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\Desperate Housewives is the ultimate guilty pleasure
show. Dismissing is as only a guilty pleasure is unfair;
the show is smarter than some people give it credit for,
and its depiction of its shallow, plastic characters exemplifies
certain aspects of the Age of Consumption. (Such depictions
may have had more force before the Great Recession). ***
At this point, the show has settled into a nice, easy
routine. The characters are as synthetic as they ever were,
and plot points emerge with a comforting predicable soap
opera predictability. Susan (Teri Hatcher) has to rent out
her house and experiment with (very) soft-core porn (it’s
a website called Va-Va-Broom, featuring sexy house cleaning),
Gabrielle’s (Eva Longoria) daughter was actually switched
at birth with that of another couple, giving her some emotional
reunion scenes, and Paul Young (Mark Moses) is back from
jail, after Felicia Tilmer’s (Harriet Sansom Harris) attempt
to frame him for her sisters murder fails. ***
If all that sounds a bit complicated, it shouldn’t.
It is supposed to sound very complicated. By the end of
the first season, the show had enough plot twists and secrets
to last most shows five seasons, and the show has only grown
more complicated over time. Like many other twist-filled
shows (Lost and Twin Peaks spring to mind), Desperate Housewives
probably won’t be able to answer all its questions, especially
since next season will be its eight and final season. Still,
it’s fun to watch it try, and if the writing isn’t as good
as the show’s brilliant first season, it is still reliably
entertaining.
Image and Sound:
This DVD set looks and sounds good.
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| Special
Features: |
The DVD doesn’t have a whole lot of special features,
but what it has are decent. There is a piece called “Growing
Up On Wisteria Lane,” a trivia game, some deleted scenes,
and a bloopers and outtakes reel.
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