Photo: ABC
Can someone explain to me why Mistresses is called Mistresses? And don't say "That's what the original British version was called," because that's not an answer. Of the show's four leads, only one could, by any reasonable standard, be described as a mistress -- Karen (Yunjin Kim), whose mister (John Schneider) dies in the series premiere. But the rest? No. April (Rochelle Aytes) dates a divorced man. Joss (Jes Macallan) takes up with a few different people, none of them married. And Savi has a one-night stand/debatable emotional affair with Dom (Jason George), who's single. I guess they couldn't call the show Less-Desperate Non-Housewives, but that's kind of what it is.
That encapsulation of the show kind of sums it up: it's the kind of scandalous stories of a group of women who sort of work, and while that sort of half-assed series premise probably wouldn't fly in the more competitive context of the fall TV season, but for summer it's been somewhat fine. In the summer -- even now, with year-round programming -- a competently made show so middle-of-the-road that nothing happens to make the viewer turn the TV off in disgust might do okay enough to skate by (and though the show hasn't been renewed yet, the cast's options were extended back in July).
In case my ambivalent language didn't telegraph it: the show does have problems. First: preposterous storylines, the most egregious of which revolves around April and her late husband Paul (Dondre Whitfield). As we meet her, April's been a widow three years and is thinking about dating a nice dad at her daughter's school. Enter Miranda (Kate Beahan), who informs April that Paul fathered a child with her and proceeds to blackmail her. Already this is getting pretty silly for a plotline involving a pretty average retail entrepreneur, but wait, there's more: Paul isn't dead! He faked his own death to get out of some debts, because obviously that's a normal thing that people who aren't insanely wealthy can totally pull off. And as if that wasn't dumb enough, April's story then turns into a push-pull between Richard (Cameron Bender), the nice non-criminal dad, and Paul, the his-own-death-faker. Admittedly, I don't know how I would react if my supposedly long-dead spouse were suddenly reanimated, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't seriously contemplate incorporating him back into my life and reintroducing him to our daughter since, you know, he could probably get arrested at any moment? For fraud? Because he faked his death? And the dumbest part of this plotline is that none of that is the reason April decides to break up with Paul permanently; it's a call from Miranda tearfully asking her to tell Paul to call his son that makes her realize, I guess, that now it's Miranda's turn. Of course, that the breakup happens offscreen suggests that producers know this storyline is idiotic and that no one could possibly be invested in it.
Karen's plotline has the highest actual stakes, as (just) suspicions revolve around the death of one of her patients -- Tom (Schneider), the guy she happened to have been fucking; soon enough, his son Sam (Erik Stocklin) comes around with questions about his father's last days, and she goes ahead and fucks him too. This story might be more engaging if Yunjin Kim were doing anything at all to make the viewer to care about her at all, but she is so blank and flat. By the time Tom's widow Elizabeth (Penelope Ann Miller) decides to take deadly revenge on Karen for her many failings as a person, all one can do is hope Elizabeth successfully takes her out. (Miller, by the way, is the only performer in Karen's storyline who seems to understand that this is -- or should be -- a trashy soap opera and acts accordingly. I assume that, if the show gets renewed, Miller's character probably won't survive, but I hope she can use this as proof that she could carry her own network dramedy.)
As Joss, Jes Macallan was mostly ridiculous -- the explanation in last week's episode that she decided to try being gay with Alex (Shannyn Sossamon) just so that they could still hang out was especially weird -- but Macallan at least displayed sufficient charisma to be believable as a TV star, whereas Kim has yet to convince me after a couple of chances. Though the together-older-sister/flighty-younger-sister dynamic is pretty careworn at this point, Macallan gave it a couple of new shades -- though I hope things with Savi's husband, Harry (Brett Tucker), aren't leading where they sometimes seemed to be.
And speaking of Savi: this whole thing was Alyssa Milano's star vehicle, and as tepid as my feelings are toward the whole enterprise, it did give me a new respect for her as a TV star. Playing the accidentally-pregnant wife who cheated on her probably sterile husband, Milano never shied away from letting Savi be unsympathetic, and even almost made me believe the absurd plot contrivance that kept her from wanting to look at the DNA results for her fetus until the season finale. When Savi gets in a car accident and, knowing Harry has looked at the paternity test, assumes that because he's at the hospital he must be her baby's father, I actually felt kind of emotionally involved! I know that's also ambivalent, but it's the best I can do. Much as I believe that TV works or doesn't on the strength of its writing, I must also admit that an experienced star working at full capacity can put over even basically crappy material; whatever works about Mistresses is almost entirely Milano's doing, and since I know that, cliffhanger aside, there's no way she will get killed off, I guess if Mistresses returns, I will too. If it's on in the summer.