'Desperate' gets Delany, 'Brothers' takes on Iraq

September 29, 2007|Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff

The best thing about "Desperate Housewives" has always been its title, and the worst thing has always been its tone. The show never seemed to know what it wanted to be: campy commentary on suburban life, deep melodrama about domestic pressures, or mildly suspenseful whodunit. A quirky piece of slapstick always seemed to give way to something serious, like a hostage crisis. And the problem was wrapped up in that sassy voice-over from deceased Mary Alice Young: Did she symbolize the heartache of domestic life, or reflect our morbid wish for more interesting neighbors?

Last season, the writers seemed to lean toward the latter, and their efforts to make Wisteria Lane sound exciting grew ever more absurd. Amid the accidental billionaires, personality-changing amnesia, and teenage sons turned male prostitutes, the show's ratings slipped a bit. Perhaps American viewers were finally getting a headache.

Based on tomorrow's fourth-season premiere, the writers seem intent on bringing the show - at least slightly - back to earth. The plot is mainly driven by emotions here: Gabrielle and Carlos's renewed love interest, Bree's shame at her teenage children's mistakes, Lynette's efforts to keep her cancer a secret. The twists largely center on hormones and babies.

It feels a bit unnerving that a show once heralded as a showcase for women of a certain age has resorted to making so many of them pregnant. Yet that's a recurring theme: pregnancies real and, in the case of Bree, inexplicably faked. Meanwhile, the show maintains its split personality in maddening ways: We're supposed to poke fun of suicide, in a plot involving Edie (Nicolette Sheridan), then pull our hankies to face Lynnette's cancer head-on.

Felicity Huffman, as Lynette, has the acting chops to pull off her character's realistic desperation. But the subplot seems a waste; this show has always succeeded best as comedy. Susan's neuroses wear thin quickly, but Teri Hatcher's twitches do provide for some happy relief - there's a very funny sight gag tomorrow night involving a gynecologist. And Marcia Cross's Bree is far more fun when she's protecting the integrity of her fake pregnancy suit than when she's moaning about her own maternal mistakes.