Not since the arrival of Ally McBeal in 1997 do I recall such a wind sweeping through the media-culture scene as the one named Desperate Housewives.
Why is it that this show has arrived with such a giant, iron fist on the landscape of television — and our media consciousness? You don’t have to go far for the reason…
To be blunt, it’s all down to there being virtually nothing to watch on television these days. The West Wing, Lost, and one or two other shows aside, we have entered an era barren of creativity, imagination, and good writing. We are the victims of reality show crap that is on par with the dog shite people step on walking on the sidewalk. We have lame sitcoms that only seek to milk tired formats, and most of the creative minds have gone to cable.
Desperate Houswives is trashy, whoring, in-your-face, camp, serious, subtle and deep…all at the same time. It’s more than simply a soap opera — its an insurgency into the TV landscape, and it’s shaking up everything we think of as standard broadcasting. It’s like Melrose Place…except it isn’t. It’s like ER…but different. It’s created its own commentary on the evils of the suburbs, and the subversion of the nuclear family in modern America. It’s gorgeous, it’s funny, and it’s unpredictable.
It also helps that the women are gorgeous, assured characters who own themselves, despite their neuroses, problems, secrets, and lies. Those who claim that there remains some sort of acting wasteland for actresses obviously don’t watch Desperate Housewives. They’re especially not watching Felicity Huffman’s meltdown suburban mom, Marcia Cross’ ice queen-empress, Eva Longoria’s vixen-tramp, or Terri Hatcher’s paranoid innocent. By the way, Terri Hatcher remains one of television’s true jewels: she can command the screen by being both ditzy and deadly serious, and it’s all done with an astonishing lack of effort. She was born to act, and she acts her socks off in a way we haven’t seen since her days as Lois Lane opposite Dean Cain’s Superman in Lois & Clark.
She’s also HOT HOT HOT, but that’s neither here nor there. 
Desperate Housewives does what TV does best — take the situations of everyday life, magnify them by a factor of a thousand, and play cruel, sick, funny, twisted games with boring, everyday situations. It’s giving the middle finger to feminists, mysogynists, red-necked men, and uppity-stiff women. It’s an hour of sheer delight…thought-provoking, yet trashy enough to make Dallas look like amateur night at the community theatre.
Barely a year into it’s life, Ally McBeal became a Time magazine cover story. Barely 2 months into this current season, Desperate Housewives is already gracing the cover of Newsweek. This show is definitely worth your time.
