See Also: Marc Cherry People Guide, James Denton People Guide

The first season of Desperate Housewives dealt for a large part with the mysteries surrounding the death of Mary-Alice Young. That issue was resolved during last year's season finale -- but DH creator Marc Cherry said today that doesn't make him worry the show will run out of steam.

"After we found out who shot J. R., Dallas ran for 12 more years," Cherry told the New York Times, although he also added his show shouldn't be compared with prime-time soap operas that have come before. "They don't really have a term for what our show is. [...] It's satire, some earnest drama, different tonalities. I loved Falcon Crest. But those shows are straight ahead: rich people stabbing each other in the back. At its core, our show is about what it means to be a wife and mother. It's about the millions of women leading lives of quiet desperation."

Cherry offered a few hints about what will happen in the lives of the six main women on the show, saying that Marcia Cross's Bree Van De Kamp "will be learning to cope with life as a widow and moving closer to the truth" behind Rex's death, while Eva Longoria's Gabrielle will be trying to get her husband out of jail. And then there will be a new mystery attached to the character of Betty Applewhite -- who Cherry revealed didn't specifically start out as an African-American character. "Her color is incidental," Cherry said, and added that he first enterted negotiations with two other actresses, both white. "Then someone said, 'Alfre Woodard,' and I said, 'Yes!' just because I've always liked her in everything I've ever seen her in."

Sometime next season, viewers might be able to see an episode focusing on the men of Wisteria Lane, rather than their wives. But Cherry indicated he would probably continue to focus on the Housewives most. "Women tend to open up to gay men," he said. "I've never written for men. I'm much more at home in the idiom of the female." And in particular, it seems, for the dark side of that idiom. "I try to find the wicked. [...] To me if something's wicked, it's sort of fun. I like it when my women are doing things they shouldn't."

There might be some more variety in the show's writing styles, as Cherry said he would be leaving more of the writing to the show's team of eleven screenwriters. But Cherry will still be running the show -- something that may please not only fans, but also many of the stars of Desperate Housewives. "On the set he hears everybody out," James Denton (Mike Delfino) said in the article. "I've heard some actors have conversations with him I couldn't believe, [...] and he'll listen politely and say he'll see what he can do. More often than not, he'll make a change [to the script] to make an actor comfortable."

In the full New York Times article, Cherry discussed how DH would be different if it aired on HBO, while Felicity Huffman (Lynette Scavo) praised him for his talent in writing for women. Please follow this link to read it all.

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