desperate housewives

i haven't been following a drama series this religiously ever since The West Wing, but nowadays there's a very good one on ABC this tv season: Desperate Housewives (website).

the story is narrated (from the afterlife) by Mary Alice Young, a housewife of Wysteria Lane, following her sudden suicide. she tells of Susan, Bree, Lynette and Gabrielle - her four friends, housewives all, who themselves are desperate in their homebody lives, and they now struggle to fathom her reasons to put a bullet thru her head.

Susan is divorced, after her husband ran off with his secretary. With the prodding of her daughter, Susan vainly attempts to hook up with Mike, a handsome but mysterious guy who just moves into the neighboorhood. one day she accidently burned down the house of her trampy slutty neighbor who's also vying for Mike's attention, and it doesn't help that another very nosy neighbor found out about fire.

Bree is the quintessential housewife, loving the life, very good at it, keeping a seemingly happy family and wants to keep them to appear that way. the secret she keeps? her husband wants a divorce, and Bree's trying everything to avoid it, and to hide it from her friends.

Gabrielle is the sexy seductress who found herself a very rich husband, but discovers that marriage life isn't exactly as peachy. her secret? - she has an affair with her hunky young gardener (who's been paying more attention to the sex than to the garden, that Gabrielle had to sneak out of a dinner party one night to go back home and mow the lawn before her husband discovers.) there have been several close-calls, but later Gabrielle was caught in the act by her next door neighbor's little daughter..

Lynette, on the other hand, quits her high-paying executive job to be a full-time mom. she's at the brink of her sanity trying to cope with and with a husband who isn't always home, and with her three nasty little brats (one time, she drove away after throwing out her noisy kids by the streets to teach them a lesson, and then came back moments later all panicky to find them not there anymore.) and she's starting to think that her going back to a home-life is a huge mistake.

four very interesting stories, and four very interesting characters.

add to that, Mike isn't what Susan thinks he is. the four gals later found a threatening letter addressed to Mary the day she shot herself. Bree discovered, and then stole, a secret recording tape of Mary's session with a marriage counselor. and Mary's husband, after her death, dug up a big wooden box and threw it into the river, and the box later bobbled up and was discovered by the authorities - and it was full of human bones...

it's an intriguing drama, it's smart and funny and suprising and sometimes raunchy. there's a hook at every turn, a mystery after another keeps surfacing, a twist of the plot at every corner. i don't know how the show's going to keep the intrigue level up all season long, but it got me glued to the tv every sunday at 8. (and it helps that the lead-in show is the Most Extreme Makeover, just about the only reality show i watch.. very tear-jerker touching type of show.)

Desperate Housewives. two thumbs up, four-of-four stars. it's the number one drama three weeks in a row now. hopefully, it keeps up!

p/s: new season's premier of West Wing this week! woohoo!!