I never expect to miss Alicia Florrick, yet every year, when she goes away for the summer, it becomes apparent that she is one of the only three-dimensional women on free-to-air TV. The Good Wife has prevailed where Homeland has failed. The women of Scandal and Revenge make the psychiatrically diagnosed Carrie Mathison on Homeland look well adjusted.
There are much more challenging women to be found in good dramas, often well and truly buried on pay TV. Our very own Frances O'Connor was just recognised with a Golden Globe nomination for her work on Missing. (BBC First, Sunday, 8.30 and 9.30pm). Every actress who has rehearsed an acceptance speech into her hairbrush has played the mother of an abducted child. For most, this opportunity results in runny-nosed histrionics. When Frances O'Connor's Emily loses her small son on holiday in France, we get a range of grief and disillusion worthy of Meryl Streep. As her distraught husband, James Nesbitt gives the performance of his career. His anger and desperation makes this powerless father something of a vulnerable menace. Because the series spans the eight-year period since the abduction, the unsolved crime grinds relentlessly away at all the key players. When words such as "tragedy" or "devastation" are so overused, Missing renews them with portent. We might shake our heads in sympathy at the McCann family, conjecturing that they'll never be the same, they'll never get over it. Missing plays out that scenario in heartbreaking detail. And O'Connor's grieving broken mother is just about the most interesting woman on TV, with the possible exception of Jane the Virgin (Monday, Fox8, 7.30pm).
It's a terrible title and a silly premise. The acting has that panto quality favoured by the Desperate Housewives, at the height of their powers, and yet there is something fearless and carefree about Jane the Virgin. Based on a successful Mexican comedy (in just the same lineage as Ugly Betty) the show explores the comic potential of an exemplary young, hard-working virgin becoming inexplicably pregnant. The seasonal reminder that this is not exactly an original premise, does nothing to inhibit the enjoyment of the show, but it's hard to imagine sticking with Jane for more than half a season, let alone 2000 years.
None of the women on Newsroom (Showcase, Sunday, 6pm) have held any real appeal, as they all appear to have Aaron Sorkin's hand up their dresses. Sorkin's didactic homilies to his audience burble from every character's mouth in a voice so similar, the entire cast seems to be possessed. A new lecture about the importance of the Constitution/ freedom/truth might issue unexpectedly from a tea lady, as the writer's demon springs from host to host. All of the women had potential, initially, operating in the world of broadcast journalism, to share insights into workplace sexism, if only Sorkin could have stopped lecturing us.
Unfortunately, all of the Real Housewives and the Kardashians have the loudest and stupidest voices on pay TV. Every time they open their mouths, they undo the achievements of Gillian Anderson's chilling detective on The Fall, or the brilliant ensemble of women on Getting On. When Kim Kardashian speaks, I can feel Alicia Florrick's Spanx tighten in exasperation.
When the most famous woman in the world has an enormous shiny butt, and not an idea in her head, we might be tempted to rant in Sorkinian indignation, or we could just shut up and watch the tennis and the cricket, until Australia Day.
