.

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.

Soundtrack

Main article: List of songs heard on Army Wives

DVD releases

Title	Episode Count	Release Date
The Complete First Season	13	June 10, 2008
The Complete Second Season	19	June 2, 2009
The Complete Third Season	18	February 9, 2010
The Complete Fourth Season	18	December 4, 2010
The Complete Fifth Season	13	September 27, 2011

International airings

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. In French Canada, Historia started airing the first season on January 4, 2010. 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. 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.

External links

• Official website myLifetime.com
• Army Wives at the Internet Movie Database
• Army Wives at TV.com
• Army Wives Review at Variety.com
• "List of Army Wives Episodes". TVGuide. http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/army-wives/285442.