The cast of Desperate Housewives and (below) Marcia Cross who plays Bree Van de Kamp

The show has redefined television in over 15 countries, becoming the number one English entertainment show. On July 15, 10 pm, enter the world of Wisteria Lane and get acquainted with Desperate Housewives, as it premieres in India on STAR World, mixing human insights and drama with biting satire, top-notch comedy and dollops of mystery and intrigue.

Desperate Housewives is narrated from the perspective of Mary Alice Young, a perfect housewife who had everything a woman could want, until she put a bullet in her head. Now dead, and infinitely wiser, she peeps into the secret lives of all her neighbours, which are seemingly just as perfect, and just as unhappy, as hers. As each of Mary Alice?s friends on Wisteria Lane wonder and probe in their own ways the real reasons for her death, the plot weaves its way around their own lives, affairs and skeletons in their cupboards.

Each episode follows the ups and downs in the lives of the klutzy yet charming Susan Mayer, the single mom who will go to extraordinary lengths for love, played by Teri Hatcher in her Golden Globe-winning role; the bored trophy wife and ex-model Gabrielle Solis, played by Eva Longoria; Lynette Scavo, the ex-career woman who has traded the boardroom for a family, struggling to handle her four young children played by Felicity Huffman; the perfectionist homemaker Bree Van de Kamp, whose family is about to rebel, played by Marcia Cross; and the neighbourhood seductress Edie Britt, played by Nicollette Sheridan.

As love-struck Susan competes for the attention of new neighbour Mike Delfino with Edie Britt, Gabrielle takes a liking to her hunky 17-year-old gardener. Meanwhile, Bree attempts to fix her life?s problems through obsessive housecleaning, and Lynette struggles to control her children while at the same time keeping her sanity. Throughout the course of the show?s wildly popular debut season, each woman faces her fair share of drama and does her part in helping to uncover a mystery.

Said Ajay Vidyasagar, senior vice-president, marketing and PR, STAR India: ?The show has been so successful because it expresses the needs and aspirations of women who have to balance the various facets of their lives without ever appearing to be out of control.?

Sharp writing, imaginative direction, strong production values and some of the most attractive stars on the small screen have made this series the most talked-about show on TV. Even US First Lady Laura Bush, pop sensation Britney Spears and Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry are proud to be Desperate Housewives fans. Don?t miss the first episode, with repeats on Saturday at 2.30 am and 4 pm, Sunday at 11 pm and Wednesday at 1 pm.

The first episode opens with Wisteria Lane?s model neighbour, Mary Alice Young, rustling up some waffles for her family?s breakfast, painting a wicker chair, dusting the pottery, then blowing her brains out. Subsequent episodes are narrated by her from heaven. But why does a housewife so desperate that she commits suicide now sound so cheerful, is the big question that Marc Cherry, the creator of the show, had to answer.

?Because the world finally makes sense to her,? says Cherry. ?That, I would imagine, would give anyone a bit of peace and joy.?

The show?s whydunit plotting does not, however, even begin to explain the phenomenon of a programme so popular. Dark yet brightly lit, witty yet rarely belly-laugh funny, original yet full of obvious thefts from others, the show initially left even its writers unsure of its tone. Cherry would ask of a newly-written scene: ?Where?s the wicked??

The wicked certainly helps. So does the casting of four sexy actresses. But no, if there is a secret to the success of Desperate Housewives, it is located for all to see in its title. ?The whole series is about choices. These women make choices every episode about ways to kind of fix their life, usually bad ones ? that?s where the fun comes in,? Cherry explains.

The first and most important research tool remains his parents, the late Truman Cherry, a prosperous oil executive, and Martha, a housewife who gave up a career as a fashion designer for her kids. ?At some point they became two people who really had in common only their children. That was the bad part of their marriage. The good part was that so much love was poured into us kids? But thank God for my family?s weirdness; now I drive a Lexus because of it.?