MISTRESSES

Dishy, delicious, and dramatic, Mistresses takes the escapades of four women and their lovers and sucks you in.

From the back of the box, you'd think Mistresses was a British Sex and the City. After all, it is about four strong 30-something women with careers and lovers, who get together regularly to dish with their girlfriends and support each other through thick and thin. But as you delve into this Volume One of the series, it becomes clear that Mistresses is not a sex farce, but is in fact dead serious. In fact, most of the characters are so constantly miserable because of their own bad decisions (or bad decisions made by their loved ones), that it can be like swimming through a vat of pudding of pain, but a sort of delicious pain it is.

Katie (Sarah Parish) is a doctor who, as the series starts, has just assisted the suicide of one of her terminal patients, a married man that happened to be her lover of two years. What she didn't expect is that the man's distraught adult son Sam (Max Brown) is on to her secret (or at least one of them) and basically stalks her into an affair.

Trudi (Sharon Small) is a 9/11 widow who, after six years without closure about her husband's death, is finally tentatively trying to move on with her life by dating another single parent at her kids' school, a nice guy named Richard (Patrick Baladi). But as soon as things seem to be good, those weird empty phone calls start again, and Trudi freaks out that the ghost of her husband is haunting her. Then all hell breaks loose.

Siobhan (Orla Brady), a lawyer, and Hari (Raza Jaffrey), a chef, have a seemingly great marriage, and are trying (but failing) to get pregnant. Doesn't help that their sex life seems to be based on a calendar, and they are getting snappy with their seemingly futile efforts. Siobhan, in the meantime, is making eyes at her flirty co-worker Dominic (Adam Rayner)... and you can see where this is going (the show IS called Mistresses, after all). Siobhan makes a bad decision, and all hell breaks loose.

Finally, to lighten things up, there is Jessica, who is a professional mistress, I mean event organizer, and proud of it. She is the other woman, and likes it that way... she gets the fun, and her lovers go home to the mess that is their marriage. But when Jessica is assigned a lesbian wedding, she finds herself surprised to be attracted to one of the brides (Anna Torv), but finds herself floored when she realizes that she might be in love for the first time. And... (drumroll)... all hell breaks loose.

I swear, Mistresses has the most chock-full hour-long episodes of any show I've ever seen. Sometimes I would check my watch (after an "all hell breaks loose" moment in the show) and expect that episode to be wrapping up... but no! There was still half an hour left! The actresses (and actors, for that matter) are all quite good, and the writing is above the average soap (you don't have to worry, for instance, that there'll be a catfight ending with someone being shoved into a pool), and despite the iffy choices that the characters make ("Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" you want to yell at the TV), they still pull it off as believable. Volume One contains 12 episodes of this sort of densely-packed drama... and you know what? I kind of loved it—kind of guiltily, and kind of not. I would totally watch more of these Mistresses if the BBC orders up another round.