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TV's Revenge of the Boomer Women

by Anne Thompson | August 1, 2009 | 0 Comments

Thompson on Hollywood
It's the revenge of the boomer women. As the movie business has largely abandoned the female demo, especially older segments, television has picked up the slack. Here's my story at More Magazine, which boasts Saving Grace star Holly Hunter on the cover. I'm still catching up with the last season of Damages, starring the ravishing Glenn Close. The ABC soap opera Brothers and Sisters, starring mighty matriarch Sally Field, is a guilty pleasure. And this summer's manna from heaven is Nurse Jackie, starring Sopranos great Edie Falco as a complicated, fallible, sexy New York hospital nurse who cares about saving lives--while popping pills and cheating on her husband.

Writers Linda Wallem and Liz Brixius are TV writers who at one time struggled with addiction. They took an original nurse story that was dark, not sellable, they said, took the gloves off and let fly. It helps that on a cable network like Showtime, they could be less beholden to advertisers and more beholden to subscribers. Their sense of escape from 18 years of constricting network series writing is palpable. "We're going to prove that women in their 40s can make shows for boys who are 19," says Brixius.

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