A Yankee fan in Boston has only one place to look for comfort when it's Sunday night and the Red Sox lead (again) in the bottom of the fourth: the endearingly crap-tastic world of Sunday night TV programming. "America's Funniest Home Videos," "The Surreal Life" ... it doesn't get any better than this. So you throw on your pajama pants and fuzzy slippers, break open a bag of the greasiest, most unhealthy snack food you can find and settle in for a night of pure, unadulterated fluff.
But what is this? Where have all the Bob Saget bloopers and Vanilla Ice comeback attempts gone? Where are all the Hallmark made-for-TV movies and the televangelist testimonials? Is Sunday night television - dare I say it - looking up?
At the beginning of the fall season, the critics were certainly ready to dub 2004-05 a banner year for primetime TV. And at the heart of all the promising predictions was the newest addition to ABC's fall lineup, the quirky, dark comedy-drama from executive producer Marc Cherry, "Desperate Housewives." (Yes, that's right, folks, the same blessed man who brought us "The Golden Girls" in 1985.)
So if you happen to have been amongst the unlucky souls sporting oily fingers and a worn-in bathrobe this past Sunday, you may have also been amongst the millions of Americans who tuned into "Desperate Housewives" to see what all the fuss was about. And if you did, you were most assuredly reaffirmed in your faith that no matter how highly touted this show becomes, Sunday night fluff is still as much a part of American culture as mom's apple pie and George Bush's speech impediment.
"Desperate Housewives," is, appropriately enough, a show that mercilessly airs the skeletons in the closets of four picture-perfect "modern" homemakers who reside on idyllic Wisteria Lane. True to night-time soap form, "Desperate Housewives" mixes the drama of "Dallas," the romance of "Melrose Place" and the estrogen level of "Designing Women" into a thoroughly palatable - if not completely unrealistic - portrayal of life in suburban America.
This show, like all good fluff, has a can't-miss premise: Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong, known to many as "The Braless Wonder" of "Seinfeld" fame) is the poster child of suburban perfection, but mysteriously commits suicide in the series' first episode. She leaves behind an eerily distraught husband, a foursome of horrorstruck girlfriends and a flawlessly manicured lawn.
Friends and neighbors chalk it up as another casualty of the domestic doldrums until a menacing note from an anonymous enemy hints that Mary Alice was going to the extreme to cover up a dirty little secret. Now the infamous Mary Alice narrates from the great beyond, and as the mystery of her own death becomes more and more puzzling, she takes the audience on a behind-the-scenes tour of her friends' private lives - all of whom have plenty of dirty little secrets of their own.
So move over, June Cleaver. Step back, Martha Stewart. The ladies from Wisteria Lane are about to blow the cover off your crock pots!
And what ladies they are! In the first three episodes alone, Cherry has his girls juggling with two crumbling marriages, one affair with a minor, three unruly children, one suspected arsonist, two meddling neighbors and a plethora of love interests. With such a demanding script, casting directors Junie Lowry-Johnson and Scott Genkinger knew only the cr??me de la cr??me of small-screen actresses could possibly fit the bill. So naturally they turned to such accredited performers as Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross, Felicity Huffman and Eva Longoria to carry the show.
So after sitting through an hour of such utter rubbish, you might be wondering what could possibly compel someone to recommend this show. Well, let's just say that "Desperate Housewives" is the sort of rare drivel that one can't help but love. It's the sort of show that's so bad, it's actually been proven in clinical studies to raise the dopamine levels of its viewers. It has fought bitterly and won the right to call itself authentic Sunday night fluff, and the world is that much better for it.
So get those fuzzy slippers ready, because an all-new episode of "Desperate Housewives" is coming your way this Sunday at 9 p.m. on ABC. ?Vive la fluff!
