| Happy Returns of the New Season | |
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By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ Television Wall Street Journal | |
But for the suspense, much the same can be said about HBO's "Big Love," which returns Sunday, Jan. 10, 9-10 p.m EST, for its fourth season. It seemed improbable, when the series made its first appearance, that a drama about the lives of a family of polygamous Mormons would attract a wide and enthusiastic audience. Yet it did just that, for reasons that were quickly evident. Not only were these Mormons determined practitioners of polygamy, which the Mormon Church banned in 1890, but this Salt Lake City family led by up-and-coming businessman Bill Henrickson delivered more domestic drama and variety per household than anything television had ever seen. Furthermore, this assemblage of three wives and nine children, settled in three houses hard by one another to facilitate the required conjugal arrangements, managed to represent recognizable realities of family life — complete with squabbles, meals, job and career concerns, schooling — with an artfulness that instantly drew viewers in. The show owed everything, then and now, to spectacular performances: Bill Paxton as the Viagra-popping Henrickson, an ambitious, devoted, four-square sort, but one also determined to defy society's taboo against polygamists; Jeanne Tripplehorn as Barb, head wife, at once devout and a skeptic, with thwarted ambitions of her own; Chloë Sevigny as the chronically haunted Nikki; and Ginnifer Goodwin as wife Margene — unyieldingly sunny, seductive, a plotter at heart. The season opens with the Henrickson family liberated at last from the threat of Roman, the criminal "prophet" — never among the most interesting of the show's characters despite the aura of menace that surrounded him. The family now faces newer crises both political and domestic. An antipolygamy activist threatens to occupy a vacant Senate seat, which alarms Henrickson.Then, Bill has begun to look a bit frazzled at night, causing wife Barb to issue a stern warning to her usually dutiful husband, reminding him to leave the house; he's supposed to be with Nikki according to the schedule: It's her night. There's promise, plainly, of rich developments ahead. | |
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online.wsj.com Originally published JANUARY 8, 2010 | |
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