Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Desperate Housewives: The Complete Fourth Season



Desperate Housewives - Season Four
"Desperate Housewives" made its debut in 2004 to rave reviews and high Nielsen ratings. Season one of the show is considered a modern classic. For most people, the same couldn't be said for seasons two and three. Many people though the second and third seasons were disappointing. I thought the second season was good (though not great), and the third season was a slight improvement over season two (though it still didn't top the first season). But after watching the entire fourth season of "Desperate Housewives", the show is back on track. This is the best season since the first.

Season four of the show about those housewives from the fictional Wisteria Lane (located in the town of Fairview) was the most interesting, most intriguing, and most entertaining season since season one. Many of the same major characters are back: Susan, Lynette, Bree, Gabrielle, Edie, Mike, Carlos, Tom, Orson, and narrator Mary Alice. But what really makes the fourth season of "Desperate...

Back to the basics
In season 4 of DH we see the show going back to the basics, to the thing that made fans love DH: the friendships. The friendships of Lynette, Susan, Bree and Gabrielle, as well as each individual character, were tested over and over again and they endured. It was this quality of enduring friendship amongst women that makes this show so good.

Season 3 dealt with each women independently, barely interacting with the other friends and thus we lost that which made the show worthwhile, their interactions. Season 4 takes another route and shows the women provide each other a strong support system. Lynette relies on her friends and family to go through cancer, Bree deals with faking a pregnancy, Susan must deal with her marriage with Mike and Gabrielle must decide between Carlos and Victor.

We also see the introduction of another character, Katherine Mayfair (and of course, her many secrets which...

Terrific extras make an already good season a must-have set for fans.
There's little else to add to what others have said of the season itself. Instead, I wanted to note the great extras that make this DVD set a nice buy. Several are of the same type as previous season sets:

There are audio commentaries for six episodes, the first by Marc Cherry and some writers with nice tidbits (season 3 was to end with the revelation of Bree faking her pregnancy but ABC didn't think that was dramatic enough so they came up with Edie's "Hanging"). The other five are "Couple commentaries" with nice banter between the actors and some fun stuff (like Marcia Cross marveling at how her cleveage was so big early in the season).

"Desperate From Beginning to End" looks at the creation of an episode, this one the tornado ep. It notes what a challenge it was with all the stunts and special effects work and how amazed they were ABC let them destory the set like that. It's a great insight to how they created the amazing story.

Hanging with the Men...

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