Can They Ever Recover that Magic?I have loved Desperate Housewives ever since I first watched the show in my trip to India in 2006. Since the Indian TV season is about 6 months behind, Season 2 was concluding in mid-August, and I got my first taste of the show then. I've been hooked ever since. I have now seen every episode at least twice, and run through Seasons 1-4 in Housewives marathons on multiple occasion. For the past six days, I have started and finished off Season 1 again, and this most recent watching has reaffirmed my belief that Season 1 of Housewives was the finest drama/comedy on TV this decade. It was perfect. The storylines were original and captivating. The season-long mystery was finely constructed, and played out in an exacting way that was perfect. The casting was done brilliantly, as the cast was totally believable as a upper-middle income suburb. It was perfect.
This is in stark contrast to the show in it's past two Seasons. After a nice bounce-back in Season 4, the show has again lost its way. After Season 4, creator/producer/writer/Czar Marc Cherry took the bold step to leap five years forward, and start Season 5 five years after Season 4 ended. This perfectly coincided with the show's drop in quality (not to mention ratings, which although still very good, aren't where Seasons 1-4 were). Lost in the five-year jump were storylines, mysteries, character development, and the most egregious of all, the seemingly jumbled kids ages. The kids all seemed to grow 10 years in the five year jump. But none of that truly explains why the show isn't up to the standard it set early on.
There is a funny thing about TV shows, something that seems to afflict it more than it does any other media genre, is that nostalgia is a way of life. Nearly every show seemingly gets old, used and common after a while, and its loyal fans yearn for the good ol' glory days of yore. In most cases, the show actually does get appreciably more unoriginal and stale (not truly bad, as that is a different thing) as times moves on, with shows like Friends, Seinfeld, How I Met Your Mother, the Office, 24, and so many more as prime examples. In a way, this reason, this inevitable nostalgia that sets in with every show is a large reason why I am happy that Arrested Development left the air after three seasons, it never had enough time to grow old. The major tangible reason for this problem that besets every show on television is that overtime, the characters grow into caricatures, as their unique characteristics get so pointed and focused that they take over the character itself, like Monica, who grew increasingly, bitchy and neurotic, or Kramer, who grew increasingly crazy. This hasn't exactly happened with Housewives. Susan has become a slight caricature of the klutzy, sweet woman, but other than that, the main characters are largely similar to the ones at the start of the show: independent, strong and growing. No, the problems that have fallen on Housewives stretch further. Anyway, here are the five best ways to change the show and get close to what it was in Season 1:
1.) Jump around with time more
No, this does not mean that Marc Cherry should sign up the cast for another multi-year jump forward, but rather to play around with time more. Have more flashbacks, with maybe an entire flashback episode thrown in. Sure, this is really just a way of me getting what I truly want: more time with Rex Van De Kamp, but it will be nice to get a flashback. With Paul Young back on the lane for Season 7, the show is obviously not afraid to dig into its past, so why not dig deeper. Have a flashback to a time before the show's purview started, to when Susan and Karl were still married, Rex was alive, and Mary Alice did not have a shot-wound in her head. To me, this is a better way of doing business than just bringing in 5 new characters each episode, and increasing the list of regulars all the time with no end in site.
2.) Have someone big die again
When Rex died at the end of Season 1, it was no huge deal. Rex was the third death that Season, and the first of any big character (Main Housewive or Main Housewives' Husband). Since, it has only happened one other time, with Victor Lang dying, but he was already on the outs with Gaby before the death. The closest death we have had since was Edie, but even then, the news was out before hand. Cherry was able to keep the rumors under wraps with Rex. It was a total surprise, as well as the most emotionally amazing scene in the show's history. Another key piece needs to fall, wether it be Mike, Carlos or Tom. My guess is Cherry will keep Tom alive, just because he seems intent on having one couple stay together for the entirety of the show. Mike would be interesting, since it would be a natural end to six years of craziness. Of course, it could be a housewife, but I have a feeling that we will never see one of the main four housewives die, but a Katherine, or McCluskey, or even one of the kids. In fact, make it one of the kids. Make it Andrew, or even one of the Scavo kids. The deaths in the early seasons were some of the most emotionally charged scenes in the shows' history.
Yes, I hated that Rex had to die, but God damnit was that a beautiful scene.
3.) Don't change the characters anymore
This does not mean keep them the exact same as they were in Season 1, but don't have them do things that go totally against who they are and what they stand for. The worst example of Cherry and co. failing to live up to this tenet was with the ill-fated, and inevitably deadly, Bree-Karl affair. Bree is not someone who is going to start an illicit affiar with one of her closest friends' ex-husband. Sorry, it isn't happening. Bree might not be the moral saint that she pretends to be, but she's not the sneaky adulterer either. Other characters have suffered smaller mental changes, but they should go back to who they were in Season 1. I realize they are now ten year older in TV years then when they started, but that shouldn't make them hornier or more criminalous.
4.) Have better, more complex mysteries
Only two seasons have had good mysteries, Seasons 1 and 3. The mysteries in the other four seasons were all two easy to get and to thin. They were either someone dying, or some old lover is back to get even. It might be cliched, but the "who killed the victim" mystery is still the best. In Season 1, that question was adjusted to "why did Mary Alice kill herself", but it still had the major elements. There were so many mini-mysteries in Season 1 that all related to the big mystery. 'Why did Mary Alice kill herself?' sprouted into 'Who blackmailed Mary Alice?', 'Why did Mary Alice used to be called Angela?', 'Who the hell is Dana?', 'Why is Mike looking for some druggy in Fairview, and why is he in cahoots with an old billionaire?'. Season 1 was perfect mainly because its season-long mystery was perfect. Season 3 came close, but the mystery wrapped-up way too soon, leaving dull episodes at the end of the season. All we know about Season 7 is that Paul is returning, and there is a child that was mistakenly (or maybe intentionally) given to the wrong mother. Whether those two things are connected is not known. Bringing Paul back gives me hope. I honestly think that one year it should just be a CSI: Housewives sort of deal, where like Julie dies in the Season premier, and the Season revolves around finding out who killed her, and for what reasons.
5.) Make the Housewives interact with each other more
If anything has noticeably changed since Season 1, it is this. There used to be so many episodes in Seasons 1-3 that featured two or more of the housewives in the same place, whether it be a dinner party or just a general party. Having the housewives together with their husbands is always better than 5 individual stories with minimal interaction. This is also a problem that affects a whole lot of shows. The individual characters become just that, individual, as time goes on. In Season 1, there were four different dinner parties hosted, not to mention a birthday party. There were episodes that were more of the housewives together than not. All of those things are absent now. They are really just neighbors, not friends, anymore seeing that they are all by themselves quite a bit. If anything should change, it should be this. The show was at its best when it was exploring the lives of four friends who's friendships would strengthen and weaken like the tide, not when it was exploring the lives of five neighbors who liked each other.
C'mon Marc Cherry, give us a damn dinner party or two, a good mystery, a nice, little death, some flashbacks to past characters (Rex, REX, damnit, Marc, aren't you listening?!? R-E-X!!), and characters that don't change dramatically for no good reason, and I guarantee you will have a better product to release to fans that love the show so much for, sadly, what it once was: the greatest drama/comedy of the decade.
