Perhaps desperate times called for desperate measures, but one thing is clear: Whatever sense of desperation compelled Marc Cherry to retake the reins of the show he introduced more than two years ago came just in time.
While it’s difficult to say that any TV show that pulled in more than 22 million viewers per week and finished the season ranked fourth overall was struggling, it was plain to see that ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” lost something in its sophomore season.
“Something” in addition to nearly 1.5 million viewers, that is.
It was its edge. The sense of daring and the unique voice that propelled the show to instant near-classic status was gone. The characters were still there, but the story, the intrigue, the dark humor wasn’t.
Cherry promised a change at the start of the third season. He vowed to be more hands-on, saying that every script would pass across his desk - a responsibility he may have let slip away last year. Two months into the new season, Cherry has once again managed to do what would seem impossible if it hadn’t happened on Wisteria Lane.
He hasn’t just silenced the critics. He’s made us stand up and shout once more about what a fantastic little slice of suburban heaven he and his team of writers have served up.
But it wasn’t easy.
“Housewives” kicked off the season with a premiere watched by more than 24 million people, according to Nielsen Media Research. The audience proceeded to dwindle weekly for a month, reaching a low of 19.7 million for the Oct. 22 episode.
But like a prize-fighter on the brink of a knockout, “Housewives” came back swinging and has owned November sweeps with a shocking Nov. 5 episode in which two characters were gunned down, and a follow-up Sunday that proved the earlier success was more than a one-shot deal.
“Housewives” is now averaging more viewers than any other show this season, holding a slim lead (22 million to 21.98 million viewers) over its old ABC neighbor, “Grey’s Anatomy.”
The turnaround came through the flushing away or fleshing out of storylines that remained from last season.
Tom and Lynnette’s inexplicable new appendage, Nora, the mother of Tom’s premarital love child, is finally gone. Her annoying presence lingered for a while, but a bullet to the chest took care of that disruption and even provided a moment that made her sympathetic while still leaving viewers happy to see her go.
Carlos and Gabby’s over-the-top Chinese surrogate mother story was given its due over-the-top sendoff as they discovered, at the moment of birth, that the baby wasn’t theirs, and they were back to warring with each other in some of the more entertaining scenes this season.
But, most important, Bree’s new marriage is shaping up to not quite be what we’d feared: another connection to a deranged psychopath. Her new husband, Orson, certainly has a temper, but recent events have thrown into question whether he, in fact, killed his previous wife as we all assumed from the season opener.
The least dramatic but most emblematic difference comes in the reinvention of Bree’s son, Andrew. He sank to new rebellious-son lows last season, too often leaping into purely implausible acts of revenge and loathing of his mom. But after getting kicked out of the house for a while, he’s returned and restored the comedic edge inside the Van De Kamp-turned-Hodge household.
Like Andrew, maybe all this show needed was a good, swift kick in the bottom to make us laugh again.
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