Desperate Housewives
Wisteria Lane looked perfect — the lawns, the casseroles, the cul-de-sac waves — and every bit of it was a cover story. Narrated by a neighbor who takes her own life in the show's first minutes, ABC's suburban satire-soap made Sunday night appointment television again and turned four housewives into the biggest stars on TV.
Marc Cherry's series premiered on ABC on October 3, 2004, and announced its tone immediately: Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong), a picture-perfect housewife, narrates the show from beyond the grave after her suicide in the opening minutes, and spends eight seasons wryly reporting on the secrets of her surviving neighbors. Those neighbors — Teri Hatcher's klutzy single mom Susan, Felicity Huffman's frazzled ex-executive Lynette, Marcia Cross's Martha-Stewart-perfect Bree, and Eva Longoria's bored trophy wife Gabrielle — lived on Wisteria Lane in the fictional town of Fairview, where every manicured hedge hid a body, an affair, or both.
It was an instant phenomenon. The premiere drew 21.3 million viewers, the first season averaged about 23.7 million a week — the fourth-most-watched show of 2004–05 — and the season finale hit 30.62 million. Arriving the same fall as Lost, it suddenly gave ABC two sensations at once. The show won the Golden Globe for Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy in 2005 and 2006, Hatcher took the 2005 Golden Globe for Best Actress, and even Danny Elfman's needling harpsichord theme won a Primetime Emmy in 2005.
The frenzy couldn't hold forever. Season one's 23.7 million average proved to be the summit; viewership slid steadily from season three onward, down to about 10.6 million — thirty-seventh place — by the final year. The show signed off on May 13, 2012, after eight seasons and 180 episodes — long after the water-cooler era had moved on, but the template it perfected, the sunny suburb rotten under the sod, never really left television.
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