As the big network dramas settle into reruns, cable shows are ready to move in.

Meet "Army Wives," premiering Sunday on Lifetime. It's from the "Grey's Anatomy" producers with similar elements — big cast, tense work, humor and a chain of command.

And one more similarity: It has an unknown actress stepping into the lead role.

Ostensibly, "Army Wives" stars Kim Delaney ("NYPD Blue") and Catherine Bell ("JAG"). They play the wives of an oft-absent colonel and major, respectively.

In truth, the show's emotional storm center is Sally Pressman. She plays Roxy LeBlanc, a bartender with a quick tongue, sharp temper, warm heart, two kids and (until now) no husband.

"She's the woman you want to be, the woman you strive to be," Pressman says. "She's really blunt and honest, and has a really good soul."

Roxy is a product of the small-town South. Pressman plays her so convincingly that you'll assume she's from the same turf.

Not even close. Pressman grew up in New York City. Everything about her background is light years from Roxy's. That includes the Manhattan Ballet Company, Yale, London's West End theaters and appearances in plays.

Now she's the saucy, small-town barkeep. "It is far from my New York background," Pressman says. "But when you find the character base, the rest of the stuff just kind of falls into place."

And finding that started with meeting Katherine Fugate, the show's producer and creator. "Katherine really is Roxy, more than anyone," Pressman says.

Fugate grew up in California and has the directness and blue-collar touches of her characters. She says she was writing movie scripts when "I got hornswaggled into the whole television scene."

She was given a book about military wives and asked to pitch a story. "I had just met with Reese Witherspoon and Sandra Bullock, who are looking for films, and I thought this was a perfect vehicle for them."

So she began to pitch a movie, then saw it diverted to TV. The blonde-spitfire role went from Witherspoon to Pressman; the Bullock-type role went to Bell. That's the flip side of Bell's previous role. In "JAG," she was an officer; now she's married to one.

Those "JAG" years let Bell meet many military wives. "Their husbands had been away for six, eight, nine months," she says. "I just remember being so moved by that, by their lives and their strength and what it must be like to live like that."

Now she's in the midst of it. The 13-episode season is being filmed in Charleston, S.C., producer Mark Gordon says, for two basic reasons — "military base and tax incentives."

On a former military base, "Army Wives" creates its own world. It has power struggles among the officers' wives (Bell, Delaney) and financial struggles among the enlisted men's wives.

In the midst of these women, there's also a man whose wife is in the military. Sterling K. Brown plays a psychiatrist who is married to a lieutenant colonel.

"There are so many times in which I (play) criminals or cops. ... It's just nice to play an educated guy, who is very sure of himself," Brown says.

Except that no one can be sure of anything in the complex world of "Army Wives."