Forget Botox and plastic surgery, women are acting their age on TV this season.
Let’s just call it the summer of cougar love.
Beginning Monday, older actresses who once had to resign themselves to playing frustrated spinsters or docile moms are suddenly flaunting their ripened sex appeal on TV.
Kyra Sedgwick returns at 8 p.m. Monday for her third season as Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson, the sexy and single-minded detective on “The Closer” who strives for a normal dating life.
The success of that TNT series has emboldened other networks to showcase 40-plus female protagonists who like to date young. The older woman-younger-man dynamic, which historically — and hypocritically, by the way — has been considered pathetic, has a new sparkle.
– On “Saving Grace,” a TNT series that begins next month, Holly Hunter plays an Oklahoma sheriff with a ravenous appetite for cigarettes, booze and sex with younger men.
– Lili Taylor plays a successful therapist with family troubles of her own on “State of Mind,” a Lifetime series that begins in July. She catches her husband, also a psychiatrist, in flagrante with their marriage counselor, then quickly finds a much younger lawyer to take over her husband’s office, and perhaps his place in bed.
– Also in July, Glenn Close will star in “Damages” on FX, playing a rapacious top litigator who terrifies her opponents and her subordinates. Close could turn out to be the exception to the rule this summer, because at least in the beginning, her character is married to an age-appropriate businessman. But he does go out of town on trips.
Nothing is a trend, of course, until there is a reality show about it. At 8 p.m. Monday, NBC debuts “Age of Love,” a dating competition like “The Bachelor” that seeks to determine what constitutes the prime of life for demonstrably hot women — are they sexier at 20 or at 40? How will a man choose?
All of these series tap into Baby Boomers’ reluctance to sit back and let a younger generation take over the dance floor.
“We can still do anything that a 20-year-old can do, but better,” says 40-year-old Lynn on “Age of Love.”
This isn’t entirely new in terms of scripted programming, of course. TV always has offered fading movie actresses a second chance, from Candice Bergen in “Murphy Brown” to, well, Candice Bergen in “Boston Legal.”
HBO’s “Sex and the City” stirred an appetite for series about women’s sex lives that hasn’t yet been quenched. ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” was hailed because it dared to cast actresses in their 40s as sex symbols, but that was always part of the joke. “Grey’s Anatomy” tried to fill the “Sex and the City” gap by mixing a playful approach to sex with a swoony look at love, and ended up taking adult romance so seriously that it veered into melodrama.
On “Boston Legal,” Bergen’s character has had a few farcical stabs at a love life, but it’s the young lawyers in the firm — and the bimbo clients — who have the steamy moments.
That is beginning to change. More recently, Mary-Louise Parker landed in Showtime’s “Weeds” as a pot-dealing suburban mom with a love life; Minnie Driver moved from “Will & Grace” to “The Riches.” Calista Flockhart, the romantic heroine of “Brothers & Sisters” on ABC, is not in her first blush of youth.
That’s a license that echoes real life, at least in show business, where celebrities such as Demi Moore and Katie Couric consort with younger men without much censure or ridicule.
Real women get that chance on “Age of Love,” which divides 13 women into two teams: the Cougars, whose ages range from 39 to 48, and the Kittens, all in their 20s. The older women compete with the younger ones for the affections of 30-year-old Australian tennis player Mark Philippoussis.
“He’s my son’s age,” Jennifer, 48, purrs on camera. “But I could definitely see myself falling for him.”
At first, neither group knows the other exists. Later, the claws come out.
“Hopefully by 40, I’m not still dating, desperate for a man,” says Amanda, 25. “I mean, it’s just pathetic, I think.”
Philippoussis, who was not warned that half his bachelorettes are in their 40s, looks stunned but not horrified. After a date in which he and three of the older women rappel down the side of a building, the hunk said he was surprised at how he felt.
“At this point, age has just gone out the window,” he said. “It so doesn’t matter — at all.”
