I read that TLC is going to be featuring a reality show about a polygamist family. Will you watch? I will give it a go and see if it’s worthwhile. I do love Big Love but I mostly love the drama and the characters. I am not sure if this reality show will offer anything similar. Might be a bust but we will see…
Brace yourselves: “Big Love: The Reality Series” premieres next month on TLC.
“Big Love” is HBO’s acclaimed soap about a polygamist Utah family. “Sister Wives,” premiering at 10 p.m. Sept. 26, will be TLC’s seven-part reality series about Kody Brown and his three — soon to be four — wives and their many children.
Just like the character Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) on “Big Love,” TLC says Mr. Brown will be shown “juggling three wives while attempting to keep it a secret from the outside world,” which would seem to be at odds with appearing on a nationally televised series.
In another plot also featured on “Big Love,” the series begins with Mr. Brown announcing plans to take on a fourth wife.
And yet TLC president Eileen O’Neill introduced the family saying polygamy has never been explored quite like this. Really? Another critic pointed out similarities in specifics of the family’s story to characters in Brady Udall’s novel “The Lonely Polygamist.”
Mr. Brown was not raised in a polygamist family, although three of his wives were. He converted to the lifestyle a few years after his father made a similar decision. The Browns live somewhere in Utah — they declined to say what town — and consider themselves “fundamentalist Mormons.” They are not members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which ceased the practice of polygamy in 1890.
The family members acknowledged there is a risk to outing themselves, but they felt their story was an important one to tell. They previously opened up their home to a BBC News crew in 2009.
“Part of the reason we’re coming out is our story needs to be told,” Mr. Brown said. “Simply by telling the story maybe it will help not getting accepted, but it will lower the prejudice by telling the story the way it is.”
Mr. Brown is legally married only to his first wife, Meri. With the first three wives there are a combined 13 children. The wives dress in contemporary clothes — none dress like Nicki (Chloe Sevigny) on “Big Love” — and they alternate nights sleeping with Mr. Brown.
“We have a schedule,” he said. “I’m actually still trying to figure it out.”
Robyn, who joins the family as a fourth wife, was previously married. It was not a plural marriage, but that was part of her faith. She has three children with her ex-husband.
“The kids feel awesome about it. They call him dad,” she said, gesturing to Mr. Brown. “They have brothers and sisters. There’s a constant party going on in this family with my kids involved in that.”
Robyn and her children do not yet live in the Brown home because there is not enough space, but she said they plan to add onto the home.
“TLC does a great job examining family in every size, color, creed, whatever,” said Discovery Communications chief operating officer Peter Liguori. “It shows you one common element among all these families: love. ['Sister Wives'] is a great extension of that examination of family and functionality and what that means.”
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