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 homes are all Mormon Bill Henrickson's wives; their combined seven kids are his, too. Contrary to the prim Mormon stereotype, moreover, these bickering wives are hot - requiring Viagra-popping Bill to, er, perform overtime to satisfy their needs while earning big bucks from his hardware superstore to pay his three-household overhead.
Clearly, these family values can wear a man down, and HBO'S addictive new series is much less Desperate Housewives than desperate husband.
In a recent episode, for example, Bill (Bill Paxton) redefined philandering when cheating on Wife #2, Nicki (Chloe Sevigny) and Wife #3, Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin) by sleeping with Wife #1, Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn). And when not in the sack, he's in the soup with Nicki's villainous father, Roman Grant (Harry Dean Stanton), a renegade Mormon
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These bickering wives are hot, requiring Viagra-popping Bill to perform overtime
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leader with designs on Bill's business.
No stranger to the cutting edge, cable giant HBO takes more creative risks than its commercial competitors because it needn't worry about finicky advertisers while making money mostly from subscriptions and global distribution. In the process, its daring original programs attract high-tone casts like this one, better known for feature films.
Meanwhile, the Mormon Church reportedly is not amused, fearing that Big Love leaves a false impression. More significantly, Big Love is retaining less than half the nine-million-plus viewers of The Sopranos, which it follows on Sunday nights, leaving open how long HBO'S marriage to polygamy will endure. 
FIRST
POSTED APRIL 4, 2006
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