Ah, out with the old, in with the new. The television season is dead, long live the next television season. And to prepare for it, I’m going to review new shows as the pilots become available.

Desperate Housewives; ABC, Sunday Nights 9:00 pm

It isn’t every day I get to review a program that begins with a suicide.

Mary Alice Scott (Sheryl Lee, Twin Peaks; the character is named Mary Alice Young in the pilot, but press releases are listing the last name as Scott) starts her day taking care of her chores, running her errands, and then using a revolver to end her life. She explains this to us from beyond the grave (using what I am certain is the voice of Julie Warner, Family Law, which is particularly disconcerting when in flashback sequences her voice is looped into the mouth of Sheryl Lee), and narrates for us the events in the first week of her death. We follow her friends and neighbors during that week, learning some of their secrets and seeing only glimpses into others, learning about their foibles and peccadillos.

Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher, Lois & Clark) is divorced, and convinced there is no hope for her lonliness until she meets Mike Delfino (Jamie Denton, Threat Matrix) at Mary Alice’s wake. Mike is a plumber renting a home in the development…but he harbors dark secrets of his own. Bree Van De Kamp (Marcia Cross, Everwood), a Stepford Wife on steroids, “accidentally” provokes in her husband (Michael Reilly Burke, NYPD Blue) an allergic reaction to onions after he asks her for a divorce. Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria, L.A. Dragnet) is an ex-model with a rich husband, a big house, and a 17-year-old gardener, John (Kyle Searles, 7th Heaven) to cover for, since she isn’t letting him get much work done during the day when her husband (Ricardo Chavira, The Alimo) is away.

Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman, Sports Night), traded her career for full-time motherhood, with a brood of hellions and a husband who just doesn’t get it (although at one point she gives it to him anyway). And then there’s Paul (Mark Moses, Enterprise), Mary Alice’s widower, who wakes his son Zack (Cody Kasch, Normal, Ohio) in the middle of the night unearthing yet another family secret. And as the women gather to pack up Mary Alice’s possessions, they find an omnious letter, postmarked right before the suicide.

I really hate the word, “dramedy,” but it fits this pilot; there are mysterious threads weaved through a really funny script. I have to tell you, at times I found myself laughing at things that aren’t ordinarily funny; the scene where Susan accidentally sets afire the house of her rival for Mike’s affections is a hoot, as is Lynette’s admonishing her devil-spawn that she has Santa’s cell phone number (she knows a guy who knows a guy who knows an elf) and will use it to tell him they want socks for Christmas is hysterical (and useless, too, as the swimming pool incident will attest). And there is, of course, the suicide itself, which while not “funny” is handled in a delicate manner to soften the incident which sets all of the others in motion. All of the women wonder why Mary Alice did what she did, since her life was no different than theirs, and all of the men are…well…a little clueless, and just a little sinister.

The truth is, if you live in a development (even one not as high-priced as the one in this series), you already know these characters, or at least people like them. Like any good caricature, there is more than a little truth lying in the exaggeration. There is enough skill in this company of actors to make you care about them, even by the end of a single hour, and care enough to be interested in how their stories will play out.

This series will run in Alias’ timeslot until January, when Alias returns for a twenty-straight-week run.This show is one to watch. But catch it early in the season; the networks have proven time and again that they have no patience for allowing quirky little shows like this one find an audience. And I really hope it does, because I’m dying to know what’s under the swimming pool…