Customer Reviews

Desperate Housewives: The Complete Sixth Season

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The five-year jump at the end of season five highlighted what was to be a rocky road for the inhabitants on Wisteria Lane. For the viewers, too. A lot happened at the end of season five and also when the show returned for its sixth run on September 27, 2009.

Dark, ominous creatures moved into town and took the shape of the Bolen family. By the end of episode one, NICE IS DIFFERENT THAN GOOD, a regular cast member is jumped from behind and strangled into a violent coma. Susan Mayer's daughter, Julie, is hospitalized and Susan is left to grieve (Hatcher's acting chops are versatile in this season) next to her newly recycled beau, Mike Delfino. Hatcher gives a flawless performance as an anguished mom.

The sixth season unfolds with scores of strange undercurrents. Lynette and Tom are expecting twins. As if their lives are not consumed with enough energy from the other rug rats in the family. Bree finds solace, albeit reluctantly, with a man named Karl Mayer--Susan's ex. And later in the season, Bree reveals a secret that may surprise some viewers. Gabrielle and Carlos have to deal with a rebellious teenager to whom many moms watching can attest. Jesse Metcalfe returns as John, but only to stir up dirt between Gabrielle and Carlos, who seem to be "settling down" in their own comfortable life. Only that illusion dissolves later when Gabriel puts her own life on the line to help try and save Angie Bolen.

A same-sex love affair/relationship blossoms between Katherine Mayfair and a newcomer to the show, Julie Benz. It fizzles, and by the end of the season the question whether or not Katherine and Robin will return hangs in the air. Nonetheless, Benz's depiction of Robin is lovely and down-to-earth--a nice addition to some of the unpleasant characters living on Wisteria Lane. Turmoil suddenly erupts during the Christmas holiday, leaving lives hanging in the boughs. Later in the season, a stranger drifts into town and marks his presence at the Bolen family house.

The ongoing Fairview "strangler" storyline is an interesting arc throughout the season. Who attacked Julie Mayer? Viewers are left to wonder until the end, horror-struck, who the culprit really is. And when that happens, more disaster between the characters explode into a nail-biting finale. Questions are left unanswered, and the women on Wisteria Lane are in another conundrum--a perfect but somewhat frustrating dilemma for rabid fans of the show. Now we must wait until the fall to revisit our favorite guilty pleasure and get answers to our many questions.

Desperate Housewives season six may tread water at times, however: viewers are hungry for interaction with the women of Wisteria Lane. The absence of Lynette, Susan, Bree, Katherine and Gabrielle sitting around the table playing poker and gossiping about the latest goings-on is solely missed in this season. The problem: Too many new characters and storylines seem to have drowned out the lives of the main players. For example, the relationship between Susan and her daughter, Julie, is limited during the sixth season. We miss the bond that they had developed in earlier years. Maybe when Julie is out of the hospital, she can go home to recover. Newcomers, Bob and Lee, were introduced to the show in season five to a standing ovation. By the fifth year, the show needed a revamp of new characters. However, their storylines in season sixth are pitiful and are in need of a tune up. For two good actors, they do not get an adequate amount of camera time. Fingers crossed, let's hope Marc Cherry and his family of writers introduce a juicy storyline for them in subsequent seasons.

As for the characters, some will stay, while others have already flown the coop, never to return, and new and old comers will arrive to Wisteria Lane in season seven. The drama continues ...

Whatever your opinion is of the sixth season, hate it or love it, there is no denying that Desperate Housewives delivers the best entertainment week after week, with a cast of brilliant actors and actresses. With this DVD box-set, you can watch it at your own pace, in your digs, at any time.

Nice is Different Than Good
Being Alive
Never Judge a Lady by her Lover
The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues
Everybody Ought to Have a Maid
Don't Walk on the Grass
Careful the Things You Say
The Coffee Cup
Would I Think of Suicide?
Boom Crunch
If
You Gotta Get a Gimmick
How About a Friendly Shrink?
The Glamorous Life
Lovely
The Chase
Chromolume No. 7
My Two Young Men
We All Deserve to Die
Epiphany
A Little Night Music
The Ballad of Booth
I Guess This is Goodbye

T.B. Grant
5/17/10

Make no mistake: this show is basically a glorified soap opera, with much better acting and plots. However, it is pretty funny. The plots get so off the wall sometimes that it becomes hilarious. Each season has a separate story arch that usually involves a murder or somebody's deep, dark secret. Each episode also features a unique story and many plot twists. Things get pretty zany after several seasons. Over the past 5 years, it has included many (many) extramarital affairs, murders, holdups, hurricanes, gang lords, and dead bodies in the freezer.

This season has been pretty good so far. Angie and Danny as the new family on the block are good additions to the show. Angie in particular adds a lot of spunk. Unfortunately, it hasn't really developed the theme or subplot as strongly as some past seasons. It's only now that the backstory to Danny is becoming revealed. Also, the whole plane crash thing was kind of silly. However, a lot of the episodes were funny, especially the whole Russian gold-digger.

All things hit their peaks and then start sliding downwards. My personal guess is that they probably should have ended this show with Edie's death. What we seem to be doing in this season is just dealing with ongoing "more of the same" in the neighborhood. The characters have all had their days in the sun and are well past those days. There have been some new characters added but they haven't really added anything to the show. It seems as if they are trying to breathe some new life into this but they can't. Drea Matteo from the SOPRANOS is one of these. Hers is basically a one note performance of someone hiding out in the neighborhood from criminal mistakes in her past. Another is the stripper with the heart of gold (I wish I were making this up). I wish Mike and Susan had stayed divorced. The two of them now irritate me constantly. Terri Hatcher has become positively grating. The last best story arc this show had was Dave, the neighbor, married to Edie, who was trying to kill Mike and then Susan for killing his wife and child in an auto collision. When that arc of the story ended, last season, the air just went out of this whole thing. Tom and Lynette are now having yet another baby and it isn't doing a thing for me. That couple has completely lost their drift. I enjoyed Gabby more when she was plotting against her mother in law and having it off with the teenage boyfriend, not to mention trying to jump start her haute couture career again. Bree and Orson are now beyond soap opera cliche with him in a wheelchair. I think this show needed to keep a few "evil" characters, like Edie and Gabby, the way she used to be, and Dave. Now everyone is kind of a nice person with the usual suburban problems and it is boring. Every series runs out of gas eventually and I believe this is one of them. I must add to this that I don't think all of these series shows taking long hiatuses this winter, for virtually all of December and February, did them any favors. What little momentum they had was lost in two months of absences.

I was very disappointed with the cheap paper sleeve and cheap thin case the DVDs came in. Season 6 looks so crappy next to season 1-5 on my shelf. I like the big boxes and plastic sleeves that the seasons were previously packaged in, well season 5 did have a paper sleeve, but it was still ALOT nicer that season 6's packaging. Someones getting cheap. :( Other than that I love Desperate Housewives, its hands-down the best series on TV.

An excellent comeback from what Season 5 was. Susan and Mike are finally back together (let's hope it stays that way), Angie Bolen and her family are a much needed relief after Dave Williams and his mystery. They added something unique to the show, but I'm glad they only stayed a season. Even though the show isnt the same without Edie, it is beginning to be what it was in its early days again, and Season 7 will certainly see a continuation in this trend.

Season five was spotty, but turned out okay in the end. But this season finally fell apart. I couldn't even make it through the whole thing. The season's mystery is boring and protracted, the housewives are grating, and Dana Delaney is desperately under-served.

Desperate Housewives continued on its downward spiral during this sixth season. Ratings dwindled and the writers made the same mistakes during seasons two and three. The show became about six different shows, with the housewives living in their isolated plot lines. Rarely did two housewives overlap story-wise, or even cross paths for that matter. The special bond these women share was sorely missed this season. What's perhaps more upsetting is the way the season's central mystery, Angie Bolen and her family, was treated. Since season four, the mysteries have been easily solved by viewers within the first few episodes. Season six was different, but not because it was as complex as earlier mysteries, but because we were left completely in the dark. For the entire first half of the season, not one clue about this family was revealed. Instead, we were distracted with a sub-mystery about a serial strangler. (Though it appeared the two were connected, they weren't.) Then, by the middle of the season, it was clear that Angie was a terrorist and was on the run from a man named Patrick Logan. Bam, mystery solved (save for a few minor details) with half a season to go! And, I might mention, in that second half of the season, the show's darkness is consumed by sitcom-esque comedy.

Of course, that's all the negative qualities about the season. There are positive attributes. For example, the first half of the season was deliciously dark, something that had been missing during season five. As mentioned, the Bolen mystery was unsolvable due to lack of clues in the first half. While this isn't exactly a good thing, it's preferable to being able to solve the mystery three episodes in. Katherine's (Dana Delany) descent into a nervous breakdown was probably the highlight of the season. It was both funny, captivating, and dramatic. Bree's afair, Susan's quest to identify the town strangler, and Lynette and Gabrielle's feud were also excellent storylines.

Overall, the season was probably the show's worst (yes, even worse than season five). The characters were isolated, the mystery was straight-forward, and the tone shifted to light comedy halfway through. That said, this is still entertaining television. If you have all or most of the other seasons on DVD, I recommend adding this to your collection. It's a must for all DH fans!

Desperate Housewives has been one of my favorite shows to ever hit television since it debuted in 2005. Season 5 was probably the weakest in my opinion although it did feature some extraordinary episodes luckily Season 6 is an improvement. There is good and bad in this season. The new family is pretty interesting however I feel a lot of the storylines were recycled much like season 5 and the show ultimately suffers without Nicolette Sheridans character Edie. The actresses are likely the best of tv especially Marcia Cross, Felicity Hoffman, and Eva Longoria they all truly shine but without the fire and ice of Nicolette Sheridan there is no confrontation and crack up moments between the ladies and its a shame since Sheridans character brought a much needed and appreciated brutal honesty to the series. Still a good season not great though but better than season 5 and hopefully season 7 will bring us back to the housewives we love and get them back on top so we don't have to bury this series too soon.

Desperate Housewives: The Complete Sixth Season is definitely a solid and enjoyable season. The thing about Desperate Housewives, the first half of the season is always stronger than the last half. I am not really sure why that is but I still think this campy show is loads of fun! I loved the unexpected chemistry between Bree and Carl, too bad things didn't end well for one them! I also liked the storyline with that sensitive but deeply troubled, Eddie. The way Lynnette took him under his wing was quite moving even though she couldn't save him from hurting others in the process. But the one storyline that I thought was quite strange was the emotional collapse of Katherine, parts were good and others were a head-scratcher. Overall, season 6 turned out to be better than I could've hoped for. Can't wait for Season 7!

"Desperate Housewives" is not a brilliant television drama by any stretch of the imagination, but it's fun and I enjoy it. Season 6 has its ups and downs, and although I think many of the main storylines are rather weak, they are compensated by the overall humor of this show, which I find hysterical and is the only reason I still watch regularly. Also, this season features Drea de Matteo as the new "mysterious neighbor" on Wisteria Lane. I loved Drea on "The Sopranos" and thought she added a lot to this series as well.

I didn't think the cliffhanger was that exciting this season, especially compared to years past, but I still will be tuning in when "Desperate Housewives" returns in the fall.