Desperate Housewives

1st season - 90% - Quite an unexpected bomb in the avalanche of TV series, an unbelievable main quartet that I fell in love with at first sight, amazingly written supporting characters, Mary Alice's ironic commentary, and touching and surprisingly natural closing montages. It's impossible not to be enthusiastic about everything that can be packed into a single TV series in such a small space, it's just a pity that the irony was a bit too strong in the final episodes. With hindsight of x years and series (and varying quality of other relationship series), one appreciates the first season even more, even though it certainly wasn't the peak of the series. But it is undoubtedly a triumphal start to the phenomenon. 2nd season - 70% - Disappointment from the first episodes. Everything is more ironic, more intertwined, and unfortunately weaker. The writers sometimes seem to be just waving the characters around, especially Susan starts to dangerously repeat herself and Bree becomes just a schematic figure at times. Even better: With a touch of exaggeration, it can be said that in the second season, the four heroines divided the four moods that the series evokes. Lynette is there for the family atmosphere, Bree for drama, Susan for romance, and Gabrielle for ironic humor. But just when I thought the series would slowly but surely decline, it caught its second wind halfway through the season and captivated me again with new motifs. The tension and intensity of the romance increased and the central mystery suddenly looked much more interesting than in the beginning. The season eventually reached a surprising finale in all plotlines, surprisingly well-played for the third season. The pattern of family secrets still works, as does the charm of the main actresses. 3rd season - 90% - A surprising shock in the most positive sense of the word. Although I wouldn't have believed it after a noticeably weaker previous season, the first fifteen episodes are the best that Desperate Housewives has ever offered. Every relationship interests me, every character has gotten under my skin over time, new ones have their firm place, some old ones unexpectedly return, and above all, the mysterious detective story reaches a new level. And when the performances mature like wine, just like the charms of the main actresses, I can only be extremely satisfied. I criticized the second season for each of the main quartet overtly evoking a certain mood. In the last third of the third season, not all the housewives are present and suddenly they lose that rare complexity and timelessness. Due to the premature resolution of the mysterious plot, it loses its charge easily and has to rely only on relationships. Even there, however, they do well and better over time, so with the cards currently dealt, I eagerly await the continuation. 4th season - 80% - Definitive confirmation of stable quality and the realization that this group of beauties will be a reliable certainty for a long time. They have been through a lot, but they still have so much enthusiasm that it's enviable. Everyone is returning who has something to say in the story, and I again think that even though I may not have completely believed in them (again and again, incorrectly), I got back everything and more. And yet, it seemed surprisingly long that Wisteria Lane residents were running out of steam and the new stories were becoming pure calculations and relying on things we have already seen. After all, the first half of the season is simply derived from what happened in the final episodes of the previous one. But then, one unexpected natural disaster and the storyline takes such a turn that I have to start forgiving the previous missteps and let the perfect scripts carry me to the powerful epilogue exactly where Marc Cherry wanted me to be. Even so, I realize that Desperate Housewives, at this stage, is only very well-crafted work and even though I will gladly return to the next season, it does not seem like they will ever be my pure favorite. To love them as an indivisible whole, they would have to stop playing with the line between drama and irony so painfully. 5th season - (12/11/2006) (moins) (plus)