Finding Something to Complain About on Wisteria Lane

I'm a nitpicky person, I know that. I can single-handedly suck the fun out of any TV show — all it takes is a stroke (or 20) on the keyboard. So, with that in mind, let's look at last night's Desperate Housewives.

First the good. I think the show is kind of on the right track this season; they're settling down and settling in to rather non-dramatic storylines. Okay, that may not sound like a good thing, but it is. The first season of the show was fantastic, but subsequent seasons all seemed to need to try and do everything bigger and better than the first one. It was a lofty goal, but one the show never achieved. Consequently, the seasons were all a little disappointing. Don't get me wrong, there was fun to be had, but never quite as much fun and there was always a sense to them that the producers thought the show should have been more than it was.

This season, I feel like the show has backed off the bigger and better. They've had some big moments (like the fire at the nightclub) and still have a big mystery (Edie's husband and his past), but they don't seem to be trying to top themselves. It's a tactic that works well for the show – just settle down, tell us the story and let us judge, don't get all breathless about the shenanigans, that doesn't inspire us to be breathless.

That's not to say that I'm entirely happy with what's going on, but my problems tend to be on the smaller side right now. They're things that bother me though, so I'm going to tell you all about them. You remember that scene last night where Susan went over to Katherine's to talk about Mike? As you may recall, there Katherine was, baking more macadamia nut cookies. Katherine had, prior to the scene's beginning, placed one batch of cookies onto a cooling rack. Row after row, the cookies were perfectly laid out. With the second batch of cookies, the ones we got to see her put out onto the cooling rack, she made a complete mess of them. She appeared to be taking her time and considering her actions, she was flustered by the conversation, but not enough to destroy her cookie concentration (nothing destroys the concentration of Martha Stewart-types when they're doing such a task). However, she just piled the cookies up into one big mess. There were no perfectly neat and organized rows, there was nothing about it that suggested anyone who had ever placed cookies onto a cooling rack before.

Sure, that's a little silly of me to pick on, but it bothered me. It took me out of the goings-on and made me consider Dana Delany (whom I really like as an actress) and not Katherine Mayfair. Katherine would have made sure those cookies were set to cool perfectly, Dana would just want them to cool. There's nothing wrong with Dana's want, but it's just not the same as Katherine's. It was a problem for me.

See? I can suck the fun out of a show just like that, so let me remind you that I'm actually not unhappy with this season (or even last night's episode), there are just some troublesome moments. But, there always are, aren't there?