Big Love

infobox Television
show_name = Big Love


caption = The cast of "Big Love"
format = Drama
runtime = approx. 50 min
creator = Mark V. Olsen
Will Scheffer
starring = Bill Paxton
Jeanne Tripplehorn
Chloë Sevigny
Ginnifer Goodwin
Amanda Seyfried
country = USA
network = HBO
first_aired = March 12, 2006
last_aired = present
num_seasons = 2
num_episodes = 24
list_episodes = List of Big Love episodes
website = http://hbo.com/biglove
tv_com_id = 25834
imdb_id = 0421030|

"Big Love" is an HBO television drama about a fundamentalist Mormon family in Utah that practices polygamy. "Big Love" stars Bill Paxton, Chloë Sevigny, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Ginnifer Goodwin, Harry Dean Stanton and Amanda Seyfried. It premiered in the United States on March 12, 2006 following the sixth season premiere of the popular HBO series "The Sopranos". The second season began on Monday, June 11, 2007. cite web
title =HBO sets new date for Second Series
work =HBO.com
url =http://www.hbo.com/apps/schedule/ScheduleServlet?ACTION_DATE=UpdateCalendar&DATE=6/11/2007
accessdate=2007-05-01 ] The show has been renewed for a third season which begins in January 2009. [Godwin,Jennifer [http://www.eonline.com/gossip/kristin/detail/index.jsp?uuid=130eb854-806a-4f02-90e7-13a89330ae4f Big Love Is Back—In Just Eight Short Months!] , "E-Online", May, 28th, 2008] In Canada, The Movie Network airs this series day-and-date with HBO in the U.S.

The show was co-created by Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer who also serve as executive producers. Olsen and Scheffer spent almost three years researching the premise of the show [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/28/arts/television/28poly.html?ei=5090&en=f5a8a1639b304daf&ex=1301202000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all 'Big Love': Real Polygamists Look at HBO Polygamists and Find Sex] ] , with the intent of creating a fair portrayal of polygamy in America without being judgmental. The series theme song is "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys; musical score for the series is composed by David Byrne. The score for the first season was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh.

Plot

The series revolves around Bill Henrickson, his three wives Barb (legal wife/first wife), Nicki (second wife) and Margene (third wife), and their combined family of seven children. Henrickson lives with his family in three neighboring houses in Sandy, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City.

eason 1

Season 1 introduces the main characters and revolves around the family's struggles to live their polygamous lifestyle while keeping it a secret from the outside world. While Bill goes about expanding his chain of home improvement stores ("Henrickson’s Home Plus"), he struggles to balance his three wives and his strained relationship with Nicki's father, Church prophet Roman Grant. From his compound on Juniper Creek, Roman seeks to gain a greater share of the profits from Bill's business ventures. Bill, who is resentful towards Roman for expelling him from Juniper Creek as a teenager, opposes this and joins with his brother Joey, a former NFL player who returned to Juniper Creek after drug addiction, to gain a seat on the church's board of directors, in order to undercut Roman's considerable influence and to maintain a level of autonomy from his controlling grasp.

Bill's first wife Barb is shown to be the anchor for the plural Henrickson family, but as the show progresses it is revealed that Barb has mixed feelings about the concept of polygamy and only her love for Bill makes her stay. Meanwhile, second wife Nicki (daughter of Roman) struggles to fit in with modern life outside the compound and her own desire for power within the family dynamic. Nicki compensates for her isolation by developing an addiction to shopping, leading her to become $60,000 in debt via credit card charges. Third wife Margene, 23 years old, meanwhile struggles to find her place within the family, as both Barb and Nicki look down upon her due to her youth and fertility, having given birth to two children via Bill and being pregnant with her third child. Most of season one focuses on the family's struggle to keep their family's secret from their friends, neighbors, and co-workers. However, things come to a head when Barb is nominated for a "Mother of the Year" Award, resulting in her and Bill being outed as a polygamist couple. Meanwhile Joey's mentally unstable wife Wanda poisons Alby Grant (Roman's son and chief minion) when Alby discovers that Bill is using Joey as a pawn in his scheme to undermine Roman's power within the church and threatens the two.

eason 2

Season 2 picks up two weeks after the end of season one, as Barb temporarily leaves home before coming back. Though the outing does not damage the family's reputation and the Henrickson business, it causes Bill to decide to take steps to ensure his family's financial security by trying to buy an electronic gambling company called Weber Gaming.

The second season also expands upon the political battles at Juniper Creek. When Roman and his wife inform Alby that they are willing to allow Wanda and Joey to get away with their attempt on his life in exchange for using them as leverage against Bill, Alby alerts outside authorities who arrest Joey (who claims credit for poisoning Alby in order to protect Wanda) and ultimately leads to a raid of the compound.

Meanwhile Roman's newest intended bride, the fifteen year old Rhonda Volmer secretly leaves the compound to live with the Henricksons. The family is quick to take Rhonda in, thinking that she is an innocent trying to escape being forced to marry the elderly Roman. However, it is quickly revealed that Rhonda is a pathological liar and sociopath, who left the compound only to exploit Roman's legal troubles in order to get herself on TV.

The departure of Rhonda and Alby's actions lead to Bill manipulating Roman and the Greens (a renegade polygamist sect that operates on the fringes of society) against each other in order to claim Weber Gaming. Roman is shot by the Greens when the police finally try and arrest the Greens, forcing them to flee. With Roman hospitalized, Alby quickly seizes power and thanks to Rhonda's statements to the police, Roman is arrested by the police for violating the Mann Act. Alby's power is ultimately secured when he forces his mother to flee Juniper Creek (after realizing that she planned on using him as a puppet to secure her own power base at Juniper Creek) and Bill's refusal to challenge Alby's claim of prophethood in order to claim the position for himself.

In his family life, Nicki and Barb fall out as the two wage war against the other for the "head wife" position, culminating in Margene encouraging Bill to bring a Serbian waitress, Ana, into the family as Bill's fourth wife. Margene befriended Ana after seeing Bill flirting with her.

Barb, after a tearful reunion with her estranged mother and a pep talk with Roman's wife, reasserts herself as first wife by outing the family as polygamist to her nosey neighbors and informing Bill that she will finally leave him once and for all if he tries to bring a fourth wife into the family.

Meanwhile, Sarah is seeking help in dealing with her family's lifestyle through a support group for ex-Mormons, leading to her falling for a man ten years her senior. While Sarah ultimately gives up her virginity to her new boyfriend (mainly to spite her father, who is indifferent towards Sarah's growing disdain for him and polygamy), Ben gives himself over to his father's views on polygamy. At the close of the season, Ben is dating twin girls from Juniper Creek whose goal is to marry one man between them, causing Barb to consider sending him away to live with her (non-polygamist) sister.

eason 3

The third season of "Big Love" will premiere on January 25, 2009.fact|date=August 2008

Cast and characters

Main Cast:

Reception

Metacritic rated the show a 72 out of 100, indicating favorable reviews. [ [http://www.metacritic.com/tv/shows/biglove Big Love (HBO) - Reviews from Metacritic ] ]

Heather Havrilesky of Salon.com said of Big Love, "There are elements of this new series that have a quirkiness that might seem deliberate or overly clever against a different backdrop, but that feels natural in its own gracefully odd environment." [ [http://www.salon.com/ent/iltw/2006/03/05/big_love/index_np.html Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | I Like to Watch ] ]

"Time" magazine's James Poniewozik named it one of the Top 10 Returning Series of 2007, ranking it at #5. [ [http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/article/0,30583,1686204_1686244_1691404,00.html Poniewozik, James; Top 10 New TV Series; time.com] ]

Awards

The second season was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Drama Series in 2007. Bill Paxton was also nominated for the Best Actor in a Television Drama Golden Globe for his role as Bill Henrickson.Cite web|url=http://www.goldenglobes.org/news/id/81|title=Hollywood Foreign Press Association 2008 Golden Globe Awards For The Year Ended December 31, 2007|accessdate=2007-12-13|publisher=HFPA|year=2007]

International broadcasting

References

ee also

*Mormon fundamentalism
*The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
*Plural marriage

External links

* [http://hbo.com/events/biglove/ Official site]
*imdb title|id=0421030|title=Big Love
*Tv.com show|id=25834|title=Big Love
* [http://biglovecompound.com/ HBO Big Love Blog]