Big Love - Guide to HBO's Big Love

According to the Attorney General's Offices of Utah and Arizona, there are approximately 40,000 or more people practicing polygamy in the United States. Although banned by the Mormon Church in 1890, HBO found this subject interesting enough to make a fictional show about it. Starring actor Bill Paxton as modern-day polygamist Bill Henrickson, HBO's newest show, Big Love, is gaining fans with its offbeat take on the rumored multiple-wife practices in the state of Utah.

Living in a suburb of Salt Lake City, the Henrickson family is made up of three wives, seven children, a series of financial problems, and ever-growing familial pressures. The wives, Barb, Nicki and Margene (played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloë Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin), each have their own opinion as to how the house should be run. Bill, meanwhile, is trying to balance not only all of his family concerns, but also his chain of home improvement stores.

The show is complicated by other familial influences, including a demanding father in-law, parents who live in a fundamentalist polygamist compound, and several new crises with each of the children in the home. There is also jealousy to contend with among the wives themselves. Big Love airs on Sunday nights after The Sopranos, in the hopes of capitalizing on the spillover audience of millions that tune in each week.

An interesting fact about this show is that one of Big Love's executive producers is none other than actor Tom Hanks. The cast is made up of award-winning actors and features screen regulars such as Tina Marjorino (Napoleon Dynamite and Waterworld), Mary Kay Place (Sweet Home Alabama), and Amanda Seyfried (Mean Girls).