Desperate Housewives

STARRING Nicollette Sheridan, Eva Longoria, Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Brenda Strong

THE SETUP: It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood–until seemingly perfect suburban­ite Mary Alice Young (Strong) shockingly ends her life. Her tragedy threatens to unravel the secretly turbulent existence of the friends and family she left behind.
THE TWIST: Mary Alice, observing the melodrama from the afterlife, acts as our narrator.
WE SAY: Wow. A little Knots Landing, a little "American Beauty," this sexy and satirical twist on the prime-time soap is TV bliss, with a perfect blend of humor and intrigue and a delightfully eclectic cast (including Huffman as a career woman turned frazzled mom and Cross as a tightly wound control freak).
THE OUTLOOK: The season's juiciest must-see guilty pleasure.