Marcia Cross Explains Why A Desperate Housewives Reboot Won’t Happen

Former Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross has revealed why she believes a reboot of the popular TV drama-comedy would not work these days. Desperate Housewives first aired on ABC in 2004, and ran for 8 successful seasons and a total of 180 episodes. Set in the fictional town of Fairview on a street called Wisteria Lane, the show followed the lives, loves, crimes, struggles, and secrets of a group of women, seen through the eyes of their deceased friend and neighbor. The show became a huge success, and is widely credited with turning around the fortunes of ABC as a network, alongside shows Grey’s Anatomy and Lost.

The early seasons of the show received widespread critical acclaim, with many likening the show thematically to Academy Award winning movie American Beauty, as well as popular romantic-comedy drama and HBO behemoth Sex and the City. Desperate Housewives is often regarded as being one of the key influences and inspirations for the Bravo reality TV franchise The Real Housewives. Though ratings declined toward the end of the show’s run, Desperate Housewives remained popular and is credited with making household names out of up and comers like Eva Longoria, as well as revitalizing the careers of its more seasoned stars, such as Cross and co-star Teri Hatcher.

It has been 17 years since Desperate Housewives first aired, and close to a decade since it finished, and there has been speculation that the show could undergo a reboot of sorts. However, both Cross, and creator Marc Cherry have rebuffed the idea. Cherry talked about how the show had already run more than 150 episodes, and had told a complete story. Sitting down for an interview with The Daily Beast, Cross spoke about the length of the show, suggesting it would prove implausible to write so many episodes now. Read the comments from the Golden Globe nominee below.

“We worked non-stop—and what that means is those writers work non-stop. I mean, they mined everything they possibly could. So I think when Mark says that, that’s part of it. Can you imagine writing that many episodes, eight years’ worth?”

Cross opened up during an interview that discussed her latest project, the Netflix thriller You. The 59-year-old has joined the cast of the Sera Gamble show for its third season, playing the role of Jean Peck, a corporate lawyer, and appearing in a supporting role in the episodes “Into The Woods,” “W.O.M.B,” and “Red Flag.” In addition to her stint on You season 3, Cross has also appeared in the second season of TV miniseries Youth & Consequences in 2021, and currently has a project in post-production (Behind the Curtain of Night), as well as one in pre-production (Everything can happen!), making for a busy schedule for the Massachusetts native.

With writer-producer Cherry having just finished work on the second season of his dark comedy-drama Why Women Kill, and with two projects currently in development, it seems unlikely that, even if minds were changed, revisiting Wisteria Lane any time soon has a very slim chance of happening. For now, Desperate Housewives fans will have to stick to watching reruns on Hulu, or binging DVD box sets, and hoping for news of a potential reboot in the future.

Source: The Daily Beast

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