Well, it's just a first episode, so maybe the others won't be just like it.
They did have to build the characters to help us understand the story line. Now that we know about the wives and what they deal with, we can understand how serious the jobs of their husbands are and how stressful that can be.
I think they showed us the wives more for character building, than something that we'll see all the time. I personally think they'll show us more of what the special-ops guys do on their jobs, more in next episodes. But that's just my take.
I could be wrong, but I'm willing to stick around and find out first hand, before judging the show from one go around.
I'll give it a chance, and I hope they concentrate on several-episode story arcs and more on the guys. The wives didn;t contribute anything that wasnt hackneyed. I can see how this all looked much better on paper.
On the other hand, The Shield just keeps getting better and better.