For years now, women at the top of the thespian game who have reached a certain age--maybe 40--have been landing plum roles on TV dramas as cops, judges, crime-solvers and matriarchs of troubled families, or as guest stars providing dramatic edge or comic relief. It's fascinating to see the way TV as a medium has embraced some of the women that Hollywood has abandoned to the "mom role" track.

This season, instead of "Desperate Housewives," TV has brought us a slew of desperate single or career women having mid-life crises. Last week, Elisabeth Garber-Paul addressed the problems with "Accidentally on Purpose," the new show about the single woman who decides to have a baby with her younger one-night-stand, afraid that it's her last chance.

But that show's rather desperate heroine is in good company. First, and most reprehensible of her cohorts is Jules of "Cougar Town," played by "Friends" alumna Courtney Cox. Jules is a middle-aged mom post-divorce trying to relive the 20s she never had because she was too busy raising her son and being married to his slacker dad. The show puts Jules in a variety of frenetic, humiliating situations as she tries to reclaim her youth. Each episode, Jules is torn between her best friend who, presumably, is "normal" for her age, and wants to do things like stay home and eat, and her 20-something colleague who enjoys doing multiple shots and picking up guys. Clearly, the stereotypes extend far beyond the show's irritating title. But what's most upsetting about "Cougar Town" is that it appears to posit itself as empowering and/or sympathetic to its character's plight. This is demonstrated by the writers giving Cox, so far, exactly one speechy moment per episode where she rails about the double standard: "older" men on the prowl are attractive, their female counterparts are desperate, older men are catches, while women over 40 are punchlines.

The problem, of course, is that Cox's character herself is a punchline--she pulls a muscle demonstrating a sex position! She can't handle her liquor! She causes her poor son endless humiliation. We are meant to both feel sorry for Jules for being treated like a desperate wacko, and then laugh at her acting like one.

And unfortunately the best comedic moments on the show (although they're far from brilliant) come from her slacker ex-husband who drives a golf cart around town and drops in to see his ex-wife because he's too lazy to make his own coffee. It goes back to the slacker-striver dynamic that marks so many romantic comedies today. She makes us laugh at her because she's so tightly wound, we laugh with him because he's hanging so incredibly loose.

Watching "Cougar Town" made me think about how much more comedic potential there would be in a middle-aged female protagonist who entered a slacker phase, rather than trying to run around trying, and failing, to exert sexual power. As Judith Warner put it in her excellent column for the New York Times, the cougar myth is not a female fantasy, but a male one. The reason mostly-male execs are falling for the Cougar archetype: 

Maybe that’s because she’s such a twit: so narcissistic, so superficial, so stunted emotionally, so dependent upon deriving her value from her desirability — her currency — in men’s eyes. Maybe it’s because, despite her ostensible sexual power (derived, you’ll recall, uniquely from a young man’s acceptance of her), she’s really so very unthreatening. So very pitiful.

In other words, this "empowered" woman on the prowl with teeth bared is, in fact, another stereotype wrapped in a very thin film of pseudo-feminist garb, a Pussycat Doll for the post-40 set.

On the less depressing end of the spectrum is '"The Good Wife," another show with a woman trying to make a new start, mid-mom years. This show, a vehicle for talented vet Julianna Marguiles, isn't even close to explicitly feminist, nor does it reflect women's everyday lives, but by spinning a different sort of comeback tale--that of a woman coming back into the workforce-- it's less egregiously offensive, and it may even end up being fun.

"The Good Wife" has an unbeatable and intriguing premise: what happens to the philandering politician's "stand by your man" wife after the scandal has died down? In this case the husband, a former Attorney General is in prison awaiting corruption charges, and his wife Alicia has to get herself together, support the family and jump-start a career she stalled in order to support that scumbag of a hubby. She's Silda Spitzer in the Midwest.

Other than the fact that the law firm dynamics, the court cases, the political realities, and almost every other detail on the show are laughably unrealistic and even silly--read Dana Goldstein's review here-- the show takes an interesting psychological angle on women and work. The lurid headlines aside, Alicia is good at what she does, a smart, capable lawyer and person, who clearly gets satisfaction from being in the office. She never advanced far previously because of the pressure to support her husband and raise her kids, but now she has the chance to work for herself, and she appears to have a nose for solving cases and at the same time, a sense of empathy and her own moral values (at the same time, the show is honest about the difficulties she faces with kids at home and the way the burden of the family rests on her).

It's clear why her slimy but clearly charismatic husband (played by Chris Noth, of course!) picked her. It's the Hillary Clinton/ Silda Spitzer/Elizabeth Edwards and Jenny Sanford paradigm to a tee--a strong woman, a capable partner at home who is publicly humiliated by her cheating husband after suborning her own professional advancement for his. This dynamic, at least, the show nails. Eventually, the plot seems to suggest that Alicia is going to have to make a choice between continuing to stand by her man and striking out on her own, and one can hope, having her own romantic adventures. But this "I'm back!" declaration has a much more satisfying feel to it than the laughable "I'm back!" of "Cougar Town." As Dana writes:

The Good Wife is really a sort of revenge fantasy: Alicia Florrick not only slaps her husband across the face and proves to him that she can hack it as the family breadwinner, she also one-ups those other women at work, the ones who look down on her for opting-out in the first place. In the real world, though, women like Alicia's judgmental boss might be onto something: Women rarely win, in their personal or professional lives, by giving up everything to focus on hubby.

Yes, Alicia's story could never happen in the real world--this is a prime-time network drama, after all, rarely a fertile place for groundbreaking art. But still, I'd argue that this fantasy described by Dana is a woman's fantasy--as opposed to the shallow male fantasy of "Cougar Town." It's about a woman beaten down by a man's world who gets hers, a woman who can compete in patriarchy and win, while helping her fellow Wronged Women on the way up the ladder. That's a fantasy I can get behind.  (Of course, it's important to notice that both of these shows exist in extremely tony, privileged, and largely white enclaves of society, making their heroine's experiences even further out of the real mainstream. Both shows lack the diversity that has become a hallmark of ensemble shows these days--one step forward, one step back?).

But entertainment is a funny thing. When looking for a heroine to entertain them, will American women want to triumph with Alicia, or will her story pale in comparison to laughing as Jules falls on her butt? Or will they embrace both? Either way, it's doubtful that an escape-loving TV audience will reject either show for its lack of honesty about women's lives.