On View : The Hidden Reality : LIFETIME SERIES SEEKS TO PORTRAY WOMEN’S LIVES AS THEY ARE

Gail Glaze, co-creator of Lifetime’s anthology series “The Hidden Room,” believes the series is the only one on television “where you can see, as a woman, your own insanity reflected.”

Most females portrayed on TV, Glaze says, are “so much more normal than they are in their real life. There’s no one normal in real life. I think it fuels everyone’s sense of alienation when everyone is so much more perfect than they are.”

So the heroines of “Hidden Room” aren’t perfect, but “interesting woman who are caught up in dilemmas, have problems and are neurotic because that reflects our own lives,” says Glaze, who is executive consultant on the show.

The 30-minute dramatic series kicks off its second season Saturday on the women-oriented cable network with 20 new episodes. A majority are based on short stories written by women. Amanda Donohoe (“L.A. Law”’) stars in the first episode about a stepmother trying to communicate with her stepdaughter; Helen Mirren, Mayim Bialik, Mariel Hemingway, Catherine O’Hara, Ally Sheedy, Stephanie Zimbalist and Tess Harper are also featured this season.

“Hidden Room” co-creator and executive producer Lewis Chesler had previously created the enormously successful HBO and USA anthology series “The Hitchhiker,” for which Glaze served as executive story editor.

“ ‘The Hitchhiker’ was basically a punitive half-hour,” Glaze says. “This is more redemptive--people resolve their problems as opposed to dying or going insane forever.”

“It is not a lways redemptive,” explains executive story editor Jeremy Lipp, another “Hitchhiker” veteran and the only male on the writing staff. “There’s some kind of cathartic thing, more than redemptive. There is some kind of new turn.”

The first season of “The Hidden Room” debuted in the summer of 1991 and has been in repeats on Lifetime. Chesler says it takes time for a new show to build an awareness with audiences and the creative community.

“While we had many distinguished performers the first year--Amanda Plummer, Lara Flynn Boyle, Alice Krige-but there is a real awareness in the acting community,” Chesler says. “Helen Mirren told me she had been requested to do a lot of stuff after ‘Prime Suspect’ and nothing really interested her. Our piece was substantial and she was intrigued by what we were doing.”

Donohoe admits she had never seen “The Hidden Room,” but likes Lifetime, having starred in its 1992 movie “Shame.” She’s currently executive-producing its sequel for Lifetime.

“The Hidden Room” reminded the British actress of an old series in her homeland, “Tales From the Unexpected.”

“A lot of good actors would come together and they would do little quirky stories,” she says. “I thought, ‘Why not?’ It was a four day shoot. I liked the idea. Helen Mirren had just shot the one before me. It was a very nice lineup.”

The series gave Mayim Bialik, who stars in the hit NBC teen comedy “Blossom,” her first opportunity to use her dramatic skills since she appeared in the 1987 film “Beaches.”

She was eager to participate because “they were women-driven stories for women by women about women.”

In her installment, Bialik plays a teen-ager who runs away from home and is hidden in an attic by her cousin, who happens to be enamored of her.

“She is a really conflicted personality,” Bialik says. “She has this tough exterior, but she is really just a scared person inside.”

Bialik hopes her episode will show fans she’s not actually Blossom. “A lot of times people confuse me with the character and think that is really all I do,” she says. “It was sort of nice to remind myself that I can do other things. It was a challenge not to fall into comedy after doing it for so long on ‘Blossom.’ Since my tendency in real life is to crack a joke, it’s nice to be able to back off and not crack a joke.”

Producing an anthology series is a tremendous amount of work, Glaze says. “I can’t tell you how many times I sat around and prayed for ‘Starsky and Hutch’ in an episode. You know, Starsky says this and Hutch says that and they go around in this car. Every week it is like doing a little baby feature and it can be a tremendous headache, but it also makes it perfect for a writer because you do a different genre very week. There’s not a better training ground.”

“It’s always extremely difficult, especially toward the end where we are now,” Lipp says. ‘We are working on the last five stories, and on any anthology I think that’s really hard because every time you start over from scratch.”

But, Lipp says, “one of the most interesting aspects of these shows is they are very internally oriented. It’s a refreshing change from a lot of television. That’s why it’s nice to work on a show like this.”

“The Hidden Room,” Lipp says, is not for women only. In fact, Tom Hulce guests in an episode. “I’m a guy and I am interested in human character,” Lipp explains. “These are interesting internal situations I certainly think a male could relate to just as strongly.”

‘There’s no question these are crossover pieces because they are really strong psychological dramas,” Chesler says. “I like to say they are stories of memory, anxiety and desire.”

“The Hidden Room” airs Saturdays at 10 p.m. on Lifetime.