‘Desperate Housewives’ Creator Proposes Spinoff Set in 1996

Desperate housewives Creator Marc Cherry says there are more than enough ideas for a spin-off of his beloved series – and he has a few ideas on how to make it happen.

“I would probably want to do the idea in an earlier decade,” said Cherry – who estimates that “about 70,000 people” have asked him to reboot the series People. “Because the character I miss the most from writing is actually Wisteria Lane. It was the funniest playground ever in the history of television because the whole street was ours.”

ABC’s Desperate housewives ran for eight seasons from 2004 to 2012 and won multiple Emmys. The show’s ensemble cast included Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Eva Longoria and told the stories of Wisteria Lane, a street in the fictional town of Fairview in the fictional Eagle State.

“I know this street like the back of my hand,” Cherry continued. “If someone is filming a commercial on this street, I know it straight away because I know all these houses and I know the geography. It was so much fun writing for this place. And there are times when I think, ‘You know what? I wonder if I could write Wisteria Lane around 1966.’”

The catch, Cherry added, is deciding whether “there are still things that need to be said” – although he added that he had “a few ideas.”

“When you do a reboot, you have to have a really good artistic reason for it,” he said. “And at some point I’ll sit down with someone and say, ‘Okay, let’s talk about whether there’s a good “why” for this.”

Those conversations may have already begun, as Cherry says he remains close to much of the cast. “I met a lot of people, including Marcia, when Eva Longoria got her star on the Walk of Fame,” he said. “I had Felicity (Huffman) with me a few months ago. Brenda Strong and I make plans together. And Doug Savant’s brother actually lives on my street, so I run into Doug occasionally too. I loved my cast and I appreciate these people – every time I meet one of them, we get going like no time has passed at all.”

Cherry further praised his cast, saying, “You can write a really great script, but if you can’t get the right actors to say the words right, it doesn’t make much of a difference.” I had a few pilots where I disagreed I didn’t have the right cast, but in this case the casting gods were on my side. I was lucky.”

He also quipped, “Looking back, I never expected to have such an attractive cast. The prettiest actresses kept getting the role… And it sounds so stupid in retrospect, but I was afraid that the critics would make fun of me for creating the most attractive cul-de-sac in the history of television.”

Cherry also said he would like to return to Wisteria Lane thanks to everything he learned his first time on the block.

“I started going back and saying, ‘Okay, this is why this worked, or this is my approach to it,'” he said. “I did some things right in the first season that were more intuitive than intellectual. And I feel like if I ever got the chance to do this show again, I would be better at the job. I learned so much.”