Desperate Housewives: Season 1

There's Martha Stewart-perfect Bree (Marcia Cross), who rules her household with an iron fist in a tailor-made garden glove and seems to have it all, until she finds out her husband (Steven Culp) is cheating on her--and has a serious fetish habit to boot. Sultry Gaby (Eva Longoria), the youngest of the set, is a bored trophy wife whose predilection for shopping and clothes are the perfect decoy for her affair with the hunky teenage gardener (Jesse Metcalfe). Former career woman Lynette (Felicity Huffman) is the most stereotypical housewife, raising four (or was it five?) kids and frustrated at using her cutthroat business skills for suburban politics. And daffy Susan (Teri Hatcher), the divorcee looking for love, sees her prospects brighten with the arrival of hunky plumber Mike (James Denton), who has some desperate secrets of his own. And did we mention the neighborhood hussy (Nicollette Sheridan), the snotty busybody (Christine Estabrook), and Mary Alice's increasingly agitated son (Cody Kasch)?

It was a fast and wild mix of plot and characters that gave Desperate Housewives the zing that made it a number one hit, as it never got too bogged down in any dilemma before moving on to the next. And though it was neither as hard-hitting nor salacious as it was trumpeted to be, the show nevertheless breathed fresh, funny air into comedy television, for even though it hewed to the hour-long soap format, the content was far more dark comedy than sudsy drama. There were fun bright spots to be had, but the story behind Mary Alice's death--which included drugs, murder, blackmail, secret identities, and vengeance in equal amounts--hovered over all the characters, tingeing the farce with the specter of danger. The show's other source of strength is in its peerless ensemble cast, headed by four perfect leading ladies, all Emmy-worthy. Hatcher received the (deserved) lion's share of praise (and a Golden Globe), but her co-stars--especially the underrated Longoria--matched her scene for scene. And though the mystery of Mary Alice's death was ultimately solved (no Twin Peaks teasing here), it was just the beginning of the troubles on Wisteria Lane, where no life went unexamined for too long. --Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

Each episode provides a stand-alone drama, beating out a theme, pulsing to the rhythm of some moral … stated at the outset, restated at the conclusion, but with a sharp twist of irony. This is not the neighbourliness of Capra, George Bailey, and "Wonderful Life". There are good neighbours. And there are bad. It's a competitive world living in the suburbs - whatever else happens, you have to maintain the façade, you have to appear to be perfect, or at least have a credible explanation if you're not.

This is a wonderful series. It carries along the mystery of its narrator's death. Others will die. Murder can be brutal. It can also be quite functional. It can have charm. And one by one each perfect household comes unpicked, exposes a flaw like a run in a pair of stockings - once you've noticed it, you can't take your eyes of it. And while you're distracted with one plot strand, writer Marc Cherry works his sleight of hand and conjures up another twist.

The cast is wonderful. With perhaps only Teri Hatcher as a 'star' name, albeit she'd dropped out of sight for a few years, Cherry assembled an ensemble cast who generate some great chemistry onscreen and who amplify one another's talents and energies. There's scarcely a weak performance in sight. Direction and editing are excellent - the juxtaposition of scenes and shots, the ironic counterpoint of humour and mystery, the rapid cutting from one household to the next, and the overall quality of the production keeps your attention rapt.

But the script's the thing. It is beautifully crafted. The DVD extras accompanying season one give you some excellent insights into the writing process. You get a look at the making of the series, you get brief interviews with actors. You get some very interesting commentaries. And much more. It's a fascinating series. The DVD's, like the writing and the concept, are beautifully packaged. Excellent value, a series you can watch again and again. And again.


An Original Masterpiece!!!!!!!!   July 27, 2005
21 out of 27 found this review helpful

Well what can I say? Desperate Housewives has enough drama, wit, plot twists, romance.....EVERYTHING needed for a success. And it is a success!

By the end of the first episode it was obvious that this show was to become part of our lives. In schools, colleges, work places, supermarkets, it became impossible to avoid overhearing somebody discussing this phenominal series.

Each episode will leave you hungry for more, luckily, having the boxset means you do not have to wait a week for the next episode. You may even find yourself becoming deeply attached to the characters (ladies may I introduce you to John, the gardener!).

This new cult programme has been recieved by men and women world-wide!


Quirky and very, very funny   January 10, 2006
dragondrums (Ingleby Barwick, United Kingdom)
19 out of 19 found this review helpful

Desperate Housewives was a huge hit and rightly so. It is the story of several housewives living in Wisteria Lane, an expensive American suburban street. The main characters are Susan, Lynette, Gabrielle and Bree.
Susan (Teri Hatcher) is the ditsy divorced mother with one daughter and a fancy for her hunky new neighbour. Lynette was a high flying career woman but is now tied to the home and her unruly brood of 4 children. She could cope with anything at work but has problems coping with domesticity. Gabrielle is the Latin beauty, married to Carlos who is rich enough to provide everything she could want. However it’s not enough and she is having an affair with her very young gardener. Bree is perfection personified, immaculately turned out and with a house like something from ideal homes. However her husband and children cannot live up to her ideals or live with this perfection. The narrator of the whole series is Mary Alice, a friend of all the women who, in the first episode, commits suicide. The central thread of the tale is why she was driven to this and what dark secrets are hidden in the lives of the characters.
Although there is a central theme, each episode does have a ‘stand alone’ story for the occasional viewer, but to really enjoy it at its best the series should be watched in its entirety and from the beginning. Twists and turns, murder and mayhem, love and friendship are all to be found in a series that is by turn both wickedly funny and poignant. This is TV at its best; not to be missed.


At Last, We can watch and make sense!   May 14, 2005
LEE SUTHERLAND (Basingstoke, Hants United Kingdom)
18 out of 38 found this review helpful

After watching the series on Channel 4 and waiting for the chilling conclusion of this excellent show, we can now do it all again but in the comfort of our own homes and pause it so we can get the subtle hints to the chilling question, Did Mary Alice committ suicide, if so why. But if not, who would do such a thing??????

We all have our own conclusions but an excellent series and Roll on Series 2!


Great package, wonderful show   January 28, 2006
Ticked Off
18 out of 19 found this review helpful

The first thing to say about this DVD boxed set is that it is beautifully packaged and presented. The special features are a notch above what's generally out there, being both extensive and interesting. I think my favourites are the audio commentaries on the scenes specially chosen by the actresses themselves and the blooper reels (Teri getting confused between best and breasts never fails to have me laughing and Eva definitely seems to be the 'corpser' of the set). And the audio commentaries by Marc Cherry on selected episodes are interesting and entertaining - which is a rarity among the AC genre.

If you were particularly churlish you could perhaps quibble with the fact that 'deleted scenes' invariably actually mean one scene and the 'extended episodes' are only extended by one scene (on rare occasion two) - but that would be extreme nitpicking I feel. Overall the features are impressive and certainly add to the enjoyment of the overall set.

I have two small grumbles. The first is the inconsistency of subtitling on the disks. Some disks have no subtitles. Some have English subtitles included. Some have subtitles in other languages, but not in English. This was a little frustrating at times.

Secondly, the somewhat long introduction to each disk - a parody of the opening credits, using the actresses. The first time it went past it seemed overlong. By the time I'd reached disk five it was tedious and frustrating to have to wait for it to end before getting to the episodes.

But those are very small annoyances. Generally the set has been put together with obvious care for detail and imagination. And that's greatly appreciated by this buyer.

When it comes right down to it though, the real stars of this set are the episodes themselves and with their superb performances, the sparkling scripts, wonderfully real characters you will care about and intriguing plotlines, you can't fail to consider this the star of your DVD collection and one that you'll revisit and enjoy time and again.