Desperately Ordinary Housewives

Like most national phenomena, I just don't get the giddy fixation with "Desperate Housewives." It's a nightime soap. Nothing new there. Pretty people doing un-pretty things. Am I supposed to be more enamored or enlightened because it's set in suburbia? Like David Lynch's Blue Velvet or Alan Ball's American Beauty (or his "Six Feet Under," for that matter) didn't adequately and brilliantly cover this terrain? Like Wisteria Lane is any more interesting or sordid than South Fork or the Denver of "Dynasty?" Or Melrose Place?

Granted, I've only seen two and a half episodes, but that's been plenty of time for me to register a hearty "bleh."

Marcia Cross's creepy mommy isn't any creepier or more interesting than the shrew she played on "Melrose."

Terry Hatcher's stretched face and lovely chest are better suited to selling Radio Shack crap with NFL meathead Howie Long than holding interest with pratfall shenanigans so common they could only shock and amuse a toddler. Left naked when a towel is torn away, leaving you locked out of your house? See Darryl Hannah in Roxanne. Torso stuck halfway though a collapsed upstairs floor? See Tom Hanks in The Money Pit.

Eva Langoria cheating on her husband with a high school student? See "Dawson's Creek," "Boston Public," or countless other Mary Kay Letourneau-inspired stunts.

Sociopathic sons, vengfully murderous husbands, a dead character narrator--nothing is new in this town.

Only Felicity Huffman could muster any sympathy. Probably because she's far too talented to appear in this mindless retread of other, better stuff.

Don't even get me started on the Monday Night Football nonsense, so perfectly quashed by Frank Rich in Sunday's New York Times.

But then, every day it becomes clearer and clearer that I'm living in a foreign country.

Edited as per comment