On the Tube / By Alan Pergament
The Fall TV Season: Return of the women's shows
It’s time for gossip about Eva Longoria Parker’s new hairdo, Teri Hatcher’s new attitude, Brooke Shields’ new mom, Kate Walsh’s new strength, Lucy Liu’s new role, Nicole Richie’s shower scene and Loretta Devine’s double life.
Of course, I’m talking about their characters, not real life. Normally, I try to avoid gossiping about story lines on the assumption that viewers would rather discover what is going to happen for themselves. But the writers, producers and stars of “Desperate Housewives,” “Private Practice,” “Eli Stone,” “Lipstick Jungle,” “Dirty Sexy Money” and “Chuck” were so eager to reveal spoilers about their shows during the TV writers’ conference in Los Angeles last month that I feel it is my duty to give readers the gossip.
There is no bigger gossip than “Desperate Housewives” creator Marc Cherry, who sent his female characters five years into the future in last season’s finale. Viewers discovered that glamorous Gaby (Parker) is an overtaxed mother, the romantic Susan (Hatcher) is no longer with plumber Mike (James Denton), Bree (Marcia Cross) has become the next Martha Stewart, and Lynette’s (Felicity Huffman) boys have become juvenile delinquents.
Cherry said the series is primarily going to stay five years in the future, which allows the characters to escape the stereotypes they had become.
“I think you’ve seen sort of years of a person who is like, ‘please love me, please love me, please love me,’ ” said Hatcher of Susan Mayer. “Now, for many reasons that will be revealed over the new season, she is probably a person who’s more closed off to love and not searching and needy of it.”
Parker has her own adjustments to make as Gaby, the unglamorous mother of two. “She’s just really kind of let go of that vanity for the past five years,” said Parker, sporting a shorter haircut so she didn’t have to wear a wig to play Gaby.
“She does have her past and she was a runway model,” added Parker of Gaby. “So in her frumpiness, there’s efforts of trying to be glamorous and it’s just tragic.”
As far as the men in “Housewives,” Cherry said Gaby’s husband Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) remains blind and Mike will make an appearance. “It will be revealed what happened to Mike and Susan, and that’s all I’m going to tell you,” said Cherry.
Neal McDonough (“Boomtown”) joins the cast as a new Wisteria Lane neighbor. “He will be bringing the mystery with him and all I’m going to tell you is he has revenge on his mind,” said Cherry.
He wouldn’t say how Edie (Nicollette Sheridan) — who severely damaged her friendships last season and appeared to be history — comes back to Wisteria Lane, other than to say it’s in “a very surprising way.”
Shonda Rhimes, the executive producer of both “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice,” generally is as closed about revealing plot lines as Cherry is open. But she did reveal that Izzie Stevens has a great story line that should please disgruntled actress Katherine Heigl. Also, that the relationship between Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) and Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) won’t be dealt with in a typical way.
“What I love is we sort of sat with GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and talked about women who figure out they’re lesbians later in life and what that means,” said Rhimes. “We really were able to find some really great, humorous and serious emotional stuff to play that’s going to feel really interesting and also affect their lives in the hospital.”
As far as “Private Practice,” Rhimes wants scripts with stronger medical and ethical dilemmas to balance the soapy elements. Dr. Addison Montgomery (Walsh), who moved from Seattle to Los Angeles, also is going to be a stronger woman. Walsh is pleased that her character’s personal life will be explored more.
“She’s never had anybody that really likes her,” said Walsh. “Derek (her ex-husband, played by Patrick Dempsey) was like ‘get away.’ Sloan (her ex-lover, played by Eric Dane) was just, like, after one thing. And Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) was a curmudgeon. So now there’s actually some kind of fun and love and romance.”
Loretta Devine, who plays a secretary on “Eli Stone” and Adele, the wife of Dr. Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.), on “Grey’s,” had fun with her surprising romantic return to “Grey’s” last season to reunite with the hospital chief.
“I never know whether they’re going to kill me off,” she said. “So when I went back, I thought that they were bringing me back to do that. Instead they wrote in a bedroom scene. So I was really happy about that.”
Shields, who had a well-known stage mother when she was growing up, was pretty happy when Mary Tyler Moore was cast as the mother of her character, movie executive Wendy Healy, on “Lipstick Jungle,” NBC’s series about female friends.
“As she said to the ladies on the set, she sort of personifies the working woman of another era,” said executive producer Oliver Goldsmith. “She was playing in an all-boys club. And it’s really interesting ... juxtaposing what was going on 30 years ago in ... a corporate situation to now.”
“She’s MTM,” added Shields. “You gotta get over that fact first, and then she just became my mom.”
Lucy Liu had to get over the fact that her ABC female power series, “Cashmere Mafia,” didn’t survive like “Jungle.” But she quickly landed on ABC’s “Dirty Sexy Money.” Asked if she would be romantically paired with anyone, Liu sounded ready for a “Grey’s Anatomy” plot line.
“I think I’ll be romantically paired maybe with everyone, including the women,” she said to laughter. “It’s going to be colorful. That’s all I can say.”
“Chuck,” the series about an accidental spy, is going to have some colorful moments, too. Richie apparently is going to play the lightest super villain in TV history.
“She has a pretty bad-ass shower fight sequence with Sarah (the spy played by Yvonne Strahovski), where they’re attacking each other with pipes and plumbing,” revealed executive producer Josh Schwartz.
Eat your heart out, “Desperate Housewives.”
