this spaceship earth

Desperate? Yes. Housewives? Not likely

OK, we've now had episode two of the next-big-thing in the 2005 range of all-new American cultural exports, Desperate Housewives. And there doesn't seem to be too much to justify the ravings. Sure it's been heavily, and I mean heavily, promoted: like the new tart in a bordello, she's been wheeled out to charm all and sundry. What TV show gets three outings on commercial TV ever (let's exempt the channel 10 7-7:30pm timeslot here) let alone thrice in one week?

We, as a nation, nay as a western collective conscious, must be seriously in need of some escapism to elevate a soap about a group of stereotyped women in their 40s with higher-than-average incomes to the "hottest thing on TV". I understand the American Beauty-esque "flip-side of the American dream" thing, but these women are stereotypes of stereotypes: the cold, robotic housewife; the desperate, endearing single mom; the harried mother of four; the hot-blooded latina. And of them, it is the latter that shits me the most. Surely not all beautiful women of latin descent are sluts? Or all ex-models, for that matter (although I'm willing to entertain conjecture on that one).

And so their storylines: the latina too rapacious to contain; the housewife too efficient to love; the singleton too needy to attract; the mother too occupied to think. Oh, and how could I forget the body under the pool? I mean, this is all in one dimension. Toadfish has more depth.

Yet it's won accolades, I hear you retort.

Originality? Bah. This TV show is nothing more than a placebo for Sex in the City fans without the clothes. And it's a suppository at that. As stereotyped as Miranda-the-career-woman, Charlotte-the-eternal-bride, Samantha-the-woman-on-top and Carrie-the-empty-vessel were, these new clones are, really, nothing new. It's just a change of back-story: Miranda=harried mom; Charlotte=Dr Kimberley Shaw; Samantha=latina; empty vessel=the-one-you're-meant-to-identify-with, Lois Lane. [And while I'm on Terri Hatcher, YOU ruined Tomorrow Never Dies] Quirky? Northern Exposure was quirky, Moonlighting was quirky, this is not quirky, this is melodrama. Soaps are, by their very nature, not quirky. They are sur-real, unreal: witness the growing colony of Melas Wen (yes, read it backwards) on Days of Our Lives. And yet the froth? So far, the tribulations of these women's lives don't add up to the last scoop of Fab up against those of JR, Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter or Dr Michael Mancini. And as for style, this is backlot LA remember.

So, what can we expect from the coming weeks of Desperate Housewives? The URST will come from the-single-mom-and-the shady-CIA-type vs whatever that is left of Nicolette Sheridan. The latina will get caught out. The busy mother will lose her mind and then her husband, probably in that order. And the robot will embark upon some sort of illicit affair. All glued together by the nosy Mrs Ochmonek character.

Whatever.

I'll probably be watching.

posted by skander @ 3:20 AM