Has ABC's 'Housewives' 'Lost' Its Way?

By Mike Hume

Pardon the pun, but does anyone else think that one of ABC’s two, 2004 debut hits has gone down the hatch?

Two smash success series, “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost.” Two season-finale cliffhangers bating loyal viewers all summer long for their fall premiers. There were questions: Would Zach kill Mike? Was Rex really dead? What’s at the bottom of the hatch? What would happen to the survivors at sea after the destruction of their raft? But those plot questions, were so tantalizing because the shows had hooked viewers with something else — drama.

Last season, “Housewives” gave its audience a mysterious suicide and a convict’s search for vengeance as it affected a slightly manic business-mogul-turned-stay-at-home-mom, an adulterous ex-model, an OCD Stepford wife and a star-crossed single mom looking for love. “Lost” provided a mysterious tale on a supernatural (or is it?) island, with a host of secret-baring survivors, coping with their spotty pasts and a deadly present. Viewers responded favorably to both, cementing the shows atop the ratings week in and week out. But that may change in 2005, and that change may prove why “Lost” is the hands-down most interesting show on television.

“Lost” writer and co-creator Damon Lindelof once explained that in order for a show like his to be successful, its creators had to keep all of its balls aloft in a kind of juggling act. After the jaw-dropping season premier, it appears as though Lindelof and co. are doing their best court jester impersonation. “Housewives” seems as though its creators decided to let those balls hit the floor, pick them up, and start anew.

While “Lost” eased into its major revelation of what’s in the hatch with an introductory tease and episode-long build up, “Housewives” revealed it’s “surprises” almost immediately and with almost no pay off. With a “Nooooo!” that only an Episode III Darth Vader could love, Susan (Teri Hatcher) anti-climactically knocks the gun away from Zach (Cody Kasch) and gives a groaner of a one-liner taunt before more bedlam allows the troubled teen to escape into the night. A summer’s worth of tension dissolved in less than a minute and the only new element the viewers got was a that Ida Greenberg (uh, who?) likes the booze. Swell. What happened to the conflict? Where’s the drama?

When Housewives was nominated at the Emmy’s as a comedy, it was a tad puzzling. It very easily could have been considered a drama. It was funny, yes, but dramatic all the same, particularly with all of the cataclysmic events at the end of the inaugural season. Just when the show had the chance to take off and move on, it took all of those dramatic elements and flushed them away for cheap laughs — all to the carefree sounds of its xylophone-and-strings soundtrack.

Bree’s character (Marcia Cross) could have become introspective and more complex following Rex’s death (and he is dead, despite the summer conspiracy theories). But rather, the writers chose for her to become a parody of herself. In Sunday’s premier, Ms. Never-Let-Them-See-You-Bleed erupts in front of everyone at the funeral just to one-up her mother in-law and give her dead hubby a suit-matching tie. (It’s a darn good thing Rex’s mom didn’t want him to wear white after Labor Day ...)

Then, moments after the funeral, the four ladies casually stroll down the lane, recent widow included, and casually (and far too conveniently) discuss the motivation for Mary Alice’s Season One suicide. Would anyone do this? Who talks about another person’s death to make small talk after her best-friend’s husband has just been laid to rest? Huge holes like those make it easy to overlook the fact that Lynette (Felicity Huffman) had managed to line up a job interview less than a day after her husband informed her they’d be switching parenting roles. Wherever that job market is, I want to know about it.

But even here, Lynette’s character hasn’t changed, just her surroundings. Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) and Carlos (Ricardo Chavira) are still bickering about their horribly flawed marriage, but now she has to go to the prison to squabble. Likewise, after a justifiable split from Mike, Susan will likely return to her hapless pursuit of love. And we’ve already witnessed Bree revert to her early season one, stony-faced, OCD self. Haven’t we seen this before?

There is no monotony afflicting the storyline in “Lost.” Monsters/security systems, cursed numbers, scary French survivalists and child-stealing “Others” have had devoted fans burning up online bulletin boards at a five-alarm rate. But what separates the show from the “X-Files” and its other eerie predecessors are its characters. Jack (Matthew Fox), Locke (Terry O’Quinn), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and co. are fleshed out before the audience’s very eyes in weekly back stories that tell viewers why these survivors are where they are and why they act as they do. The slick con man isn’t just a sleaze ball, he’s a victim. The Iraqi soldier isn’t just a tough-guy techno whiz, he’s a lost lover. The dough-eyed sweetie-pie isn’t Little Miss America, she’s a convict. And if you think that Doctor/Hero/Tribal Leader Jack is clean, just wait, you can bet it’s coming (just what did happen to that wife of his?).

While these pasts lead them to conflict, love or mystery in the present, the characters begin to change and grow. Jack becomes a leader. Sawyer softens up. Sayid (Naveen Andrews) and Shannon (Maggie Grace) start to fall in love.

Yes, there are mysteries. The numbers appear everywhere. We just discovered that a man Jack met previously in his life, who may or may not have performed a miracle, lives at the bottom of the hatch. There are just as many questions now as ever (What does 108, the sum of the cursed numbers, have to do with anything? And why does the hatch appear to be a gateway to the ’70s with a medicine cabinet that would make Barry Bonds drool?). But what sustains the show’s drama from week to week are its characters. What will happen when man-of-science Jack is faced with the miraculous? Will man-of-faith Locke be satisfied that there’s a scientific explanation to his crash-induced rehabilitation from paralysis?

While Lost’s characters are fleshed out in two-different ways (both with past revelations and future actions), it appears the writers of “Housewives” have backed away from breathing any life into the ladies of Wisteria Lane, and have decided to let their cardboard characters remain two-dimensional, instead just changing the weekly, wacky scenario in which they find themselves and adding a new season-length mystery. (Who is that chained in the new neighbors’ basement? Hannibal Lector? Sloth from TheGoonies?) The snappy dialogue is still there, but such lighthearted and sometimes callous treatment of such serious problems just makes a once-dramatic comedy into farce.

You can’t really fault the “Housewives” writers, yet. The show still netted 5 million more viewers than “Lost” for its premier, more than any show other than “CSI,” and the sitcom formula has worked for network mainstays like “Cheers” and “Friends.” Take a handful of quirky characters, add a mildly bizarre situation, a dash of canned laughter, mix and serve. NBC thrived on that formula for years. But “Housewives” is different from those sitcoms. Would people have laughed at Norm and Cliff if they were drinking away a secret murder or extramarital affair every week? We may very well find out, only Norm and Cliff will look a heck of a lot hotter.