Desperate Houswives Review

Desperate Housewives - The Complete First Season
Desperate Housewives - The Complete Second Season

i have made references to Desperate Housewives in past posts but i thought it was time to write up an 'official' review and grade this puppy.

for me Desperate Housewives has gone through three stages which coincide with their three seasons how shocking)...

season one: the show becomes a breakout phenomenon. the show takes a darkly comic tone on the goings on at wisteria lane beginning on the day one of its residents (mary alice young) kills herself. what made the first season so much fun for me was the mystery of why she killed herself. each week, while we are also following the four main 'housewives' in their stories the show is also giving us clues as to what happened that led up to the tragedy. the problem was that at the end of the season we knew it all. the whole mystery that had brought us in and kept us watching was over. (A-)

season two: having finished with the mystery the show felt like it didn't really know what to do with itself and season two fell pretty flat. there were multiple new mysteries and story lines, but really nothing was as interesting as what we had been introduced to in season one. it was turning into a regular prime-time soap and losing the originality and flavour that had made it stand out in the first place. (C+)

season three: although i keep hearing rumours that they are going to give mary alice more screen time and do something with her character (yes, i know she is dead), that still hasn't happened and she is still relegated to her voice over observations about life and the people on wisteria lane (which are great by the way. maybe the best voice-overs on tv along with j.d. on Scrubs, but way ahead of meredith grey on Grey's Anatomy). anyway, so with mary alice in the background the show seems to have settled into its prime-time soap opera vibe with all the sex, death, mysteries and crazy plot lines that we have come to expect from these types of shows.

i wish they had kept up the underlying mystery from season one longer - for example: in Lost they have maintained an over reaching mystery about the island and why they are there since the pilot episode. sure they reveal new mysteries and solve others, but there is always that sense that the show is heading somewhere that we don't know yet. - it might not be totally fair to compare the two shows like that, but that is the sense i had for Desperate Housewives during season one, and i liked it.

I do like the show. it is a fun hour every sunday night, and although i personally would have liked to see them follow through more on what the show felt like in season one, the writing is good and they do seem a lot more comfortable with what they are becoming now then they were last season.

grade: B