‘Desperate Housewives’ Is Still TV’s Best Pilot, 20 Years Later

It’s the age-old question, isn’t it? How much do we really want to know about our neighbors?

Over eight wonderful seasons, the ladies of Wisteria Lane exposed all of their dirty laundry. From supermarket shootings to tumultuous tornadoes, numerous hit-and-runs, and a plethora of mysteries, the audacious world of Desperate Housewives fascinated millions of viewers. It all started with the best pilot in television history, which turns 20 years old today.

Perfectly self-assured in every moment, the ABC pilot, which aired Oct. 2, 2004, is a masterclass that redefined television. As Mary Alice Young goes about her mundane day, actress Brenda Strong’s sing-songy narration lulls audiences into a sense of comfort, only to pull the rug out from under when our omniscient narrator pulls out a handgun and takes her life.

Neighborhood busybody Mrs. Huber (Christine Estabrook) uses her nosy prowess to return a blender she had “borrowed” ages ago, only to scream in horror as she finds the dead body of Mary Alice. Returning home, she’s shaken and disturbed. The score truly sells the horror felt as Mrs. Huber calls the police.

“And for a moment, Mrs. Huber stood motionless in her kitchen, grief-stricken by this senseless tragedy—but, only for a moment,” Mary Alice narrates as Mrs. Huber rips “property of Mary Alice Young” off the blender. “If there was one thing Mrs. Huber was known for, it was her ability to look on the brightside.”

It’s bold, brazen, and exactly in line with the show’s never-failing ability to toe the line of genre. In under three minutes, series creator Marc Cherry encapsulates the entire mission of Desperate Housewives, wonderfully blending sardonic humor with a sharp outlook on the often overlooked life of women in the suburbs.

It’s unthinkable that executives could watch the pilot and expect anything but what resulted. The show premiered to 21 million viewers, with the series growing throughout the season to a monstrous 30 million viewers for its season finale, becoming one of the highest rated shows on TV. Put into perspective, Lost premiered that same season to 18 million viewers and its highest rated episode just barely missed the viewership of the Desperate Housewives pilot.

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The women of Wisteria Lane are all amazingly nuanced from the moment they’re introduced. In one fell swoop, we understand the idiosyncrasies of each lady, from Susan Mayer’s (Teri Hatcher) inability to make good decisions to Gabrielle Solis’ (Eva Longoria) self-destructive yet intoxicating worldview. The Desperate Housewives characters are reflections of the very real women that we all grew up around, or grew into, who live in quiet desperation.

Little moments in the pilot make the world feel so lived-in. Bree Van de Kamp (Marcia Cross) offering her sincerest condolences to Paul (Mark Moses) and Zach Young (Cody Kasch) whilst offering ribbon-labeled baskets of muffins and rolls—which she will promptly need returned to her—all as her family roll their eyes says it all. Bree’s entire essence is summed up by her bawling her eyes out in the bathroom before emerging perfect as ever.

Superb narration by Mary Alice carries the entire episode. As we meet Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman), Mary Alice quips that she has a great family recipe for fried chicken, one she no longer has time to make due to her busyness as a reluctant stay-at-home mom of four.

“Lynette would’ve appreciated the irony if she stopped to think about it,” Mary Alice narrates. “But she couldn’t. She didn’t have the time.”

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In just 43 minutes, the ladies of Wisteria Lane become familiar faces. Taking place in the fictional Eagle State in a world rarely defined by the zeitgeist, it’s an exceedingly timeless universe. Desperate Housewives is an amalgamation of all of suburbia, rarely utilizing lyrical music or real-world events, helping it be wonderfully escapist.

Wisteria Lane could exist in any timeline, and in each one, it would gleam with perfection (on the surface, that is). Sure, today Mary Alice might quip that you’d hear about her death in your local Facebook group, and the threatening note the ladies find might’ve been an anonymous text. But the world at the core of Desperate Housewives remains, all these years later.

Whereas primetime soaps preceding it, such as Melrose Place, stumbled through dozens of episodes before finding a distinct voice, Desperate Housewives knew exactly the show it wanted to be from Day 1. It perfected that darkly humorous voice, offering viewers immediate intrigue.

There’s something wholly remarkable about Desperate Housewives creating a haunting, hilarious world and sustaining those stakes for 23 episodes. Consider the modern state of TV seasons—episodes indiscernible from the next, made for a streaming world of limited episode counts with bloated runtimes. Few could come close to covering this much ground in entire seasons, yet alone one episode.

It’s rare the show is included on best-of lists or regarded as highly as its peers, even overshadowed by fellow primetime soap Grey’s Anatomy, despite being the show that launched it. Yet without it, the landscape around us would be radically different.

It’s why we have the Real Housewives. It’s the reason the Pretty Little Liars got to strut around with chunky purses full of secrets. Without it, it’s unlikely Nicole Kidman would be on all those streaming series sporting a plethora of wigs and accents.

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Once overlooked as fly-over stories with little intrigue, today, we live in a world of abundant suburban mysteries with vague titles, from Little Fires Everywhere to Big Little Lies and all the Palm Royale’s inbetween.

Twenty years ago, Susan, Gaby, Lynette, and Bree stood on Mary Alice’s sidewalk as Susan wondered, “Oh Mary Alice, what did you do?” Their lives forever changed, as did the world of television. For that, we can all be forever grateful.

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