Puh-sleze

In a CNN interview today, Desperate Housewives (Sundays, 9 p.m., ABC) creator Marc Cherry defended his new show, saying it isn't satire.

"Satire sounds like you're making fun of something. And the truth is I'm not making fun of the suburbs. ... It's just that stuff happens. I don't romanticize that life at all."

Cherry and ABC get a rotten tomato from Virginia Housewife and I'll tell you why: "Desperate Housewives" is demoralizing to women, playing on the stereotype that we're pent-up, irrational crazy people who would rather kill ourselves than look within and create a better, happier life.

It and the overexposure it's been getting is laughable -- a man making a show about desperate women. How very cutting-edge and oh how nicely it pairs with "Wife Swap."

"Look," Cherry seems to be saying to all his chauvinist buddies, "these women have everything they want and yet they still complain. Aren't women insane?"

If the show is about the "stuff that happens" in suburbs (yawn) -- a place that isn't home to just housewives -- then why isn't it called "Desperate People," which quite obviously ABC and Cherry are.

There's a simple answer, of course. "Desperate People" isn't sexy, it's sad (not to mention way too true), and it wouldn't stand a chance of turning around ABC's pitiful ratings decline. I'm sure that decline has everything to do with the network's previously non-catchy titles (could "8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter" have done better as "8 Slutty Teenage Girls"?) and nothing to do with it's sub par programming.

No, Marc Cherry. Your show isn't satire. It's junk.