DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES: THE COMPLETE EIGHTH AND FINAL SEASON
(not rated)
MOVIE: *1/2 (out of 5)
BLU-RAY EXPERIENCE: ** (out of 5)
Created by: Marc Cherry
BY KEVIN CARR
If you asked me (and clearly no one did), “Desperate Housewives” jumped the shark around season two or three. What was once a clever update on the weirdness of suburbia storyline, the show collapsed under its own weight. Over the past eight seasons, “Desperate Housewives” tried to be too many things – a meta soap opera, an agent of societal change, a sexy series with hot actors and actresses, a tender heartfelt show and a bitingly sarcastic look at excess.
After years of jumping back and forth in chronology and not caring about keeping that straight, the series just got too confusing to follow. Additionally, showrunner Marc Cherry tried to show the housewives as spoiled women only a few steps out of a reality show while trying to defend their actions as average housewives who were just trying to keep their families together. You can’t have this both ways, and here’s where the series fell apart.
The final season begins with a ludicrous premise – that the housewives have to band together to cover up a completely legitimate and justified murder at the Solis house. After hiding the body, the women bicker and fight, with each one showing their guilty hand in one way or another. Unable to sustain any semblance of reality or logic in this storyline, showrunner Cherry uses daytime soap opera reasoning to propel this plot device.
As the season winds down to its bitter end, the final episodes drag. These are meant to tenderly look back at eight years of entertainment, but they quickly become tedious. Even the finale episode provides a curtain call with the apparent ghosts of deceased characters looking upon the residents of Wisteria Lane. Forget the fact that many of these dead characters had their own exit in brutal and unappealing ways. (Of course, noticeably missing from this curtain call is Nicolette Sheriden, who famously sued Cherry for the way she left the series.)
I was happy to see “Desperate Housewives” end. It should have done this half a decade ago.
The final DVD set includes bloopers and deleted scenes, as well as a commentary on the finale episode with Marc Cherry. There is also one featurette included: “I Guess This Is Goodbye,” which features the cast and crew reflecting on the series eight-season run.