Product Description
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Experience the television phenomenon that has fans cheering and
critics raving. "Refreshingly original, bracingly adult, and
thoroughly delightful, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES is like the answer to
a TV prayer you didn't know you'd made," says Robert Bianco of
USA Today. Now you can spend the night with the women of Wisteria
Lane and relive every minute of the weekly television event that
heated up water coolers from coast to coast. With spectacular
bonus features, including extended, unrated episodes, this
sizzling six-disc set is full of surprises and loaded with
entertainment.
.com
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Audiences were captivated by the women of Wisteria Lane in the
first season of Desperate Housewives, the breakout hit from ABC
that almost single-handedly lifted the network from its ratings
doldrums and brought back the classic TV soap, remixed now with
satire, comedy, and mystery. An affectionate yet darkly tinged
send-up of suburbia that skirted Twin Peaks territory as much as
that of Knots Landing, Desperate Housewives opened with a
bang--literally--as perfect-seeming housewife Mary Alice Young
(Brenda Strong) went through her picture-perfect day before
putting a hand to her temple and pulling the trigger. Mary
Alice's sudden suicide leaves her four closest friends, all
housewives of a sort, with a surfeit of grief, a re-examination
of their own lives, and a mystery to solve. It also proves to be
a catalyst for a seamy study of what goes on inside the finely
appointed homes of Wisteria Lane--the tales of which Mary Alice
narrates from beyond the grave with a sardonic tone dipped in
both honey and arsenic.
There's Martha Stewart-perfect Bree (Marcia Cross), who rules
her household with an iron fist in a tailor-made garden glove and
seems to have it all, until she finds out her husband (Steven
Culp) is cheating on her--and had a serious fetish habit to boot.
Sultry Gaby (Eva Longoria), the youngest of the set, is a bored
trophy wife whose predilection for shopping and clothes are the
perfect decoy for her affair with the hunky teenage gardener
(Jesse Metcalfe). Former career woman Lynette (Felicity Huffman)
is the most stereotypical housewife, raising four (or was it
five?) kids and frustrated at using her cutthroat business skills
for suburban politics. And daffy Susan (Teri Hatcher), the
divorcee looking for love, sees her prospects brighten with the
arrival of hunky plumber Mike (James Denton), who has some
desperate secrets of his own. And did we mention the neighborhood
hussy (Nicollette Sheridan), the snotty busybody (Christine
Estabrook), and Mary Alice's increasingly agitated son (Cody
Kasch)?
It was a fast and wild mix of plot and characters that gave
Desperate Housewives the zing that made it a number one hit, as
it never got too bogged down in any dilemma before moving on to
the next. And though it was neither as hard-hitting nor salacious
as it was trumpeted to be, the show nevertheless breathed fresh,
funny air into comedy television, for even though it hewed to the
hour-long soap format, the content was far more dark comedy than
sudsy drama. There were fun bright spots to be had, but the story
behind Mary Alice's death--which included drugs, murder,
blackmail, secret identities, and vengeance in equal
as--hovered over all the characters, tingeing the farce with
the specter of danger. The show's other source of strength is in
its peerless ensemble cast, headed by four perfect leading
ladies, all Emmy-worthy. Hatcher received the (deserved) lion's
share of praise (and a Golden Globe), but her
co-stars--especially the underrated Longoria--matched her scene
for scene. And though the mystery of Mary Alice's death was
ultimately solved (no Twin Peaks teasing here), it was just the
beginning of the troubles on Wisteria Lane, where no life went
unexamined for too long. --Mark Englehart
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Set Contains:
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On the Desperate Housewives DVD set, the 23 episodes are
presented in widescreen format, and six of the episodes can also
be viewed in "unrated, extended" versions. The additions--usually
one scene, and no racier than the regular broadcast versions--are
seamlessly integrated into the episodes, but series creator Marc
Cherry's introductions help the viewer figure out what they are,
and he explain how he thinks each addition affects the episode.
The new scenes--which were cut for time--are consistently good,
and there's really no reason not to watch the extended episodes
instead of the originally broadcast ones. It's a little curious,
though, that seven other episodes have a deleted scene (no
episode is both extended and has a deleted scene). It's a credit
to the series that the deleted scenes are also excellent, but
then the question becomes why the deleted scenes weren't simply
added back in to make more extended episodes. Judging by Cherry's
introductions, the scenes that were added back in had a notable
effect on the characterization. Apparently, such tidbits as
Nicollette Sheridan in skimpy lingerie or another amusing
interchange between Bree and George the cist didn't measure
up.
Cherry also recorded commentary tracks for five episodes, either
alone or with director Larry Shaw. He tends a little too much
toward self-congratulation and talking about his mother, but he
also has ample praise for his actors' ability to improvise and
lends in into the writer's perspective. More fun is the five
leading ladies' separate commentaries for a few of their favorite
scenes (about half an hour total). Scattered among the discs are
a blooper reel and five featurettes (about 67 minutes total)
discussing the characters' clothes and homes, the show's
international appeal, casting decisions, the show's much-hyped
secrets, and how naked Teri Hatcher had to be for her "locked
out" scene. Last, and least, is an eight-minute segment in which
Oprah moves to Wisteria Lane. --David Horiuchi
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