First Wives Club is the new Stan show that's here to provide much-needed escapism.

When The First Wives Club first hit our screens back in 1996, it proved to be an instant and surprise hit, a female-led film that went on to make nearly six times its relatively small budget during its box office run.

What’s also important to note is that the movie, which starred Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, and Bette Midler as three divorcées who band together to get revenge on the ex-husbands who left them for younger women, appealed to a wide range of ages and demographics, easily shaking off the tired tag of being ‘just a woman’s movie’.

After the film’s success, it wasn’t odd for groups of girls in my primary school class to shimmy around the schoolyard while belting out the lyrics to You Don’t Own Me just like the trio of ladies do in the film, although as 12-year-olds we had little to no experience finding empowerment in life after divorce, but such was the strength of the movie.

First Wives Club, the comedy-drama that has recently premiered on Stan, takes the initial premise of the film and expands it into a more in-depth, serialised storyline, but one that has the same heart and humour from the original still very much intact.

The series follows three long-married college friends who reunite after many years of estrangement and falling out of touch. Their lives merge onto the same trajectory and they find themselves going through divorce, adultery and overall life discontentment at roughly the same time.

Hazel (Jill Scott) is a successful actress whose music producer ex-husband Derek (Malik Yoba) not only leaves her for a young R&B artist but also has her blackballed from the entertainment industry. He bars her from accessing their shared cash, effectively undoing her many years of career success while also commandeering the apartment they bought using her earnings, which is a pretty low blow.

Ari (Ryan Michelle Bathe) was once a successful attorney but gave up practising law to support her husband David's (Mark Tallman) political career. They are now unhappily married but remain together in order to put on a performative front for the public so as not to diminish David's career.

Rounding out the trio is Bree (Michelle Buteau), an overworked surgeon and mother who discovers that her stay-at-home husband Gary (RonReaco Lee) cheated on her with another mum.

Once reunited, the women team up to not only seek revenge on the men who have wronged them but also to begin to rebuild the lives they've lost through bad relationships, via a series of zany plots.

What also makes this iteration of First Wives Club so different from its movie predecessor is that it features a black cast of leading ladies, which allows it to tell a different set of stories, according to its showrunner and famed writer of the break-out comedy hit Girls Trip, Tracy Oliver.

"That was something that I was really excited about," she said in an interview with Essence.  "I love The First Wives Club movie, but to me, if I was going to do it and have my voice and what I’m passionate about being put into the show, it has to be personal to me, so it’s going to be an all-Black cast.”

If you're looking for something fun to binge-watch that will also make you feel a little bit more empowered about life, then First Wives Club should be added to your must-watch list.

First Wives Club is available to watch now, only on Stan. It is rated M.

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