Desperate Housewives: The Complete First Season (Bilingue)

After seeing the Desperate Housewives commercials, back in 2005 on the canadian channel Radio-Canada, I was very intrigued by Marc Cherry's show, which was supposed to be claimed very controversial in the United States. And after watching its pilot, I was, for the first time, seeing an incredible and unique dramedy. A universe where Mary Alice Young, a wonderful housewife married to an excellent husband and raising a charming son, kills herself in less than a few hours. And as the season unfolds, we discover the lives of her four best friends, all living in the same street, who try to figure out the mystery of the suicide of their best friend.

Now the first thing that really amazed me is how Mary Alice, instead of just being a narrator who tells us what is happening on the screen, is a real character. She comments what she sees and manages to pinpoint to us several things that occur during the episode. not only that, her narration is well integrated in the editing and the story of each episodes. and personnaly, I think her character is one of the main reasons why Desperate Housewives is fun and very exciting to watch.

As for the other characters, it was amazing to see how these characters interacted between each other, even though their perosnalities were completely different. While Gabrielle is superficial and vain, Bree is a perfectionist and Lynette is a control-freak. As for Susan, she's a very desperate romantic who almost worships her gorgeous plumber, Mike Delfino. And even though the viewer's ideals can be in conflict with certain characters, the writers manage to give to their characters believable emotions and reactions. And so we get some empathy for all these characters, with the way they interact with their family, and even when they argue or do some horrible things to each other. Once again, it is as if we are witnessing real characters interacting with each other. And witness several incidents that could, or did, happen in our lives, whether at school or on our own street. With excellent guest characters like Maisy Gibbons, whom I would love to see again in the future, Helen Rowlands and Carlos Solis.

As for the directing, I just loved the frenzy and the sweet madness that the director of the pilot, Charles McDougall , managed to put. As the music as well by Steve Bartek, for the first two episodes. They were both important reasons as to why people just adored Desperate Housewives and it is sad really theat they couldn't collaborate on more episodes than that. Fortunately , we got Steve Jablonsky for the music and Larry Shaw as a director. Two great additions to the series. Including Danny Elfman's excellent main theme.

Thanks to all these ingredients, we finally get a dramedy that stands out of the ordinary for its humour, its incredible and mysterious atmosphere and especially for the incredible, but believable, incidents that can, and sometimes do, happen in our neighbourhood.