`Desperate Housewives' Soaps Up Sunday Night
By Brooks Barnes
10 September 2004
The Wall Street Journal
IN A FAR CORNER of the Universal Studios back lot near Los Angeles, on a
faux suburban cul-de-sac once home to "Leave It to Beaver," actress Teri
Hatcher dabs gravy behind her ears with the hope that a hungry German
shepherd will lick her face. It is a typically offbeat scene from ABC's
new Sunday-night soap opera "Desperate Housewives."
Ms. Hatcher's character, eager to cozy up to her hunky new neighbor, uses
the gravy trick to befriend his dog. But the plan falls apart when one of
her earrings falls down Bongo's throat. Between take after retake, Ms. Hatcher
promises both the dog and the scene "will turn out OK in the end."
"Desperate Housewives," about the twisted private lives of a group of neighbors
with deceptively cheery facades -- narrated by a dead former homeowner -- forms
the center of the network's latest bid to end its ratings slump. Risky and
sophisticated, it is emerging as one of the more talked-about shows of the
fall TV season. The first episode alone features a raunchy older-woman-younger-man
affair, the "accidental" poisoning of a husband, and a four-alarm fire. With
10 writers, 12 major characters and an intense marketing campaign, the series
also is one of the most expensive, costing about $2 million an episode.
Most of the other series making debuts during the coming weeks are similar
to what is already on the air, or actual spinoffs. CBS will roll out "CSI: NY,"
the third version of its hit "Crime Scene Investigation" franchise, while
NBC's biggest new show is "Joey," the follow-up to "Friends." And then there
are the reality shows -- 21 on network TV alone. Given that lineup, how the
sudsy "Desperate Housewives" ended up on last-place ABC at all is itself a
Hollywood soap opera, populated by jaded TV executives, an unscrupulous agent
and out-of-work writers.
It started with a 42-year-old sitcom writer from Oklahoma named Marc Cherry,
who was living in Los Angeles and finding it difficult to find a job. A
veteran writer of such hit comedies as "The Golden Girls," Mr. Cherry decided
to do an about-face and write a drama. "I sat down at my kitchen table and
let it rip," he says.
Mr. Cherry says his mother served as a model for two of the women in what
would become "Desperate Housewives," and he drew on his other experience
with female casts. (Before "Golden Girls" he worked as Dixie Carter's assistant
on "Designing Women.") "I'm pretty well acquainted with the whole
women-sitting-around-talking thing," he says. What emerged was a darkly comic
drama with shades of mystery and action (part of the neighborhood goes up in
flames in the first episode).
Next up: shopping the project to the networks. Mr. Cherry says his agent took
the pilot script to Fox, NBC, CBS and HBO -- and all gave it a pass. At about
the same time, Mr. Cherry says his agent was convicted of embezzling tens of
thousands of dollars from him. "I couldn't have been more stunned," he says.
"Aside from the theft, she was lovely."
Mr. Cherry's new agent discovered his old agent had mistakenly shopped the
script to the network comedy, not drama, divisions, which rejected it as too
serious. So, in September 2003, Mr. Cherry got the script to the only place
he hadn't tried: ABC.
It was good timing. The network's slate of safe, family-friendly programming
wasn't connecting with viewers and ABC was running last among the major
networks in the ratings race. Under intense pressure from corporate parent
Walt Disney, ABC executives opted for a switch to more grown-up fare and
took a risk on Mr. Cherry's quirky drama. "One show doesn't save a network,"
says Stephen McPherson, president of ABC's prime-time entertainment division.
"But we think the show is a building block that will help get the momentum back."
Mr. Cherry decided to tell his story partly through one neighbor, Mary Alice,
who commits suicide. With voiceovers and flashbacks, she looks into the
private lives of her friends, discovering things aren't as perfect on
Wisteria Lane as she had thought. The neighbors, meanwhile, try to figure
out why the seemingly happy Mary Alice would kill herself. "This show is
about the choices we make in life," Mr. Cherry says. "And when you get what
you've chosen and you're still not happy, then what do you do?"
Ms. Hatcher, best known as Clark Kent's girlfriend in the series
"Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," plays Susan, a divorcee
whose teenage daughter pressures her to start dating. The most obvious
target: a handsome widowed plumber who moves in next door. (Or is he a
plumber? Mr. Cherry hints otherwise.) But there is competition on the block,
chiefly from a trio of desperate housewives all played by actresses who cut
their teeth on Aaron Spelling-produced high-gloss, prime-time soap operas:
Nicolette Sheridan of "Paper Dolls" (and, later, "Knots Landing"); Marcia
Cross of "Melrose Place" and Eva Longoria of "Beverly Hills 90210." Felicity
Huffman rounds out the cast as a hard-charging executive who recently gave
up the corner office to raise her three sons, not without regrets.
The big cast is part of the reason the show is so expensive, but ABC also
is backing the Oct. 3 launch with one of its most expensive marketing
campaigns in recent years. Aside from the normal promotional spots, there
are ads on billboards and buses and "screening parties" at health clubs.
"This is a defining show for us," says Mike Benson, senior vice president
of marketing.
Launching new programming is always a high-wire act -- at least 50% of new
shows typically fail within a year -- and Stacey Lynn Koerner, director of
global research for the ad-buying firm Initiative, notes that the show faces
"massive competition" in its 9 p.m. time slot from NBC's "Law & Order:
Criminal Intent." It also is up against a new, well-reviewed series from the
WB network, "Jack & Bobby."
A lot of people in Hollywood think "Desperate Housewives" has a liability
in its title. "They are going to have a tough time getting men to tune in
with a title like that," says Robert Thomas, a professor of television
studies at Syracuse University in upstate New York.
But Jeff Bader, ABC's director of scheduling, says the series isn't out to
get a big male audience, at least in the beginning. "If we get the women,
we think the men will come along," he says, noting that the drama will air
in the former time slot of HBO's "Sex and the City," which was must-see TV
for many women. "My suspicion is that we're always going to have more men
watching the show than are willing to admit," he says.
© Dow Jones & Company, Inc. 2004. All Rights Reserved.