Desperate Housewives season 4

Desperate Housewives
Season 4
File:Desperate Housewives season 4 poster.jpg ABC promotional poster for the fourth season of Desperate Housewives. From left to right: Bree, Edie, Susan, Gabrielle, and Lynette.
Starring	Teri Hatcher Felicity Huffman Marcia Cross Eva Longoria Nicollette Sheridan Ricardo Antonio Chavira Andrea Bowen Doug Savant Kyle MacLachlan Dana Delany Brenda Strong James Denton
No. of episodes	17
Release
Original network	ABC
Original release	September 30, 2007 (2007-09-30) – May 18, 2008 (2008-05-18)
Season chronology

The fourth season of Desperate Housewives, an American television series created by Marc Cherry, premiered on September 30, 2007, on ABC. Filming for the series was interrupted by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike in November 2007, after production on the two-episode tornado storyline wrapped. The first part, "Something's Coming", aired on December 2, 2007. "Welcome to Kanagawa", the second part and the last episode filmed before the strike, was originally going to be aired after the strike's resolution, but aired on January 6, 2008. Seven additional episodes were produced for the fourth season after the strike, the first of which aired on April 13, 2008. The final two episodes served as a two-part finale and were aired consecutively on May 18, 2008. A total of 17 episodes aired as part of the season, with one recap special airing on September 23, 2007. The series continues to focus on Wisteria Lane residents Susan Delfino, Lynette Scavo, Bree Hodge, Gabrielle Solis and Edie Britt, with Mary Alice Young returning as the series' narrator. Katherine Mayfair and her family are introduced in this season and are the center of the season's mystery. Critical reception for the season was positive, and ratings increased from the third season. The series drew in an average of 17.9 million viewers per episode during the 2007-08 American television season, becoming the sixth most-watched program of the year and the most-watched scripted program for the first time. The series was released on a five-disc DVD box set by ABC Studios on September 2, 2008, in Region 1, October 29, 2008 in Region 4, November 3, 2008 in Region 2, and March 17, 2009, in Region 5.

Production

Joe Keenan, one of the three executive producers during the third season, as well as writer of the critically acclaimed season episode "Bang", did not return for season four as executive producer, but as consulting producer. Replacing Keenan, and joining Marc Cherry and George W. Perkins as executive producers, is season three writer and co-executive producer Bob Daily, whose previous work include sitcoms Frasier and Out of Practice, as well as cartoon series Rugrats. Keenan will serve as Cherry's second-in-command for the next two years. Also joining as executives producers are writers and former co-executive producers John Pardee and Joey Murphy who have been on the show since its first season. This is also the first season the synthesized version of Danny Elfman’s main title theme was used, as it would be the rest of the series.

Cast

Main articles: List of Desperate Housewives cast members and List of Desperate Housewives characters

File:Dana Delany.jpg

Delany's character was the subject of the season's main mystery.

The fourth season had twelve roles receiving star billing. All eleven starring actors from the previous season returned for this season. The series is narrated by Brenda Strong, who portrays the deceased Mary Alice Young, as she observes from beyond the grave the lives of the Wisteria Lane residents and her former best friends. Teri Hatcher portrayed Susan Delfino, who is finally married after three seasons searching for a stable relationship. Felicity Huffman portrayed Lynette Scavo, who fights cancer during the first half of the season and deals with her step-daughter's behavior in the second half. Marcia Cross portrayed Bree Hodge, married for the second time and faking pregnancy in an attempt to protect her daughter. Eva Longoria portrayed former model Gabrielle Lang, now the wife of Fairview's mayor. Nicollette Sheridan portrayed Edie Britt, who faked suicide in the previous season finale. Ricardo Antonio Chavira portrayed Carlos Solis, now divorced from Gabrielle but still in love with her while involved in a relationship with Edie. Andrea Bowen portrayed Julie Mayer, the responsible and caring daughter of Susan. Doug Savant portrayed Tom Scavo, Lynette's husband and now owner of a pizzeria. Kyle MacLachlan portrayed Orson Hodge, Bree's second husband and the man that ran over Mike in the second season finale. James Denton portrayed Mike Delfino, now Susan's husband who starts using drugs. Dana Delany is introduced in the role of Katherine Mayfair, whose mysterious arc is the season's main storyline. For the 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, Fillion, Joosten and Slattery were nominated along with the rest of the main cast for the Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series award due to their many appearances this season.

Episodes

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	U.S. viewers (millions)
71	1	"Now You Know"	Larry Shaw	Marc Cherry	September 30, 2007 (2007-09-30)	19.32
Katherine Mayfair, a former Wisteria Lane resident and old friend of Susan's, moves into her aunt's house, which used to be Mike's house, with her second husband, Adam, a gynecologist, and her daughter Dylan, who all have secrets of their own. It is revealed that Edie staged her suicide to make Carlos stay with her, unaware that he was having a secret affair with Gabrielle and planned to run away with her. Edie complicates things when she learns about Carlos' illegal offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands. Lynette tells her friends about her cancer. Bree continues to hide her fake pregnancy from the neighbors. Susan worries she might be entering menopause, but discovers that she is actually pregnant, much to her and Mike's delight.
72	2	"Smiles of a Summer Night"	David Grossman	Bob Daily & Matt Berry	October 7, 2007 (2007-10-07)	17.82
Susan tries to involve Mike as a parent in her house, but she becomes torn when he convinces her to forbid Julie from attending a wild house party. Lynette bans Tom from her chemotherapy sessions and asks Gabrielle to accompany her, but discovers she dreads the prospect of visiting Lynette because her father died of cancer too. Bree is infuriated when Katherine refuses to share her secret lemon meringue pie recipe with her, so Bree decides to sneak into Katherine's house and steal the recipe, but is shocked when she overhears Katherine slapping Dylan for questioning about her birth father. Edie blackmails Carlos with the Cayman Islands account and forces him to get engaged to her.
73	3	"The Game"	Bethany Rooney	Joey Murphy & John Pardee	October 14, 2007 (2007-10-14)	18.89
Julie and Dylan break into Dylan's old room to investigate Dylan's past, but Katherine catches them and orders Dylan to stay away from Julie. Susan and Mike host a charades party at their house, which turns into a disaster due to a series of misfortunes: Stella feeds an unsuspecting Lynette pot brownies to help her through the side effects of chemotherapy, causing Lynette to behave erratically at the party; Gabrielle is unhappy upon learning of Carlos and Edie's engagement and tries to flirt with Adam, which infuriates Carlos; Katherine accuses Gabrielle of flirting with Adam and brings up Gabrielle's affair with John Rowland, upsetting Victor; Gabrielle in turn reveals that Bree heard Katherine slap Dylan, which prompts Katherine to reveal that her first husband did "the worst thing that a father can do" to their daughter; Susan and Bree argue when Bree, in an effort to cover up her fake pregnancy, sends Susan to a sketchy gynecologist in a rough neighborhood, though the two eventually make amends; and Carlos is alarmed when Victor hints that he would murder the man who would have an affair with his wife.
74	4	"If There's Anything I Can't Stand"	Larry Shaw	Alexandra Cunningham & Lori Kirkland Baker	October 21, 2007 (2007-10-21)	18.21
86 87	16 17	"The Gun Song Free"	Bethany Rooney David Grossman	Bob Daily & Matt Berry Jeff Greenstein	May 18, 2008 (2008-05-18)	16.84
Lynette, Bree, and Gabrielle meet Susan and Mike's newborn son, whom Mike wants to name Maynard after his recently deceased grandfather. Susan despises the name and secretly tries to change it to Connor, but eventually agrees to the name Maynard after Mike explains to her why he admired his grandfather. Bree pretends to be dating Reverend Green so that Orson stops stalking her, but later rejects Reverend Green's advances. As Reverend Green plans to publicly humiliate Bree, Orson confronts Reverend Green and tries to beat him up, but is knocked unconscious. Ellie reveals to Gabrielle that she resorted to drug dealing due to a rough childhood. Gabrielle, having developed a strong bond with Ellie, tells her of the police's sting operation and instructs her to escape. Lynette is arrested by Child Protection Services for abusing Kayla, who aggravates the situation by burning herself with a curling iron to implicate Lynette. Tom forces Kayla to confess, before sending her off to live with her grandparents. Wayne kidnaps Adam to discover the truth about Dylan's biological father. Susan struggles when Julie announces she is leaving home for a summer internship before college. After brutally injuring Adam, Wayne holds Katherine hostage and demands to know what happened to his daughter. Gabrielle and Carlos find a large sum of money in Ellie's teddy bear, and Ellie comes to retrieve it, but gets tailed by the police. Taking cover in Katherine's house, Ellie is shot dead by Wayne to provide him an alibi after he murders Katherine. Bree is forced to cater Bob and Lee's engagement party without Katherine, receiving help from Orson, who is determined to earn her forgiveness. While looking for Katherine, Bree is taken hostage by Wayne before Adam arrives in time to save both women. Katherine reveals that she adopted a Romanian orphan to replace the real Dylan, who died accidentally as a child. Katherine shoots Wayne dead when he threatens to ruin her life, but is not arrested as her friends convince the police that she acted in self-defense. Five years later, Gabrielle has two young daughters, Bree's business is extremely successful and she is still married to Orson, and Susan has a new love interest, having broken up with Mike.

Reception

Season four was met with critical acclaim. Adam Geller of Rotten Tomatoes wrote "While the last two seasons of Desperate Housewives definitely suffered to live up to season one's standards (especially season two), season four improved not only from seasons two and three, but also from the critically acclaimed first. Delivering great storylines such as Bree's fake pregnancy, Lynette's cancer, Gaby's affair and even Susan's real pregnancy, season four was considered a vast improvement.

Ratings

United States

Episode number Production number	Title	Original airing	Rating	Share	18-49 (ratings) [1]	Total viewers (in millions)	Rank per week
1 4-01	Now You Know	September 30, 2007	12.2	18	7.5	19.317	#4
72 4-02	Smiles of a Summer Night	October 7, 2007	11.7	17	6.8	17.817	#5
73 4-03	The Game	October 14, 2007	11.8	18	7.4	18.892	#4
74 4-04	If There's Anything I Can't Stand	October 21, 2007	11.5	17	7.3	18.214	#4
75 4-05	Art Isn't Easy	October 28, 2007	11.8	17	7.2	18.280	#3
76 4-06	Now I Know, Don't Be Scared	November 4, 2007	11.8	18	7.0	18.579	#6
77 4-07	You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover	November 11, 2007	11.9	18	7.2	18.632	#5
78 4-08	Distant Past	November 25, 2007	11.6	17	7.0	18.638	#4
79 4-09	Something's Coming	December 2, 2007	12.7	18	7.8	20.650	#4
80 4-10	Welcome to Kanagawa	January 6, 2008	12.1	18	7.3	19.782	#5
81 4-11	Sunday	April 13, 2008	10.1	15	5.9	16.371	#8
82 4-12	In Buddy's Eyes	April 20, 2008	10.0	15	5.5	15.746	#2
83 4-13	Hello, Little Girl	April 27, 2008	10.2	16	5.9	16.346	#5
84 4-14	Opening Doors	May 4, 2008	10.8	17	6.3	16.757	#4
85 4-15	Mother Said	May 11, 2008	9.7	15	5.6	15.427	#5
86 4-16	The Gun Song	May 18, 2008	10.7	17	6.2	16.837	#6
87 4-17	Free	May 18, 2008	10.7	17	6.2	16.837	#6

International season debuts

Date	Country	Channel	Timeslot
September 30, 2007	USA	ABC	9:00 pm/8.00pmc
September 30, 2007	Canada	CTV	9:00 pm/8:00pmc
October 15, 2007	Poland	n (Poland)	Video on Demand
December 4, 2007	Turkey	CNBC-e (cable TV)	Tuesdays 9:00 pm
December 5, 2007	Italy	FOXlife (Sky Italia - SAT TV)	9:00 pm
January 7, 2008	Arab World	Showtime Arabia	9:00 pm
January 8, 2008	Ireland	RTÉ Two	9:50 pm
January 8, 2008	Portugal	Fox Life	9:00 pm
January 31, 2008	South Africa	M-Net	8:30 pm
February 4, 2008	New Zealand	TV 2	8:30 pm
February 11, 2008	Switzerland	SF2	8:00 pm
February 11, 2008	Austria	ORF1	9:00 pm
February 11, 2008	Australia	Seven	8:30 pm
February 13, 2008	Germany	Pro7	Wednesdays 8:15 pm
February 13, 2008	Latin America	Sony Entertainment Television	10:00 pm
February 14, 2008	Poland	FOXlife	9:00 pm
February 19, 2008	Norway	TV 2	9:45 pm
March 10, 2008	Finland	Nelonen	9:00 pm
March 25, 2008	Malaysia	8TV	10:30 pm
March 26, 2008 August 27, 2008	United Kingdom (excluding Wales)	Channel 4	10.00 pm - main UK showing See notes below.
March 27, 2008 August 27, 2008	United Kingdom (Wales)	S4C	2:20 am See notes below.
March 30, 2008	Israel	yes stars 1	9:15 pm
March 30, 2008 August 31, 2008	United Kingdom	E4	9.00 pm - repeat 10.00 pm - premiere UK showing See notes below.
April 2, 2008	Spain	La 2	Wednesdays 10:15 pm
April 25, 2008	Hungary	TV2	Wednesdays 10:15 pm
May 20, 2008	Mexico	TvAzteca	10:00 pm
September 16, 2008	Asia	Star World	11:00 pm
Fall 2008	Bulgaria	BTV	9:00 pm
October 2, 2008	Poland	Polsat (free-TV premiere)	10:05 pm
Fall 2008	Latvia	TV3	Mondays, 10:00 pm
Fall 2008	Lithuania	TV3	10:00 pm
October 14, 2008	Republic of Macedonia	A1 Televizija	Tuesday 9:00 pm
October 20, 2008	Singapore	Channel 5	10:00 pm
January 2009	Serbia	RTS	9:00 pm
August 28, 2008	France	Canal +	8:50 pm
February 2, 2009	Slovenia	POP TV	8:50 pm/11.15 pm
June 23, 2009	France	M6	8:45 pm

Note

The late season start in the United Kingdom was because of the strike. Channel 4 intended to begin showing season 4 in January, but it did not want to begin showing the season, only to have to take a break halfway through because of lack of episodes available. Desperate Housewives was eventually forced to take a break because of Big Brother 9 in the summer. It was anticipated that Desperate Housewives would have finished by June, but this was not the case. Big Brother took up the 9 pm or 10 pm slot every day from June 5, 2008, until September 5, 2008, so there was not room for Desperate Housewives in the schedules. As there were still seven episodes left to show as of June, Channel 4 waited until Big Brother had finished to resume showing them. Episodes returned with "Sunday" on Wednesday, September 3 at the earlier time of 9:30 pm between two episodes of the Big Brother day 90 eviction. As E4 is one episode ahead of Channel 4, but does not air the season premiere before the host channel, E4 did not begin airing the new season until four days later on March 30. Episodes after this were aired on E4 three days before the Channel 4 airing, with the exception of "Sunday", which was treated as a season premiere. Desperate Housewives airs very late at night on Welsh channel S4C due to Welsh-language programming airing during prime-time.

DVD release

Desperate Housewives: The Complete Fourth Season (Sizzling Secrets Edition)
Set details		Special features
17 Episodes 5-Disc Set English (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround) English SDH, Spanish & French subtitles Audio Commentaries Runtime: 729 minutes		Audio commentaries by creator Marc Cherry on 2 episodes: Now You Know - shared with executive producers Bob Daily & Jeff Greenstein Mother Said - shared with actress Nicolette Sheridan & director David Warren Getting Desperate, From Beginning To End: Step onto Wisteria Lane and discover how an episode of the show is made - from concept to completion. Couples commentary - Check out the personalities behind the characters of your favorite couples on 5 episodes: Now I Know, Don't Be Scared - with Marcia Cross (Bree) & Kyle MacLachlan (Orson) A Distant Past - with Dana Delany (Katherine) & Nathan Fillion (Adam) Something's Coming - with Eva Longoria (Gaby) & Ricardo Chavira (Carlos) Welcome to Kanagawa - with Felicity Huffman (Lynette) & Doug Savant (Tom) Mother Said - with Teri Hatcher (Susan) & James Denton (Mike) Spare Time: Hanging With The Men Of Wisteria Lane Cherry-Picked: Creator Marc Cherry's Favourite Scenes Alternate Ending Deleted Scenes Optional audio commentaries by creator Marc Cherry on his favorite scenes, the alternate ending and the deleted scenes. Bloopers
DVD release dates
Region 1		Region 2		Region 4
September 2, 2008 (2008-09-02)		November 3, 2008 (2008-11-03)		TBA

External links

• Desperate Housewives at IMDb
• "'Desperate Housewives,' 'Ugly Betty,' 'Boston Legal' set return dates". Chicago Tribune. February 20, 2008. Archived from the original on February 14, 2012. Retrieved February 22, 2008.
• "'Desperate Housewives' Returning to Work, Show Star Spills on New Episodes". BuddyTV. February 16, 2008. Archived from the original on February 19, 2008. Retrieved February 22, 2008.