Desperate Housewives (TV series)
"Desperate Housewives" is an hour-long television series that premiered on ABC in 2004, blending elements of comedy, drama, and mystery. The show opens with the shocking suicide of Mary Alice Young, a suburban wife and mother, whose death prompts a deep exploration of the lives of her friends and neighbors on Wisteria Lane. Key characters include Susan Mayer, Bree Van de Kamp, Lynette Scavo, and Gabrielle Solis, each grappling with their own challenges and secrets while Mary Alice narrates their intertwining stories from beyond the grave. Created by Marc Cherry, the series was inspired by discussions with his mother about her feelings of isolation while raising children. Although its viewership declined over the years, "Desperate Housewives" remained popular and influential, earning significant awards and helping to revive interest in prime-time soap operas. It also inspired reality television spin-offs, including "The Real Housewives of Orange County." With themes of friendship, betrayal, and the complexities of suburban life, the series resonated with a wide audience and remains a notable part of television history.
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Desperate Housewives (TV series)
Identification: Prime-time soap opera about several women who reside on the fictional suburban street Wisteria Lane
Creator: Marc Cherry (b. 1962)
Date: October 3, 2004–May 13, 2012
Desperate Housewives premiered on the ABC television network in 2004. With an average of twenty-three million viewers in its first year, the show became one of the biggest hits of the 2004–5 television season. The show later won several major awards, including the Golden Globe for best comedy in 2005 and 2006.
An hour-long television show mixing comedy, drama, and mystery, Desperate Housewives begins with the unexpected suicide of Mary Alice Young (played by Brenda Strong), a wife and mother who lived on Wisteria Lane. Many of the show’s major characters are introduced to the audience at her funeral, including divorcée Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher), homemaker Bree Van de Kamp (Marcia Cross), executive turned stay-at-home mom Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman), and former model Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria). Mary Alice watches over her friends and neighbors from beyond the grave, serving as the show’s narrator as the characters cope in the wake of her death and eventually discover the reason for her suicide. She continues to narrate the drama in the subsequent seasons, helping to reveal the secrets that the housewives desperately try to keep from their friends, neighbors, and families.
Desperate Housewives was created by television writer Marc Cherry, who had previously created the comedy series The 5 Mrs. Buchanans. Cherry has explained in interviews that he developed the idea for the series after talking with his mother about how lonely she felt while she was raising three children. Inspired by his mother’s experiences, Cherry decided to write a soap opera that focused on women in the suburban United States. Several networks passed on the pilot; however, ABC decided to produce the show, airing the first episode in late 2004.
Impact
Although its ratings dropped to an average of about twelve million viewers by 2009, Desperate Housewives remained one of the top twenty programs on television throughout the decade, and it continued to receive nominations for Emmy Awards, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild Awards. The show helped revitalize interest in prime-time soap operas and also served as the inspiration for the Bravo reality series The Real Housewives of Orange County, which premiered in 2006 and in turn inspired several spin-offs set in various locations throughout the United States.
Bibliography
McCabe, Janet, and Kim Akass, eds. Reading Desperate Housewives: Beyond the White Picket Fence. London: Tauris, 2006. Print.
Weinman, Jaime. “How Will We Remember Desperate Housewives?” Maclean’s. Rogers Communications, 5 Aug. 2011. Web. 6 Aug. 2012.
Wilson, Leah, ed. Welcome to Wisteria Lane: On America’s Favorite Desperate Housewives. Dallas: BenBella, 2006. Print.