Two shows hoping to capitalize on the success of Desperate Housewives air for the first time today and tomorrow in the US.

"What took them so long?" pondered an article at The New York Times. "As it turns out, the Desperate Housewives formula is far trickier to replicate than it seems, to judge from these two shows anyway, and far from being tardy, the producers may have spent insufficient time in the lab."

Making its debut tonight on Bravo is The Real Housewives of Orange County. According to the article, it is a "reality soap" where the cast "all look as if they're ready for a cover shoot, and they're not even professionals. They're wives and mothers who, in a couple of instances, bear a more than passing resemblance to the Desperate Housewives cast." The reviewer said the show lacked the "wit or style" of Desperate Housewives, but "like so much reality TV, it's both educational and grimly fascinating."

A review at The Washington Post said the show "obviously is trying to capitalize on [...] Desperate Housewives." and that it would be better working on its own merits. "Whatever chords of recognition the series is trying to pluck, it stands on its own—and would stand taller with a better title—as a penetrating tour of the chilly hearts, meandering minds, wobbly marriages and shimmering swimming pools of Orange County."

Suburban Shootout meanwhile makes its debut tomorrow on Oxygen, and is a "pretty silly effort" to push the soap opera format. "The show is set in the Stepford-like village of Little Stempington — a place of almost unnatural quiet and pristineness," according to The New York times. "That's because it's run by two competing gangs of gun-toting housewife vigilantes, one of which has gone over to the dark side and is now embarked on loan-sharking the local wicker shop and skimming off late fines at the library."

The original articles can be found at The New York Times and The Washington Post. Another article can be found at New York Post.

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