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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
43
Mixed:
13
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
One of the fall season's most purely enjoyable new series is also one of the very best. [1 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Deliciously written ... this is the most compelling and original television series, and [Marc] Cherry our most gifted auteur, since The West Wing and Aaron Sorkin burst upon the scene five long years ago. [1 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
It is not enough to say that Desperate Housewives is the best new series of the fall. In a season of forgettable sitcoms, the hour show is the funniest newcomer. In a largely predictable lineup, it is a shrewd mystery with involving twists. In a medium that often shortchanges women, it is a grand showcase for accomplished actresses. [1 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The smartest and most entertaining new series on the fall schedule. [3 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
A brilliantly conceived and relentlessly entertaining new drama. [1 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Serving up the kind of dialogue that leads to tears and cackles, it may be the most joyfully scathing look at stifled lives network TV has ever seen. [1 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Refreshingly original, bracingly adult and thoroughly delightful, Desperate Housewives is like the answer to a TV prayer you didn't know you'd made. You just know life was much duller before it arrived. [1 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Funnier than all of the new sitcoms combined, featuring the strongest ensemble of dramatic actresses around and able to leap genre cliches in a single jump cut, 'Desperate Housewives' is the superwoman of the new fall season and is easily the most delightful and intriguing hour to come along on ABC in years. [1 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
"Desperate Housewives" is not just back, but quite possibly better than ever. [24 Sep 2006]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
What makes Desperate Housewives so intriguing -- and, in a broadcast universe that feels cookie-cutter homogenous, so different -- is the risks it takes. [3 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The best new series of the season, it's a drama that deftly blends familiar elements of "The Stepford Wives" and "American Beauty" with a dash of "Twin Peaks," while still managing to feel strikingly new. [3 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
In visual style, witty language, borderline surrealism and overall mad attitude, "Desperate Housewives" stands on a mountaintop all its own, the best new drama of the season and perhaps the best new comedy, too. [3 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 2 Review:
Just be grateful to be back in the neighborhood. [26 Sep 2005]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
"Desperate Housewives" is, quite simply, a very good time. [30 Sep 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Cherry delivers on his promise to make the show funnier this season. [23 Sep 2006]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
"Housewives" appears to have gotten its humorous groove back. [22 Sep 2006]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
This third season promises to be delicious. The first episode is wickedly funny and warped. [22 Sep 2006]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 2 Review:
The second-season opener, fortunately, featured a couple of knockout, buzzworthy moments as well as a tantalizing new plot thread, promising that this suburban soap's back alleys and side streets have plenty of stories left to divulge. [27 Sep 2005]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Desperate Housewives' style and dark, comic tone owe much to such groundbreaking cable productions as HBO's Six Feet Under. And, while the writing is no match for that of Alan Ball... several fine performances by an outstanding ensemble cast make Desperate Housewives one of the more wickedly entertaining network pilots of the fall. [3 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Unique, fresh, and quite entertaining. [1 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Part prime-time soap opera, part wicked social satire, this unpredictable newcomer has a blast poking around at the dark edges of a sunny and seemingly perfect suburban neighborhood. [3 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The season's brightest, darkest new drama. [3 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
There are the sort of soapy goings-on you might expect, but it's done with style and -- most importantly -- wit. This is one very funny show. [1 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
A kinky streak of humor keeps Desperate Housewives from sliding into morose desolation. [3 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The series tells hard, funny truths about marriage and parenting that often escape notice in other stories - truths which suggest that writer-creator-producer Marc Cherry and his collaborators have actually taken the time to understand the people they're satirizing. [2 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
As events unfold, they unfold with humour and, sometimes, extreme goofiness. This ain't a typical new TV drama of this season. There are no grim lawyers and cops muttering forensics babble. It's all about the women and their wit. With five juicy roles for women and all five leading ladies in top form, it's a lot of fun. [1 Oct 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The new prime-time soap opera "Desperate Housewives" could be described as a guilty pleasure - but there's no reason for guilt. This show is an absolute pleasure - and the most entertaining new show of the fall season. [30 Sep 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
What makes "Desperate Housewives" so much fun is that as ridiculous as some of the scenarios are ... these scenes are also rooted in truth. Sure, the show offers a heightened reality, but it's not too far-fetched. [30 Sep 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Judging by the fine, funny - and, yes, mysterious - third season premiere, Cherry is keeping his witty, plot-twisting word ... so far. [24 Sep 2006]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Sunday's third-season premiere is not Desperate at its best, but it's better than most anything the show had to offer last year, particularly at the start. [22 Sep 2006]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 2 Review:
"Desperate Housewives" has been spinning its storytelling wheels this fall. ... But we kvetch too much. Despite its slightly diminished state, most of the time "Housewives" remains a Sunday night delight. [30 Oct 2005]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
An inspired wedding of sharp comedic sensibilities with primetime soapiness ... The one cautionary flag is preventing the soapy elements from bubbling over the top, as they threaten to do on only a few occasions in the premiere. [27 Sep 2004]
Season 5 Review:
As creator Marc Cherry explained this summer, he wanted to re-set the series and get the stories back to something more closely resembling reality. Sunday's season premiere does that pretty well with some of the women's stories, especially Lynette (Felicty Huffman), whose twins are now terrible teens.
Read full review
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
The show seems more oriented to female viewers than ever. [24 Sep 2006]
Dec 14, 2010
Season 7 Review:
Now in its seventh season, ABC's classic prime-time soap opera remains slickly watchable, but the momentum is seeping out. [29 Nov 2010, p.44]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
It's reinvigorated. The third season of ABC's "Housewives" begins Sunday night at 9 with an assurance and a knowing playfulness that was missing most of last year. [22 Sep 2006]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
While we've got to be grateful that last season's tone-deaf Applewhite saga has seen its end, this year's "DH" still is sounding the occasional flat note, sometimes by repeating its past and other times by ignoring it altogether. [22 Sep 2006]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 2 Review:
Perhaps it was too much to hope that the second season of Housewives would get off to the same kind of explosive start as the first. But we do expect the series to do more than just mark time. [10 Oct 2005]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 2 Review:
The longer this show goes on, the more it seems like a network soap in cable drama drag. ... "Housewives" is a depressingly safe show, one that cushions the impact of its plot twists with the dramatic equivalent of air bags. [27 Sep 2005]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
It's "Desperate Housewives" all over again -- the whodunit overlaid by a titillating comedy of shame-based suburban manners and shame-based depravity, the word "bitch" used scandalously. [24 Sep 2006]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Even in the first episode, it's clear that "Desperate Housewives" is a vastly improved series from a year ago. The passing is better; the tone is more focused. It's funnier and more focused. But it's also still "Desperate Housewives," and there's that malodorous whiff of the whole thing being past its sell-by date. [22 Sep 2006]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
What is this, 1961? Who portrays women as non-productive mooches, hellbent on doing nothing besides living off their hard-working husbands and sleeping with the help? [30 Sep 2004]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
The third season finds the show going in circles. [23 Sep 2006]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 2 Review:
We're now three episodes into the second season of "Housewives," and the show still doesn't seem to have any traction. ... What's wrong so far this season, for the most part, has been the tone. [11 Oct 2005]
Jun 20, 2013
Season 1 Review:
It delivers mixed signals. Because the language is elevated, the production assured and the acting fine, it can feel that something important is happening. But perhaps there is less here than meets the eye; maybe it's just a tricked-up mystery show. It comes on like satire, but it's too scattershot, too inconsistent, too over the top to make any significant points.
Read full review
Jun 20, 2013Flak MagazineJul 3, 2013
Season 2 Review:
The show has lost focus and flavor, delivering nothing but — sigh — leftovers. What's changed? Not much — and that's the problem. With a large, adoring fan base and powerhouse ratings, it may have seemed wise not to mess with what was working. But relying on formula has done nothing but let the show grow stale.
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Jun 20, 2013
Season 2 Review:
Now the novelty is wearing off, and the hour is edging toward vapidity. ... The story is too rooted in convention to be truly outrageous, too melodramatic to make it plausible as anything but goofy comedy. How long do we need to play along? [13 Oct 2005]
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013
Season 2 Review:
'Desperate Housewives' is the worst show on the broadcast networks. ... The show is adrift in silly contrivances (as opposed to inventive situations), painful dialogue and obvious wheel-spinning. The solution to ending or spicing up any boring story line is just to inject some over-the-top melodrama or at the very least, have various characters in floods of tears or running about screeching. Or, failing all that, have Teri Hatcher fall down.
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