Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Wisteria hysteria
SOAPY! Desperate Housewives, Channel 4, 10.00pm
Having been hailed as the saviour of scripted drama upon its arrival roughly this time last year, we can understand why some people got quite frustrated with DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES towards the end of its run. It displayed a fairly shocking disregard for crucial things like timelines and continuity, some characters absolutely refused to learn from their mistakes (Lynette Scavo, we're looking at you), some of the plotlines were just too soapy or too ridiculous, and then there was that infuriatingly patronising voiceover from Mary Alice, who turned out to have murdered a drug addict who came back to reclaim the baby that Mary Alice stole from her, leaving us not particularly willing to listen to her tootling on in her all-knowing fashion any more. It also had that problem that is all-too-commonplace these days - it couldn't make up its mind where it wanted to be a serious drama or a campy soap opera, and in sitting on the fence often ended up being neither.
That said, we're glad to see it back (if only because every so often, something actually frigging happens on this show, unlike LOST), and despite something of a lacklustre start, we can promise that for those who stuck with it throughout season one, there's plenty to look forward to in season two. Poor, bereaved icemaiden Bree Van De Kamp is arranging hubby Rex's funeral, which unfortunately means that she is stuck with his loudly grieving mother Phyllis. You will want to punch Phyllis after about thirty seconds of her screentime, so imagine how Bree must feel. Lynette has a job interview (which, going back to this show's aforementioned screwy timeline, seems to have come about a maximum of two days after Tom informed her she was going back to work while he looked after the kids) and will no doubt soon bring her unique brand of meddling to the modern workplace. Gabrielle is still pregnant with her entirely unwanted baby, and is livin' la vida loca while Carlos is serving jail time for beating up sweet gay Justin under the misapprehension that Justin, not John, was the one secretly trimming Gabrielle's bushes. Anyway, Carlos is suddenly less than ecstatic about the pregnancy that he engineered now that there's a chance the baby might not be his. Slapstick Susan we last saw being held at gunpoint by Insane Zach, and no one remembers that Edie exists, but she's going to get more screentime this season. Hurrah for Edie!
Of course, in the midst of this we have the new family, the Applewhites, with the obligatory terrible, terrible secret. Matriarch Betty used to be a concert pianist, but is now a perpetually-harassed looking suburban housewife. Son Matthew is...well, we don't really know what he is, other than a Great Big Stinkin' Chunk of Hotness. Seriously. Swoon. We know what the secret is, and it's a bit lame, to be honest. But it's worth tuning in for Bree's redefinition of funeral etiquette in the final minutes of the episode alone, God love that woman.
By Steve :: Post link
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