"Mistresses" at the TCA Press Tour

L to R: Sharon Small, Orla Brady, and Shelley Conn (1/10/09)

Mistresses is a six-episode British drama series coming to BBC America in February about a group of female friends with relationship problems — including Shelley Conn (Nina's Heavenly Delights) as a promiscuous, commitment event planner who falls for one of her clients, played by Anna Torv, who is now the star of the Fox supernatural drama Fringe. (Americans who don't mind some spoilers can read our review of the first season.)

The show is a hit in the U.K., with a sizeable audience of about 6 million viewers, according to Mistresses executive producer Douglas Rae — "mainly women, but men buy the DVDs, I suspect looking for extras which aren't on it."

Most of the cast (minus Sarah Parish, who plays Dr. Katie Roden), creators, and BBC execs were on a panel on Saturday at the Television Critics Association Winter Tour in L.A. to promote the show's debut on American TV. Since we weren't able to send someone to the event this year, AfterElton.com editor in chief Michael Jensen kindly attended on our behalf and reported back.

S.J. Clarkson and Mistresses co-creator Lowri Glain were inspired by the question, "Does anybody actually choose to be a mistress?"

"I guess we felt that nobody did," Clarkson continued. "But I said maybe somebody would choose to be it because it would suit their lifestyle. So that was really where the seed was sown, I suppose. And from then, we just started looking at the various sides of infidelity from the mistresses' perspective."

There are no truly happy mistresses, said Clarkson, "because you're only ever going to get half the deal, really."

But I think what we tried to show was the truth of being a mistress, the fact that I don't think it's necessarily all stiletto-heeled secretaries hanging around in hotel bars. It's often you meet somebody, you have a connection, you fall in love, and suddenly you realize they're with somebody else and what do you do in that situation?

You're told follow your heart — or the fairytale is, you know, you love someone, fall in love, get married, have children, have a happy lifetime together, but what happens if the person you fall in love with is already married?

I think that's a real dilemma and a truthful dilemma for many women today.

Despite the inevitable comparisons, Mistresses isn't a British Sex and the City.

"It's not a fluffy show," said BBC Worldwide president Garth Ancier. "It's actually fairly dark and complex."

"Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives are terrific shows," Rae added. "But what we wanted to do is, I think, reflect the kind of truthfulness and honesty that women have between each other, particularly at an age in their 30s when their families may have moved to another city and the girls are becoming family in a way that, you know, has moved on from the '50s and '60s."

"So the girls themselves are a family and they share the stresses and strains of everyday life with each other. And the series is not about promiscuity. It's about how people can bond together and share secrets together.

Clarkson elaborated on this theme:

Mistresses was almost a working title that stuck because we couldn't think of anything else, I suppose, that summed it up as much. And it's a red-flag word so it makes people sit up and take notice. But inevitably it was always about truthful performances and to try and — all the storylines, performances and the look of it needed to feel truthful, cinematic and grounded ... Films we looked at for reference was Three Colors: Blue and Unfaithful and L'Apartement which is a French film. And we looked at a lot more films for reference for it, rather than sort of lighter television.