TVSquad

Judging by the Nielsen ratings Lifetime is raking in for Army Wives in its second season, this show has found its audience. It actually started last spring when Army Wives was a national surprise -- to everyone in the business outside of Lifetime, which picked up the show when ABC passed.

It's still amazing to think that ABC had a chance to put this show in their schedule and let it get away. Their loss is Lifetime's gain -- and they're feasting on it.

If you missed the first season of Army Wives, and didn't get into the show until the fifth episode -- like me -- then you'll be glad to know that Army Wives: The Complete First Season is now available on DVD. It's a great set, too, with some very nice bonus features and quality commentaries.

(S02E02) Army Wives is reminding me of some of my favorite TV dramas of all time, shows like thirtysomething and Party of Five. Especially this episode where there are more feelings and reactions to the bombing at the Hump Bar. How does life go back to normal after a tragedy? How do you cope?

Time has passed and life may appear to be getting back to normal at Fort Marshall, but things are still quite unsettled among the close knit coterie on Army Wives. Chief among them are the Holdens. Claudia Joy is simply not returning to normal and it become clear as the episode progressed that she's an emotional powder keg.

Isn't it interesting how in the days of waning network ratings year after year we keep getting reports of basic cable shows setting new ratings records. This time, Army Wives second season premiere set a new series high with 4.5 million viewers. I'll give kudos to Lifetime for really knowing how to support a season premiere; major networks take notes. The day before the premiere, which was this past Sunday, they marathoned the last ten episodes of the first season. They've also made the entire season available online, with ad support.

Is it because more and more of us have these channels than ever before? Or maybe we're just spreading out across the dial more than ever before? At the same time, though, there's more freedom off the network channels to show more edgy fare. Shows like The Shield and Mad Men are a bit too strong in content for the likes of ABC, and sometimes the sheer intensity and quality of the storytelling eclipses much of free TV fare. Or maybe it's just because Catherine Bell is so freaking hot ... sometimes. Seriously, sometimes she looks like that up there, and other times she looks like a boy who's been lost in the woods for a few weeks. Still, at even a 50/50 shot I think it'd be worth the chance.

(S02E01) The season finale for Army Wives last summer was a cliffhanger. It was an explosive, shocking and dramatic conclusion to a season filled with the characters' ups and downs, the good times and the bad, the yin and the yang of the lives of military families on Fort Marshall in Charleston, South Carolina.

This season two opener is no less stunning. It was a powerful episode, as the tribe, as the Army spouses like to call themselves, deal with the aftermath of a suicide bomber walking into the Hump Bar determined to fulfill his mission and take all of them with him. The watering hole was filled with patrons, and the question fans wondered since then has been, who survived the blast?