Married, With Implants
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The desperation of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” is to be taken seriously. It’s a comparative rarity in network television, a show that dares to look different than the average hour-long drama. It offers no big stars, no uplifting storyline, and no glitzy locales; it offers itself instead as a commentary on suburbia, marriage, parenting, menopause and sex. Like the movie “American Beauty” (and before that, “Sunset Boulevard”), it’s narrated by a dead character whose perspective is meant to shape our perception – in this case Mary Alice Young, a housewife who kills herself in an act of extreme desperation.
But the women of Wisteria Lane (where virtually all the action on “Desperate Housewives” takes place) share a little too much with the women of “Melrose Place.” They purr in platitudes about love, loss, men and sex; they leave no thought unspoken, no idea unexplained. What could have been a groundbreaking comedy/drama of suburban life devolves almost immediately into standard nighttime soap opera format – and not one that leaves me hungry for more. Maybe it needs a dose of the silliness of “Melrose Place” to awaken it from its pretensions.
The casting of “Desperate Housewives” couldn’t be better, making its weaknesses all the more apparent. The show’s producers have gathered the most beautiful television actresses of a generation together to do battle with one another. Teri Hatcher and Nicolette Sheridan play two man-hungry divorcees going at it over the newly-arrived neighborhood hunk, James Denton, who represents himself as a plumber and who is immediately asked by both women to come over and check out their pipes. Eva Longoria plays an unhappily married woman having an affair with her gardener; her husband suspects something when his nightly inspection of his front lawn turns up the information that it hasn’t been mowed. Marcia Cross (an alumna of “Melrose Place”) plays a stay-at-home mother who has excessively embraced her role as “the woman from the detergent commercial,” as her husband disparagingly refers to her.
But the show truly belongs to the great actress Felicity Huffman; if it succeeds, it will be owed to her remarkable performance as Lynette, a reluctant housewife tormented by her past career success, her children, her marriage, and her own aging. She owns every scene she’s in, especially a wonderful moment when – after her children refuse to stop swimming during the wake for her dead friend – she marches into a swimming pool in a black dress and high heels to drag them out. It’s comical and sad, which is precisely the tone the producers are struggling for throughout; alas, only Ms. Huffman – a veteran whose performances in shows like “Sports Night” and Showtime’s underrated series “Out of Order” have been consistently stirring and emotional – delivers.
I only wish every moment on “Desperate Housewives” had the subtlety and wit of Ms. Huffman’s moments on camera. All too often, characters speak to each other (and by extension, to us) like idiots, explaining their emotions instead of showing them. The marriage of Marcia Cross’s character makes no sense; she’s a Stepford Wife (to which a ham-handed allusion is made in the script) without a Stepford Husband, leading us to wonder how these two ever got married to begin with. What has made her and her friends so desperate, anyway? Are they starved for sex, or have they had their fill? Do they want men, or marriage, or what? It isn’t that I wanted answers – I just wanted some idea of the questions at hand on a show that purports to be asking them.
But you won’t be hearing such quibbles elsewhere; “Desperate Housewives” has been deemed one of the best new shows of the season. Critics have admired its daring and unconventional approach. But where, exactly, is the risk in creating a show chock-full of gorgeous actresses and sexual innuendo? There isn’t really much separating this series from the nighttime soap operas that have come before it, except the ages of its stars. (You’ll spend much of your time guessing which of them have had plastic surgery.) The issues at hand remain the same – women competing for men, women hating men, women depending on men. It remains to be seen whether creator/executive producer Marc Cherry (whose biggest previous credit was on “The Golden Girls”) can deliver something more substantial and involving than the premise.
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Despite my reservations over the pilot of “Desperate Housewives,” I have to credit ABC for taking chances this season with shows that aren’t directly derived from last season’s hits. (Maybe it’s because ABC didn’t have any hits last season.) I’m so sick of NBC’s cookie-cutter dramas, and CBS’s wretched comedy lineup, that it’s refreshing to see ABC risk failure with shows that don’t come off the assembly line. I’ll write more about “Lost” later – when it’s had a chance to find itself – but there’s already no doubt in my mind that it’s the season’s best new drama.
Credit is due to the team of executives who supervised the development of ABC’s new shows – and, as is often the case in network television, that’s not the same people currently in power. The executive team of Susan Lyne and Lloyd Braun developed “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost” just before they were fired by Disney for not saving the network fast enough. While their replacement, Steve McPherson, helped develop the shows and ultimately put them on the fall schedule, Mr. Braun and Ms. Lyne also deserve to be remembered for their courage and foresight.