MT. PLEASANT, SC (WCSC) – The stars of the hit Lifetime show "Army Wives" received red carpet treatment Sunday night as the show premiered its fifth season.

The drama is filmed in Charleston and North Charleston and the fifth season of the show premiered Sunday night. The stars and other special guests gathered at Cinnabarre in Mt. Pleasant for a special showing of the episode Sunday.

Members of the cast say there are plenty of reasons fans should be excited about this new season.

"There's a lot of really intense emotion that happens this year," said actress Catherine Bell. "It's quite a roller coaster ride."

"Army Wives" is the most successful show in Lifetime's 26-year history.

"We're really excited to get this thing on its feet and see what the response from our audience is going to be," Terry Serpico said. "We're very proud of the show."

The show first started filming in the Lowcountry back in 2006. In the past year, film producers have spent $32 million in South Carolina while the state paid $7 million in incentives.

Copyright WCSC 2011. All rights reserved.

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March 07 2011

On Sunday, Cinebarre played host to a gala screening of the Season 5 premiere of the Lifetime hit Army Wives. Filmed right here in Charleston, the show has been the biggest success in the 23-year history of Lifetime, and cast, crew, family, friends, press, and fans showed up in full force to celebrate.

The Cinebarre staff was decked out in army attire, serving free drinks to the gathering press and invited guests, which totaled well over 100 people. The party blew employee Alicia Jackson away. “I thought Harry Potter was nuts but this ... We’re gonna have a lot of work to do.”

The big premiere evening is something that the Charleston area doesn’t get a lot of. There are theater openings, to be sure, but they lack the scope of Sunday night’s event. Yes, many in the crowd were crew and invited guests, but a great deal were simply fans of the show that arrived early, awaiting the arrivals of their favorite stars, hoping to have a conversation or grab a photo.

Sally Pressman and Drew Fuller, who play Roxy and Trevor LeBlanc on the show, snapped photos with younger fans and enjoyed hearty conversation with others. Catherine Bell, who plays Denise Sherwood, had her family with her, and we had a chance to discuss her newest addition; her son Ronan was born alongside her character’s new baby girl Molly. The pregnancy subplot of Season 4 was added because of Bell’s pregnancy, and the finale saw the birth of the child. Bell described the experience as “life imitating art.”

Kim Delaney spoke to us about the experience of working on the show and working in the area. “It is like coming home,” she said. “It’s like a family. By the fifth year, it’s like a family.” The former NYPD Blue star had some thoughts about the excitement in the air at Cinebarre. “We’re excited. It’s the fifth season. A lot of shows don’t last that long. We’re very fortunate. Very lucky.”

“It’s big for Charleston, and it’s a big premiere for us,” was the sentiment given by Terry Serpico, known to his fans as Lt. Colonel Frank Sherwood. Serpico greeted fans and press with a huge smile and evident excitement. He also had a lot to say about the upcoming season. I asked about the Sherwood family’s new developments, which include a new baby and the marriage of their son Jeremy, played by actor Richard Bryant. Bryant was one of the actors missing from the big premiere, alongside regulars Sterling Brown, Brian McNamara, and Brigid Brannagh.

“Well it’s all gonna be very interesting, no doubt about that,” Serpico said. “I think Frank in particular finds himself in a position with the new baby ... This is not necessarily what he was planning to do with his golden years. So he’s very excited and I don’t think he’s ever felt more excited about something. But he’s also torn between his duties as a father and his duties as a father.”

Serpico is one of the actors who find they walk a fine line on the show, balancing the hard line of the military while being a family man. Many in attendance Sunday were military families, invited by the producers. “Frank represents to a great degree the kind of rank and file of the army and the military in general. I get soldiers all the time that say to me ‘I know that guy. I served with that guy.’ And to me that is the highest praise I can receive. So I feel a particular responsibility to get him right and that I don’t drop the real soldier that’s inside.”

Serpico and Delaney both echoed the excitement of the cast and crew to finally get the show up in front of its fans and see how everything pans out, including the new time slot. The show has been moved to Sunday nights at 9 p.m.

Wendy Davis and Serpico were both coy when asked what surprises were in store for the new season, which has already filmed seven episodes and has another five to go. “Lots of laugh, lots of tears,” was all Davis, whose character Lt. Colonel Joan Burton gets some big opportunities in the premiere episode, would give me as to the surprises fans can expect from the new season.

Once inside the theater, cast and crew cheered and applauded as the new episode of Army Wives finally came on the screen. I won’t give anything away here, but I will say that the show picks up where season four left off, with the Sherwoods dealing with baby Molly, and Jeremy’s engagement to fellow soldier Tanya. Joan and Roland Burton deal with a new set of circumstances. The Holdens prep their daugher for college. Pam has to decide between her ex-husband and her new career. And Roxy hangs out with an old friend in the absence of husband Trevor.

Overall it was a great night, and one that the Charleston area could use more of. Hopefully the success of Army Wives will encourage other television shows and movies to film here. There’s something exciting about actually being on the red carpet, interviewing the stars, and doing it all from the great Cinebarre theater in Mt. Pleasant. Army Wives is back for another season, and Charleston couldn’t be more excited.


http://ht.ly/49BdT

Lifetime’s “Army Wives” is the rare television show that is peaking, both creatively and in popularity, in its fifth season. A recent episode in which one of the show’s original characters, Jeremy (Richard Bryant), was killed in combat in Afghanistan garnered the series’ highest ratings ever. The drama fills a unique niche in the cable landscape. Not only is it one of the few series about military life, it’s neither a procedural nor a dark character study. It’s an unabashedly earnest and emotional show about realistic situations. Executive producer Jeffrey Melvoin explained why the series decided it was time for a combat death, how the loss of Jeremy will impact every other character on the show, and why this is “Army Wives” best season yet.

“Army Wives” Scores Record High Ratings

On How The Decision Was Made To Kill A Main Character: I had a discussion with Joann Alfano and Nina Lederman of Lifetime while we were on hiatus between seasons four and five. When we talked about where the show could go in season five, and we talked about it being a shorter season – they wanted to do thirteen episodes – and we talked about after four years how mature the show is now, and what could we do to maximize that. And my feeling was that after four years it was time that we show a casualty within the families of the show. We’ve had casualties before, but not of a service person who is immediately close to anybody. In season five it wouldn’t look cheap, and it wasn’t going to be done sensationally because it seemed like after four years we had such a loyal audience that had come to identify with these characters. We had the opportunity to have an impact as if they were losing a loved one. I thought that was something worth exploring… Each one of us after that conversation had different thoughts about who it should be and then we had misgivings about doing it all. But then when we got back to write the season, I suggested it should be Jeremy and gave the reasons and they jumped on board. They supported it one hundred percent.

On Why Jeremy Was the Soldier Who Died: There was a practical aspect to it, thinking about the ultimate impact on the series. If we killed one of the husbands, than that wife could certainly stick around but no longer has a direct army involvement as a widow. I think that when you do a series of this nature, which is an entertainment vehicle, we take our obligation to the source material very seriously. But we are an entertainment vehicle and, as such, I think we have an obligation to provide a measure of hope and happiness in addition to the tragedy and conflict we present. My judgment was, to kill off Michael (Brian McNamara), to kill off Frank (Terry Serpico) or Chase (Jeremy Davidson) – would have it would have hurt the audience in a way that they couldn’t perhaps recover from? I felt that Jeremy was a fascinating character in that he had come a long way from the pilot in which he was having anger issues and lashing out at his mother physically. [He] turned down the offer of West Point only to find himself enlisting after embarrassing himself, [he] loses his best friend, becomes suicidal, gets the help that he needs, finds a beautiful woman that he falls in love with and he’s going to get married, has a baby sister, has everything in front of him – and then his life is tragically cut short. I thought the impact of that was going to be tremendous but Denise (Catherine Bell) and Frank, thank God, have another child. Tanya’s (Erin Krakow) going to reappear in the series and does have the opportunity to indicate how life goes on [even thought they will] never repair that hole in their hearts. It seemed something that we could work with as a series. It took less tools out of our hands by losing that character than losing other characters.

http://xfinitytv.comcast.net/blogs/2011/interviews/executive-producer-why-death-had-to-come-to-army-wives/
 

TV Guide June 06 .2011