Desperate Housewives

Here it is! The best show to hit the prime time dial in years! Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross, Felicity Huffman, Nicolette Sheridan, and James Denton create the most bizarre and un believably satirical world of Wisteria Lane, a beautiful neighborhood with beautiful woman, each lives the perfect life...on the outside! Matching "American Beauty" with "Melrose Place", this fresh, raunchy, and intelligent show revolves around four women who begin uncovering a series of mysteries when their best friend commits suicide. Susan Mayer(Teri Hatcher) is a Striking, chirpy woman with a beautiful daughter and a great romance with Mike Delfino(James Denton), but her flaw of natural klutziness gets her in trouble. Hatcher is irresistibly funny, and brings hysterics to the screen. Bree Van De Camp(Marcia Cross) is the stereotypical "Stepford" wife who brings jealousy to the most sweetest of ladies with her perfect life, blue flowers, smart kids, and exceptional marriage...RIGHT! Her life consists of struggling to retain her marriage, or lack there of. Her children hate her most of the time, and her husband can't stand her perfection. Cross is remarkably powerful in performance, and displays witty charm, and howlingly hilarious reactions to the events surrounding her. Not to mention being gorgeous beyond belief! Lynette Scavo(Felicity Huffman) gets the most sympathy from us as the successful woman, on her way to becoming the most powerful woman in business, and then pregnancy after pregnancy takes it all away. Now, she struggles with the most out-of-control children in television history, and a husband who just doesn't get it, or any thing else! Huffman is exceptional in this role, and deserves the recognition for her efforts. She gains so much sympathy when she breaks on children's medication, Lynette is one most people would love to sit and "bitch" with, I know I would. Next is Gabrielle Solis(Eva Longoria), the perfect woman, the rich marriage the most dreaming life of the block...AS IF! She sleeps with teens, and worms her way in and out of situations both good and bad, but she has her funny moments. Longoria is predictably slutty temptress, with minor qualities to redeem, so far. With a little learning for Gabrielle, we might see more than pretty faces with Mrs. Solis, but Longoria is alright. Last, but NEVER least, is Edie Britt(Nicolette Sheridan), a man-hungry woman with a wip and handcuffs! She will walk all over you to get to your man! Watch out for Edie! Sheridan is just right for this caustic, little sexy villainess of the street. Yes, all the women shine in their glory of the show! Better than anything else on TV right now, and probably in the future, "Desperate Housewives" will satisfy to the very touch of perfection, and beyond! Marc Cherry has created a masterpiece with this one! Thank the almighty for this one coming to the TV screen! May we be blessed with this show for many, many years to come!!!!! A perfect 10/10, 100% brilliant!

One of the TV reviewers for "Time Out"'s London edition wondered why "Desperate Housewives" has so handily repeated its American success in Britain. Since not every show that's a hit in America exports well to the UK ("Friends" gathered plenty of them over here, and "CSI: Insert Subtitle Here" has consistently been a key player for what used to be called Channel 5; on the other hand, "Murphy Brown" landed on stony soil when it was shown on BBC2, and don't get UK fans started on how "The West Wing" fares here), that's a good question. Fortunately, there is an answer. In fact, several...

1. Germaine Greer, Janet Street-Porter, the editor of "Cosmopolitan" (UK edition) and the TV critics of "The Times" and "The Mirror" have all pooh-poohed it. Since I respect their opinions in the same way I admire Britney Spears purely for her music, this is pretty much a glowing recommendation.

2. Never discount prior experience; just as many critics noted David Chase's work on "The Rockford Files" when "The Sopranos" started here (and never once gave due credit for that beloved '70s show to Stephen J. Cannell and the late Roy Huggins, but that's another story), so creator Marc Cherry's years on "The Golden Girls" (another show that did well here) may have counted. And though I admit I've never liked her, the goodwill Teri Hatcher built up among viewers of both sexes from playing Lois Lane for four years cannot be overlooked.

3. It strikes a major blow on behalf of those of us who don't give a rodent's rump about reality TV.

4. It fills the "Melrose Place"/"Knots Landing"/primetime soap-sized hole that's been gaping for a while now, even down to having former cast members of same, and does it without wildly OTT acting (making it closer to "Knots Landing" in terms of temperament).

5. The series wisely makes at least one of its main characters (Felicity Huffman's Lynette) seem like someone you could actually imagine meeting (key rule of TV: never make everyone too implausible OR too plausible - if everyone really wanted reality no one would have a TV. Or fiction books...).

6. It's both emotional and funny; and it may take a while to wrap up its plot lines, but if the alternative is a whole load of wad-shooting, I'll be patient.

7. The acting. Hatcher may have top-billing and a Golden Globe (and don't bet against her adding an Emmy in September), but five minutes watching Marcia Cross or the aforementioned Miss Huffman will tell you who the real stars are, acting-wise (the ex-Kimberly should have won the GG, not the ex-Mrs. Superman).

8. The eye-candy; never mind "Which desperate housewife are you?" think "Which desperate housewife do you want to sleep with?" Teri still has plenty of devotees and Nicollette Sheridan remains as hot as she was on "Knots Landing" (even if it's not real, it's spectacular) but it's Eva Longoria who really regularly leads viewers into temptation. And please do not deliver us from Eva. (I'll move on before making a "rod and staff" joke.)

9. They had the good sense to get Danny Elfman to do the theme, and unlike "Point Pleasant," I can understand why he said yes.

Welcome to Wisteria Lane. A great place to visit, thus far.

Going to miss it, but the ending was perfect. I'm glad they didn't drag it out just because it was a popular show.

I watched Desperate Housewives for the first time ever out of sheer boredom and I ended up binging the entire series. It got me hooked from the first episode. Something crazy is always happening but at the core, this is a story about friendship and growth. There are some seriously funny moments mixed into all the chaos and many heartfelt ones too. I actually got emotionally during the last episode. It felt like the last episode of Friends. I had grown attached to all of these women and their families and didn't want it to end.

Some thirty years ago now, a fledgling writer and self-admitted 'desperate housewife' herself, one Susan Harris was sitting watching the gawd-awful writing and acting being perpetrated on some daytime sudser and said, "Well, hell! I can do this, and I can do it better!" And so she sat down and started work on what became one of the most ground-breaking series of its time, SOAP.

Fast-forward to 2004. Miraculously, and not a moment too soon, the can-do spirit and twisted, blackly comic sensibility that Susan Harris blended into her frothy concoction has seeped into the consciousness and the pen of one Mr. Marc Cherry, and television right now is all the better for it.

It was high time, in a slate of shows that range from the ones that take themselves all too seriously (THE WEST WING, ER and about any other medical or cop drama you can name), to the ones that have no shame at all (AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS, FEAR FACTOR and every 'reality show' going), that somebody took the complete, over-the-top ridiculousness of both day-and-night-time soaps and gave them a good, hard shake.

DESPERATE is not a sitcom, but nothing on television right now makes me laugh harder. It isn't a straight drama, but I find myself just as involved as if I were watching LOST or THE SHIELD. It's not some stiff, stodgy or saccharine, treacly morality play, but when it comes to having a sense of those "family values" that certain politicians are so fond of emphasizing, it carries in one episode more commentary about love, compassion and caring for one's fellow man than all the seasons of JOAN OF ARCADIA and "that show with Della Reese" combined.

Not that it's going to receive the Nobel Prize anytime soon. I would just as soon settle for seeing every member of the terrific cast win an Emmy every year this show runs, and sooner or later, I have no doubt that it will happen.

But besides bringing us a terrific show to look forward to on Sunday nights, (something that hasn't happened for me personally since the heyday of THE X-FILES), let us give thanks for something else that TV has been far too slow in acknowledging...the value of beautiful, brainy and talented actresses over 40.

For realizing that Teri Hatcher DESPERATELY needed a role that would prove she could do a helluva lot more than play yet another version of Lois Lane. That Felicity Huffman, one of our most under-appreciated talents, DESPERATELY needed the sustenance of a role like Lynette Scavo to sink her teeth into. That Marcia Cross DESPERATELY needed the kind of showcase for HER talents that the likes of Frances Conroy, CCH Pounder, Sharon Gless and other top notch actresses only get on cable, and that Bree Van De Kamp will prove once and for all what we always knew from MELROSE PLACE--this woman ROCKS!, and for giving Eva Longoria something that all actors as gorgeous as she have DESPERATELY needed forever...the chance to prove that being a treat for the eyes, does not automatically mean that your acting talent is about as deep as a kiddie wading pool.

Thank you, thank you, thank you...and thank you for making us all DESPERATE for more of the shady doings on the sunny side of the streets of Wisteria Lane.