The guilty pleasure returns.
Kerry Washington has teased her upcoming “Desperate Housewives” reboot for the first time since news of the project received backlash from fans of the original series.
The “Scandal” actress, 48, discussed the new show, titled “Wisteria Lane,” during an interview on “The View” Friday. But while co-host Ana Navarro pressed Washington for details, there was only so much she was willing to share.
“This one I’m very excited about!” Navarro, 53, pushed. “One of my favorite shows, it’s rumored you’re working on a remake of ‘Desperate Housewives’ that’s going to be called ‘Wisteria Lane.’ Tell us more!”
“I can’t say too much, it’s very newly announced, in development!” Washington, who was joined by her “Shadow Force” co-star Omar Sy, responded. “The idea is that it’s new times. There are new challenges.”
“It’s like, what happens on that cul-de-sac now?” she added. “It’s really exciting.”
When Navarro asked for even more info about the “Desperate Housewives” remake, Washington refused.
“I can’t say any more!” the “Little Fires Everywhere” actress insisted.
“Desperate Housewives” originally ran for eight seasons on ABC from 2004 to 2012. The Marc Cherry-created dramedy starred Teri Hatcher (Susan Mayer), Felicity Huffman (Lynette Scavo), Marcia Cross (Bree Van de Kamp) and Eva Longoria (Gabrielle Solis).
Set on the mysterious cul-de-sac Wisteria Lane, it followed Hatcher, Huffman, Cross and Longoria’s characters as they navigated their romantic lives, personal struggles and secrets.
13 years after the original series ended in May 2012, it was announced that Washington and the Disney-owned Onyx Collective were developing a reboot of the comedy-drama-mystery series with showrunner Natalie Chaidez.
The “Desperate Housewives” remake will be a “fun, sexy, darkly comedic soap/mystery” set around “a group of five very different friends and sometimes frenemies who all live on a picture-perfect cul-de-sac called ‘Wisteria Lane,’” according to Variety.
“On the surface, all the Wisteria neighbors are living the dream,” a summary of the reboot continued. “Beautiful homes, gorgeous families, shiny SUVs in the driveway – but behind those white picket fences and smiling Insta posts, are secrets.”
But not everybody was as excited as Navarro after news of the reboot was officially announced on Tuesday, because fans of the original series rushed to social media to pan Washington and the idea of “Wisteria Lane.”
“Stop ruining the classics and come up with something original,” one fan wrote on X.
“No,” another person commented. “Bring back the originals.”
Other critics compared the “Desperate Housewives” remake to HBO’s “Sex and the City” sequel series, “And Just Like That,” which received mixed reviews both upon and following its release in 2021.
“The same thing that happened to sex and the city is about to happen to desperate housewives,” one person tweeted.
Longoria discussed a “Desperate Housewives” revival just one night before “Wisteria Lane” was announced. She said Cherry would need the “most convincing” to bring the original series back.
“Marc Cherry, our creator,” Longoria said during “What What Happens Live” on Monday. “He feels like we’ve exhausted the characters.”
“Unlike ‘Sex and the City,’ which was only like six episodes, eight episodes a year, we did 24 episodes a year for a decade,” she continued. “I can’t sleep with any more people on that street. I have slept with every person on the street.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
