The third season of “Footballers’ Wive$” kicks off this weekend on BBC America – and arrives with enough attitude, style and kinkiness to be described as a playful combination of “Desperate Housewives” and “Nip/Tuck.”
Not a bad combo.
And this year more than ever, a pretty enjoyable show – and a pretty one, too, because these new episodes start out heavy on the beautiful scenery and even more beautiful women.
Executive producer Brian Park has thrown off all pretense of restraint this season, which begins Sunday night at 10 EST.
There is both male and female nudity in the two preview episodes I was sent, and such “Nip/Tuck” plot twists, and twisted plots, as a three-way sexual proposal, a murder by champagne bottle and a vengeful act in which a family pet is served, with lots of curry, at a fancy dinner party.
“Footballers’,” as befits its high-profile, high-risk soccer squad, has lots of turnover.
At the end of last season, team Captain Jason Turner was hanging from a ledge by his fingertips. Sunday’s episode begins with a funeral – but not his. Someone else has died, too, leaving room for fresh faces and conflicts as the team and its extended family are reconfigured.
One face remains constant, though: Tanya Turner, the reigning queen bee among footballers’ wives, played with Joan Collins gusto by Zoe Lucker. Tanya starts the season a widow, but it isn’t long before she’s married again. And no sooner is she married than she sets her sights on another conquest – the dashing young new star player, Conrad Gates (Ben Price), who thinks nothing of sauntering through a hotel room sporting nothing more, but eventually something less, than a towel.
Gates, in TV soap terms, is the total package, and he’s already spoken for.
His wife, Amber (Laila Rouass), is the year’s most infectiously enjoyable character. She’s a Bollywood actress, and is as over-the-top glamour-obsessed as Tanya. In one scene, they show up at a glitzy event not only competing for the same man, but wearing the same dress. And before the end of episode two, Tanya and Amber are involved in a hair-pulling, drag-out classic fight.
Amber’s hold on her husband’s affections is substantial, due in no small part to her inventiveness and aggressiveness in the bedroom. But Tanya is no slouch in that department, either. In fact, to plot her husband’s demise, she considers – how best to put this? – pleasing him to death.
Other new players this season include Jamie Davis as Harley, a young rookie with potential, and Sarah Barrand as Shannon, his girlfriend, who’s as fiery as she is trashy. When a fan asks Harley to autograph her top while she’s wearing it, Shannon grabs the pen instead, and writes a four-letter word on it in big letters.
The only problem with “Footballers’ Wive$” this season is its time slot. It made sense, two years ago, to schedule this show right after “Desperate Housewives,” and suggest viewers switch channels. But with “Grey’s Anatomy” feeding that appetite now on ABC, “Wive$” should be relocated, and fast.
These ladies will survive the transition. On “Footballers’ Wive$,” they almost always do.
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FOOTBALLERS’ WIVES
10 p.m. EST Sunday
BBC America
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(c) 2006, New York Daily News.
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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
AP-NY-02-16-06 0917EST
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