ABC’s Mistresses: How Can So Much Trash Be Boring?

As a follower of the Bachelor and Bachelorette for many seasons, when ABC announced a new show about romance and drama – called Mistresses – that would air right after the Bachelor, I knew I would watch at least a couple episodes.

I was, however, disappointed.

While the four main characters are all different, and they each are involved in cheating in different ways, the plots seem predictable and the themes exhausted after only two episodes.

One of the characters, Savannah (Alyssa Milano) was having marital problems because she and her husband were having difficulties getting pregnant. In the first episode, she ends up sleeping with her attractive co-worker, who asked to see her underwear in exchange for letting her leave early. I think this was supposed to seem sexy, but it just made my feminist side cringe. Using your body as a bartering tool doesn’t sit well with me.

This co-worker also just happens to be black, while her husband is light haired and blue-eyed. It was no surprise when the previews for upcoming episodes show Savannah getting pregnant. This character won’t need Maury to figure out who the father of her baby is. In the second episode, though, the plot is complicated slightly when her husband says that the doctors have found out that he may still have a chance of being able to get her pregnant.

The biggest problem with this plot, however, is that Alyssa Milano is 40 years old, and her character doesn’t want to get pregnant because she’s not ready. It seems unrealistic to me that a woman at that age would want to put off starting a family. At that point, it becomes a now-or-never situation.

Another character, Karen Kim (Yunjin Kim) is a therapist who slept with her married patient, who then died from lethal doses of morphine that she prescribed. What’s worse, now his son is interested in her and she seems to be having a hard time not wanting to be around him. Maybe because he makes her feel close to the man she loved, but it still creeps me out a bit.

This whole story line is a little distasteful, but seems to be the one that is most excused. Supposedly, it’s okay that she slept with a married man, who was also her patient, because she loved him. I can only imagine that she’s going to end up sleeping with the son, because this show’s goal seems to be to make people say, “No way! She slept with who?!”

This is further evidenced by the storyline involving Savannah’s younger promiscuous sister, Josslyn (Jess Macallan), who will no doubt soon be having an affair with one woman married to another woman. This relationship is the only one that I feel the show makes you root for, despite the immorality of cheating, because you see the progression of their relationship and friendship. But again, you can see this plot twist from a mile away – the girl who runs from commitment finally finds someone she has a real connection with, who happens to be a married woman.

Finally, April (Rochelle Aytes) begins to move on after her husband’s death, only to find out that he had cheated on her with another woman who he got pregnant. This seems like the more interesting storyline to me, except that April’s anger doesn’t seem totally real, and she’s mat at some of her friends that have had affairs and not others, which they tried to explain, but again, seemed false.

The whole show seems to want to shock and excite people, like an adult version of Pretty Little Liars except all the characters have similar story lines and no one is trying to kill them.

Mistresses might work for some people, but it has me either yawning or cringing at every turn.

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