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At least one group of US voters must be hoping that President-elect Barack Obama doesn't make good on his campaign promise to get American troops out of Iraq: the producers of Army Wives. It's very likely that it wouldn't be as popular were the boys already home.
The show focuses on four wives - Roxy, Claudia Joy (Kim Delaney of NYPD Blue and CSI: Miami), Pamela and Denise (Catherine Lisa Bell of JAG) - and one man, all of whose significant others are in the military, in and around a place called Fort Marshall. There, the five share the burdens of having a spouse in the service.
Such a challenge could make for a moving TV show.
Too bad, then, that the series, based on the book The Unwritten Code of Army Wives by Tanya Biank, is a melodramatic tearjerker that drops A-bombs of emotional angst on viewers. Throw in the on-base intrigue involving infidelity and other peccadilloes and you've got Desperate Housewives meets The Bold and the Beautiful meets Gomer Pyle.
Season two of this Lifetime network series begins with a flashback to...