I was looking for a picture to go with my review of this week’s episode of Army Wives, when I happened upon an interesting piece of information: there are Army Wives webisodes to be found online!
How exciting, right? Who knew what they might be about … some as-of-yet unknown family, struggling to make it in the Army way of life? Or, Roxy building the Hump Bar back up? Claudia Joy working some subtle, psychological torture on Emmalin, to punish her for her crimes? Or maybe some cool, behind-the-scenes with officers Michael, Frank, and Joan.
Alas, nobody asked me what might be interesting.
Instead, when I saw the first still, a shot of Jeremy, I let out a groan. There are currently six webisodes online; the first three concern Jeremy, the last three Joan. But, given the subject matter, I’m not sure they’re more than glorified deleted scenes, being released on the show’s website, instead of on DVD.
Worse, still, is the fact that they didn’t provide me with anything new, or interesting, to chew on. Jeremy’s mini-saga involves his lamenting the separation of his parents, discovering that his mother, Denise, was fired from the Army hospital for her inappropriate relationship with a patient, longing for dead girlfriend Amanda, and discussing family. I wouldn’t be able to locate a stand-alone plot in there even if I did care.
In the second webisode, Jeremy (the mother hitter) has the audacity to say, “What she did…. I don’t know that I ever can forgive her.” YOU PUNCHED YOUR MOTHER! If his buddy, Rison, his costar in these clips, knew that about him, he’d get a bunch of other soldiers together, and hold him down and beat him while he slept. Jeremy’s about as low as a person can get, while not crossing the line into criminal, and that the writers have the nerve to try and make us feel something for him….
The fourth webisode is of a conversation we never got to hear, the inevitable argument between Joan and Roland about Joan’s decision to deploy. While we could assume that it happened, I think it would have played well within an actual episode, as it really gives the viewer a clearer perspective on Joan’s decision. Again, she doesn’t reveal anything new, but obviously she’s more emotive when explaining herself to her husband, than she was when talking to Michael, her commanding officer.
The second and third Joan-sodes find her having a private chat with daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, and talking about the future with Roland, respectively. These are two moments that I don’t feel needed to be included in an episode, but ones that I can tell would have been if not for time-constraints. These are obviously just scene cuts, and so disappoint mainly in their labeling, or rather in my understanding of what a webisode is meant to be.
Anyway, this is definitely not required viewing (somewhere closer to the Scrubs webisodes than The Office ones), but, if you’ve got the fifteen minutes, and the patience to continuously reload them because the streaming isn’t great, they’re worth a peek; all things being equal, there are a lot of things worse than a little more of the Wives.
Even if it involves Jeremy.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jul 31, 2009 @ 15:00 EST5EDT
