By Kit-Kat

The Starter Wife was a brilliant mini series that USA had aired back in May of 2007. I have to admit when I first watched the mini series back then I was hooked immediately. Debra Messing has always been a favorite of mine and when they paired her up with Judy Davis, Miranda Otto and Chris Diamantopoulos well it was a perfect blend. For those not familiar with the mini series it revolved around Molly Kagan (Debra Messing) wife to Hollywood Producer Kenny Kagan (Peter Jacobson). She had the life of the privileged until the day he asked for a divorce. We followed Molly's struggles with the divorce, her child Jayden (Bethany Whitmore), and her fall from the elite. Her friends of course stick by her and she ends up falling for a charming man who ends up being a homeless guy. Quite a roller coaster ride, but they made it believable and enjoyable. I looked forward to every episode and was rather sad when it ended. Then I heard whispers on the net that it did so well as a mini series it was going to be made into a show. I kept diligent watch and sure enough - The Starter Wife is airing (starting this week - October 10th on USA Network) as a regular show!

Lucky for me (since I have no cable, or dish or anything like that right now) I was able to get the DVD for the two hour premiere coming. So kicking back this weekend with my cats and popcorn we settled into watch what I was sure to be a great rehash of the first mini series... or so I thought.

The beginning recap to me was way too short for someone that didn't see the mini series to get the full jist of what happened to Molly before you are tossed into the present. And you are left with no answers for those that did see it (I do hope they fill them in sometime perhaps with flashbacks or something!) to what happened to the blissful ending of the mini series. Homeless guy is just gone. No explanations whatsoever. That whole romantic whirlwind is what made the mini series fun so this time I was at a loss. It even has a different feel to it. For part one (The Forty Year Old Virgin Queen) you are given a combination of dream and day dream flashes that reminded me of Ally McBeal (but really "out there") and a Sex in the City narrative from Molly that seemed just too forced. Then I really was confused since they swapped out characters - my major pet peeve - not just side characters, but main characters where changed (or missing) so wrapping my mind around a new Jayden (now played by Brielle Barbusca), a drastically different Kenny Kagan (David Alan Basche), a new Pappy and a missing Miranda Otto was really hard.

I wanted to rave about this new show for USA but the switches are so drastic for the first part I was rapidly becoming turned off, it was so different and the new cast didn't fit the bill as well as the old cast did with their characters. All I could think of was thank goodness at least Debra Messing, Judy Davis and Chris Diamantopoulos played the same people. So for the first hour - if you've seen the mini series this will be a shock to you. I couldn't even get into the new characters introduced in this one. It's very hard not to have expectations for a mini series that spawns into a full blown show - you expect to see the same people, a continuation of the story from where it left off etc... Unfortunately this isn't the case as much as one would hope.

Determined... I continued watching the second part (The Diary of a Mad Ex-Housewife) and it was much better, though I still found it hard to take that Molly's character behaved the way she did with Kenny her Ex-Husband. It is different than how the series ended and it puts her in a light that she was supposed to have rose above in the mini series. On the whole though, it was good. I could enjoy the new characters even if I still have issues with the cast changes for the old ones. The storyline is much better and where it gets off to a rocky start in part one - part two definitely evens out. Of course I don't want to give away too much so I'm not going into details. I will say where its heading looks promising and it was less forced as the first part so I'm happy and looking forward to the continuing episodes (thank goodness for friends with TIVO!).

To try to be objective, I watched both again and tried to see it from a perspective of a viewer that didn't see the mini series. If you fall into this category I do believe you will find it great from the start (well okay except for the dream/day dream sequences that just didn't come off as fun as I'm sure they hoped it would be). Of course the first part does still come off a bit...well forced (for lack of a better word) and they just plain try too hard. They do settle that down in the second part which bodes well for the following episodes of the new show.

Click here to check out the Trailer!

Give it a shot. Any show with Debra Messing is worth it in my book and I just adore Judy Davis as Joan McAllister the recovering alcoholic Hollywood wife. Rodney (Chris Diamantopoulos) is just as perfect as in the mini series as Molly's best friend and house decorator to the high class and it looks like we'll get to see more of his dramatic life in the show if the part one and two is any indication. Not to mention a most interesting twist with direction of the show and Molly's private diaries. Definitely some scandal is in the winds and it looks like its going to be a fun ride.