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List Price: $39.99 | | Label: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Salesrank: 1685
Released: September 20, 2005 |
| Our Price: $23.25 |
| Used Price: $10.24 |
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MPAA Rating:
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Experience the television phenomenon that has fans cheering and critics raving. "Refreshingly original, bracingly adult, and thoroughly delightful, Desperate Housewives is like the answer to a TV prayer you didn't know you'd made," says Robert Bianco of USA Today. Now you can spend the night with the women of Wisteria Lane and relive every minute of the weekly television event that heated up water coolers from coast to coast. With spectacular bonus features including extended, unrated episodes, this sizzling six-disc set is full of surprises and loaded with entertainment.
Description of Desperate Housewives - The Complete First Season:
Audiences were captivated by the women of Wisteria Lane in the first season of Desperate Housewives, the breakout hit from ABC that almost single-handedly lifted the network from its ratings doldrums and brought back the classic TV soap, remixed now with satire, comedy, and mystery. An affectionate yet darkly tinged send-up of suburbia that skirted Twin Peaks territory as much as that of Knots Landing, Desperate Housewives opened with a bang--literally--as perfect-seeming housewife Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong) went through her picture-perfect day before putting a handgun to her temple and pulling the trigger. Mary Alice's sudden suicide leaves her four closest friends, all housewives of a sort, with a surfeit of grief, a re-examination of their own lives, and a mystery to solve. It also proves to be a catalyst for a seamy study of what goes on inside the finely appointed homes of Wisteria Lane--the tales of which Mary Alice narrates from beyond the grave with a sardonic tone dipped in both honey and arsenic.
There's Martha Stewart-perfect Bree (Marcia Cross), who rules her household with an iron fist in a tailor-made garden glove and seems to have it all, until she finds out her husband (Steven Culp) is cheating on her--and had a serious fetish habit to boot. Sultry Gaby (Eva Longoria), the youngest of the set, is a bored trophy wife whose predilection for shopping and clothes are the perfect decoy for her affair with the hunky teenage gardener (Jesse Metcalfe). Former career woman Lynette (Felicity Huffman) is the most stereotypical housewife, raising four (or was it five?) kids and frustrated at using her cutthroat business skills for suburban politics. And daffy Susan (Teri Hatcher), the divorcee looking for love, sees her prospects brighten with the arrival of hunky plumber Mike (James Denton), who has some desperate secrets of his own. And did we mention the neighborhood hussy (Nicollette Sheridan), the snotty busybody (Christine Estabrook), and Mary Alice's increasingly agitated son (Cody Kasch)?
It was a fast and wild mix of plot and characters that gave Desperate Housewives the zing that made it a number one hit, as it never got too bogged down in any dilemma before moving on to the next. And though it was neither as hard-hitting nor salacious as it was trumpeted to be, the show nevertheless breathed fresh, funny air into comedy television, for even though it hewed to the hour-long soap format, the content was far more dark comedy than sudsy drama. There were fun bright spots to be had, but the story behind Mary Alice's death--which included drugs, murder, blackmail, secret identities, and vengeance in equal amounts--hovered over all the characters, tingeing the farce with the specter of danger. The show's other source of strength is in its peerless ensemble cast, headed by four perfect leading ladies, all Emmy-worthy. Hatcher received the (deserved) lion's share of praise (and a Golden Globe), but her co-stars--especially the underrated Longoria--matched her scene for scene. And though the mystery of Mary Alice's death was ultimately solved (no Twin Peaks teasing here), it was just the beginning of the troubles on Wisteria Lane, where no life went unexamined for too long. --Mark Englehart
Desperate Housewives - The Complete First Season Reviews:
Excellent satire/farce 
2009-10-20 - I started watching this with misgivings. I thought it was going to be another pointless melodrama, or not unlike dozens of comedy shows that I've seen part of and dismissed as nonsense. There is no laugh track so that dim bulbs will know what's supposed to be funny. It did take a few episodes, I will admit, but I was eventually hooked.
The main women have impossible problems in an idyllic appearing neighborhood of a city that is never named. Car license plates bear the name of a state that doesn't exist. The picket fences are perfectly white. The lawns are immaculately trimmed, without a dandelion, but it never rains or even gets cloudy. And into this seemingly perfect world comes a ton of trouble. First a suicide. Then a mysterious handsome stranger who sets at least two female hearts aflutter. A house gets torched around a measuring cup. There are wild brats from hell. A high school boy finds himself wooed and bedded by an unbelievably sexy woman. There's a murder and a remote burial in the night. And all of that is just for starters.
It sounds really bad when described that way, but it is all larded with satire and farcical scenes. Much of it revolves around skewed value systems of the characters. They value painfully green lawns. Fancy cars. Perfect dinner parties. And they are constantly flopping on their faces, despite all their efforts.
The characters are varied--a much too perfect housewife, a horny divorcee, a blond seductress, a harried mother, and that very sexy statutory rapist. The plot is convoluted, all tied somehow to the woman who commits suicide as the first episode opened. Try as they might, her female friends cannot figure out why.
I did laugh a bunch, and I did look forward to the next episode. But this is not for viewers who insist on stark reality and taking this show at face value. Farce is not, after all, reality, just part of reality.
Fantastic!
2009-09-23 - "Desperate Housewives" season 1 is a wonderful product. The show is so funny and quirky. You won't be disappointed if you purchase this.
Pleased 
2009-09-12 - The product came in good condition. There were no scratches and the seller was honest about the product.
Great start to a great series
2009-07-07 - Desperate Housewives has been around a while now but we can't forget just what a great series it was in the beginning. It was different and new and there wasn't really anything else quite like it. The ladies of Wisteria Lane were always involved in some sort of intrigue or hijinks that was always entertaining. If you've watched it lately and didn't quite see what the big deal is, maybe you should take a look at the first season. Then you'll understand. Also, you might want to watch Desperate Housewives - The Complete Second Season. That's when things really started rolling.
The dark and mysterious facade of the colorful world of suburbia
2009-07-05 - When Desperate Housewives first aired in 2004 it broke all records for written comedy in years. Viewer tuned in to see this complex yet soapy view of everyday suburbia. And really, the appeal in Desperate Housewives is the fact that you know that behind every colorful facade and plastered smile lies a secret, sometimes little and juicy, other times tragic and dangerous.
There is something in the setting of this show. Everything is colorful, perfect and dreamy. But things in the lives of Susan, Bree, Lynette and Gabrielle start to unravel when the, seemingly perfect life of their friend Mary Alice Young ends tragically. After her suicide all that is left are dark secrets. The facade of perfect suburbia starts to crumble.
Clues are: a mysterious baby blanket of a child never seen before, a disturbed son who starts to remember shocking details from his past, a dangerous husband ready to do everything to cover up a dark secret, a spy on Wisteria Lane, a tape from Mary Alice's therapist, a threatening note and so much more.
Each episode gives hints and clues to the main mystery that spreads throughout the season and ends in a shocking cliffhanger filled finale. But the mystery is a backdrop to the real appeal of the series: the lives of our Desperate Housewives. Each one desperate to lead a perfect life and devastated when she realizes that it cannot be achieved. From the picture perfect Bree whose marriage starts to fall down, Lynette with her never ending job of being a perfect mom to her 4 children, Gabrielle who has everything yet feels a hole in her life to Susan who struggles to find love.
Each episode moves at high speed, so much is going on. It never gets boring. This is the perfect guilty pleasure and so much more. Marc Cherry, the creator, has planned every plot line from the beginning and it really shows. Everything is perfectly plotted and comes nicely together in the end. The comedy walks a fine line between dark humor and slapstick (Susan especially) with some great Zingers.
Buena Vista Home Entertainment has put together a great 6-Disc Set. All 23 Episodes of the 1st Season are presented in a crisp clear 16:9 widescreen transfer. The colors really pop out from the screen and add a lot to the overall tone of the show.
Extras include:
- Audiocomentaries from the Housewives on selected Scenes (which can be viewed as a half hour featurette)
- Audiocomentaries are provided for 5 Episodes including the pilot and the finale. They are all interesting. Creator Marc Cherry provides great insight into the show.
- Behind the Scenes of Desperate Housewives - a 25 minute Featurette about the creation of the show and the first season
- 3 Featurettes on the Costumes and Art Design (10 min.), DH Phenomenon around the world (10 min), Production Secrets (11 min.)
- Oprah Winfrey visits Wisteria Lane (8 min.)
- Outtakes
- Deleted Scenes (with optional commentary by Marc Cherry)
- Easter Egg (on Disc 4 i think)
Some of the Episodes are Extended and run about 45 min in length (as opposed to the usual 42 min.) adding bits and pieces to the storylines. These extended episodes include intros by Marc Cherry.
As you can see there is much to see and experiance in the first Season of Desperate Housewives. It's TV gone very right and a pleasure for everybody. I highly recommend it.
5/5 Stars.
