PUBLIC MARKS from vacelts with tags television & "Army Wives"

In “Only the Lonely,” Army Wives tackles the subject of loneliness. Honestly, I’m surprised that the issue has come up sooner, but thought that this episode was really a good place to explore it.

The latest episode of Army Wives is entitled “Hail & Farewell,” but the episode is all about rifts — rifts between the friendships and rifts between the families. And a game of “I’m Pissed” reveals a lot about the friends’ inner battles.

The 3.6 million fans of Army Wives, which debuted last month, have made the drama the #1 show in Lifetime’s history. For this, the fans are being rewarded with a second season.

This week on Army Wives we learn that being a part of the military — either directly or by association — is more than a career (no this isn’t a commercial), it’s a way a life. For the soldiers, the Army is their identity. And in “Who We Are” we learn that for many of the spouses, it’s the only life they’ve known.

Claudia Joy’s annual Fourth of July picnic was the center of “Independence Day,” but this episode of Army Wives was more about rite of passages than independence.

In “One of Our Own,” the fourth installment of the Lifetime hit drama Army Wives, we still do not know the fate of Denise’s (Catherine Bell) husband, the Major. However, the fate of one of the soldiers on Fort Marshall is sealed.

The second installment of Lifetime’s new hit drama Army Wives looks at the less “romantic” side of being an Army wife. In “After Birth,” we saw what happens to the twins born last week as well as the messy side effects of deployment on family life.

Being a Navy brat, I originally tuned into Lifetime’s Army Wives for the premise — family life on an Army post — and for the a cast that included Kim Delaney (NYPD Blue), Catherine Bell (JAG), and Brigid Brannagh (Angel), but I’ll be returning for the interesting characters and the captivating storyline. You can tell that the show is from the producers of Grey’s Anatomy, because it has a similar formula — ensemble cast, a sudsy plot and complicated characters drawn together by circumstances. Like Grey, the cast is both easy on the eyes and diverse – not just by race, but economical and social backgrounds.

While network television will inundate you this summer with reruns (with a few exceptions) and more cheaply produced reality shows, cable stations are answering viewers demand for better choices with summer fare that rival some prime season offerings. So after a day of frolicking in the great outdoors enjoying the summer sun, cool off with these summer shows.