Getting Desperate...

So, first season of Desperate Housewives.

First thing to note is that the exec. producer of that show does excellent commentary. Almost as good as Whedon and his Buffy/Angel/Firefly cohorts.

Second thing is that in the commentary of the final episode, he mentions wanting to avoid the mistakes of Twin Peaks, and make sure that the mystery does in fact pay off. This is a good lesson to learn, certainly; would that, say, Nowhere Man had taken it to heart. But I think that he's overcompensating for Twin Peaks: far, far too much was wrapped up in the finale. We pretty much know everything there is to know about all of these people at this point. Sure, there's the Applewhites moving in, but they can hardly add new neighbors forever until the end of time. The show worked because of the three-fold convergance of mystery, soap, and comedy, and It'll remain to be seen if it can replace that first leg or manage to balance for long on just the two remaining...

And the third thing is that, like Seinfeld, keeping a cast full of generally horrible people in the sympathy of the audience depends on surrounding them with people who are even more awful than they, and by the end of the season, many of the supposed protagonists in danger of losing all likability whatsoever. And meanwhile, Edie keeps coming across better than the supposed mains...