Women on TV Making Dramatic Impact

BYLINE: By Dusty Saunders, News Broadcasting Critic -- It's been called SheTV. Or even more irreverently, ChickTV.

Whatever the title, the 1999-2000 network season has been an exceptional time for women in dramatic television.

It's not that women haven't been featured regularly in hour-long series until this season. But through most of the '90s, women were used as much for set decoration as for storytelling - so much so that it was often difficult for Emmy voters to come up with a list of five deserving performers who could qualify as best actress nominees.

Angela Lansbury, a performer of incredible stature, was always nominated for Murder, She Wrote. But even Lansbury noted that portraying mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher wasn't exactly a challenging assignment after the first couple of seasons.

Roma Downey in Touched by an Angel? Predictable every week, with her eye-blinking reverence in a fantasy surrounding.

Jane Seymour in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman? Seymour, a decent actress, was saddled with familiar Western plots that always went thataway.

Gillian Anderson has always said, with a patented, wide-eyed look, "I don't believe it, Mulder," with a lot of conviction. But The X-Files has never been SheTV.

The most notable female performer in a network TV drama in recent years was Christine Lahti, formerly of Chicago Hope. But Lahti was handicapped because the series featured an ensemble cast with men getting the meatier roles.

It might be accurate to note that the roots of SheTV were actually planted in the winter of '99 when HBO's The Sopranos exploded onto the screen.

Sure, James Gandolfini got most of the attention as the violent, blustery and somewhat likable Tony Soprano. But neither Edie Falco, who won an Emmy last September as his tough-talking wife, nor Lorraine Bracco, Tony's angst-ridden therapist, were content to sit back and let Gandolfini chew all the scenery.

The winter of '99 also introduced NBC's Providence, starring Melina Kanakaredes as an altruistic plastic surgeon who abandoned her successful Los Angeles career (and empty lifestyle) to return to her Rhode Island family and begin work in a clinic. While Providence story lines have been awfully syrupy of late, Kanakaredes remains a dominating screen figure.

Cable even got into the act with Lifetime's Any Day Now, starring Annie Potts and Lorraine Toussaint. The under-appreciated drama deals with the firm friendship of a white woman and a black woman, who grew up together in Birmingham, Ala., and are reunited in their adult years.

But SheTV became a major network factor in September, with three strong performers starring in series that feature relevant, characters facing daily challenges.

* Amy Brenneman has won acclaim in CBS' Judging Amy, playing a divorced woman who flees New York and returns to her Connecticut roots in an effort to balance her time between being a judge and a mother.

* Sela Ward is the centerpiece of ABC's Once and Again, portraying a woman in her early 40s attempting to restart her personal life amid numerous family conflicts.

* Kathleen Quinlan stars in CBS' Family Law, the least popular of the three new series, giving a convincing performance as a lawyer who has reorganized her life and career after being deserted by her husband.

While timing is everything in television, no single network executive can claim credit for determining that the time was right for dramas starring strong female characters to gain a wide audience following.

Television remains a follower, rather than a leader. So the advent of more women moving into the workplace while trying to balance their personal and professional lives has created a fertile environment for such dramas.

And while such programming has mostly a female audience, the three dramas that premiered last fall have had a steady increase in male viewership.

Dawn Tarnofksy-Ostroff, Lifetime's programming chief who has nurtured Any Day Now, recently recalled the frustrations she endured as a production executive at 20th Century Fox a half-dozen years ago.

"None of the networks seemed interested in dramas starring women. The emphasis was always on men. Fortunately the landscape has changed."

Such change also has affected roles designed for what the industry calls "supporting players."

How can Emmy voters overlook the current season's performance of Camryn Manheim (who won an Emmy in 1998) as the impassioned lawyer Ellenor Frutt on The Practice. (Did you see her courtroom scenes Sunday night?)

Well, if they overlook Manheim, than can cast an eye - and a vote - for veteran Tyne Daly, who portrays Brenneman's feisty mom on Judging Amy; and Allison Janey, the always on-the-spot White House press secretary in The West Wing.

It's a misnomer to say these women are supporting actresses. They often carry the episodes.