Official Synopsis:
Television's hottest show gets even juicier in its delicious second season. The women of Wisteria Lane are back, and, just when you thought things couldn't get any steamier, a new neighbor and her handsome teenage son arrive to make new waves on the shady side of suburbia. Join the Emmy® Award-winning cast for all 24 episodes of Season Two, and discover Bree's new life without Rex, Lynette's chaotic return to the working world and what becomes of Susan's on-again, off-again relationship with Mike. That's just the beginning of the secrets in store in this six-disc DVD experience. Sizzling with sensational bonus features, including revealing, never-before-seen story lines featuring Susan Mayer and Lynette Scavo, "there are almost too many things in Desperate Housewives" (San Francisco Chronicle).
Our Take:
A lot of television critics blasted the second season of Desperate Housewives for being uneven (at best) in terms of quality. And while it might not quite have lived up to the freshness of the first year, I have to say that it was still one of my favorite shows of last season. Few television entities can mesh comedy and drama together as well as Desperate Housewives, and whether it was Bree's near-breakdown and Lynette suspecting Tom of cheating on her or Gabby getting into a fight with a nun in a church, both sides of the show worked, and worked well.
I will say that the Applewhite storyline turned out to be a bit of a bust, with the "who's locked in the basement" suspense not being all that suspenseful. But Alfre Woodard was terrific as Betty, and I thought the story had some neat twists and turns towards the end. In fact, the end of the season as a whole picked up and was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to what the upcoming year has to offer.
As with the first set, this "Extra Juicy" DVD collection is jam-packed with extra features, and it's a real treat for fans of the show. Pretty much the entire cast sits for interviews at one point or another, so these are very involved extra features.
* Marc & Mom (9 minutes) - An interview with series creator Marc Cherry and his mother.
* Directing Desperate Housewives (16 minutes) - A making-of focusing on the directing aspect of the show. With lots of on-set footage.
* Desperate Role Models (7 minutes) - A look back with the crew on some of the more famous TV housewives of the past.
* Cherry Picked (28 minutes) - Creator Marc Cherry provides audio commentary on his 11 favorite scenes from the season.
* Unaired Story Lines (15 minutes) - Two unaired sequences that made up new one-episode storylines focusing on Lynette and Susan. These can be watched with optional commentary by Cherry.
* Deleted Scenes (16 minutes) - Eleven scenes cut from various episodes.
* Fashion & Couture (11 minutes) - A look at the girls' clothes.
* Juicy Bites - A pretty unnecessary and brief highlight reel of "exciting" moments from the season, with a few brief interview clips thrown in for good measure.
A lot of media attention was drawn to the fact that Desperate Housewives was surpassed in the ratings by Grey's Anatomy. Let's face facts, here, though; eventually, everything gets overpowered by something more popular. What those same media reports failed to mention was that Desperate Housewives remained one of the highest rated shows for the entire season last year. This show ain't going nowhere, folks. Some people just like to make a story out of nothing, I guess.
The bottom line here is that Desperate Housewives is still a terrific show with an amazing ensemble cast, a great blend of humor and drama, and a little bit of something for everyone. The DVD set is fantastic as well, so don't let anyone talk you out of picking up this excellent collection of Season Two.
RECOMMENDED!
Overall Picture:
Show: A-
DVD: A
- Mike Spring
Editor
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