A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES STARRING MARY-LOUISE PARKER, DANA DELANY, AND ROSALYN SANCHEZ? Among the things I managed to do during the downtime when not hanging out with 7,000 legal professionals from around the world in Toronto (and even before I got stuck at "lovely" Pearson International Airport for 6 hours and through two flight cancellations) was to read Bill Carter's Desperate Networks. Sadly, I was disappointed. While there are interesting threads (the various major metamorphases of Desperate Housewives and Lost, the panic at NBC over losing its lead, and the time they gave Simon Cowell scripted put-downs), the book has two big flaws. First, while it was a novelty only a few years ago, almost every newspaper now has a Reporter Who Covers Television (though only the Washington Post, as far as I know, has a Reporter who Covers The Reporters Who Cover Television), so there's not a lot of novelty or revelation of the "behind-the-scenes" materials. Second, unlike The Late Shift, there's no single hero, villain, or major "fight" at the center of the story. Sure, there are threads (the struggle of Lloyd Braun to get Lost on the air over the objection of his various bosses, Marc Cherry's vision for Desperate Housewives, and NBC's plummet), but the book has too many stories to tell, and loses a narrative thrust as a result. (For what it's worth, all of the above were seriously considered for Housewives roles, as were Mary Louise Parker, Calista Flockhart, Sharon Lawrence, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jeri Ryan, Roma Downey, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Alex Kingston.)