Desperate Housewives Takes Desperate Measures

Normally I would’ve had no interest in last night’s Desperate Housewives season finale. Although I loved season 1, I had long past given up on the show by last night. Over time the show had seen a steep drop in quality, and I quit watching sometime during season 3. So why did I watch last night’s season finale?

Because earlier that day I noticed a headline on CNN (I also have no idea how CNN determined this was important news) that mentioned the show was jumping five years into the future. I’ve read that the majority of people don’t like this idea (one comment I read called it jumping the shark), but I personally think that it is the best idea Marc Cherry has had since the conclusion of season 1. The past few seasons have allowed the characters to go stale—hey, Gabby is selfish and shallow! Susan is just a few IQ points shy of retarded!—and it has taken its toll of the show. Combined with the show’s repeated failed attempts at creating an overarching mystery as interesting as the first season’s, these two problems are why I stopped watching the show. These problems are also what I believe the jump will do the best job of remedying.

Lynette: Lynette’s problem children are now much bigger problems. Although this road has already been tread by Bree, I’m sure that Lynette will take a very different approach to dealing with her kids. Hopefully we’ll get some great storylines out of it. Also, because her children are now older and will be played by older actors, this allows the writers to include them in the show a bit more. Side Note: when Tom was lecturing Lee and Bob I almost expected him to realize that he wanted a divorce. Seeing that Lynette’s children in the future already have problems, I’m glad that Tom stuck around.

Bree: Media mogul Bree might be what I’m most looking forward to. Bree definitely has the chops to survive in today’s cutthroat business world, and I’m very excited to see her venture into non-domestic or family related storylines. Also, Andrew is still around and looking exceptionally handsome. Please write some awesome gay storylines, Marc Cherry!

Gabby: Gabby may have made the biggest change of any of the four (well, five I guess). According to Eva Longoria, she doesn’t expect to remain frumpy for long, so I’m guessing her pulling herself together will be one of Gabby’s primary storylines next season. I’m interested in seeing what the writers actually do with her character—almost all of her storylines have something to do with her being pretty and/or rich, and they’ve taken both of these things away from her.

Susan: Well, it looks like someone hasn’t changed after five years. Couldn’t she have just, like, died or something? Oh well, at least Mike is gone. It’s really about time—that guy was the worst actor on the show.

Katherine: Eddie was always a notch below the other four in terms of importance. Is Katherine going to fill that position, or will she have screen time equal to the other housewives? That’s…pretty much all I have to say about her.

In addition to reinvigorating all of the main characters, the jump will also benefit the overarching mystery. Mysteries are the best when you can make as many characters as possible likely suspects, which is why new neighbors were never able to achieve the same level of success as season 1’s mystery (something Veronica Mars also suffered from). A five year jump will surely come along with a number of new characters, which means that the mystery has the potential of rekindling the magic of season 1. If Marc Cherry plays his cards right, he could very easily have a return-to-form with season 5, and possibly even surpass season 1 in terms of quality (although I highly doubt that).