Cherry repeats plans for 'Desperate' end

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — A number of news outlets treated it like Big News when "Desperate Housewives" creator/executive producer Marc Cherry told critics the other day that he plans to end the series after seven seasons.

It wasn't.

Oh, Cherry said it. Sitting in a room full of journalists — some of whom must have been new to the television beat — the ever-quotable writer/ producer said, "I've made the decision that after seven years, I will probably keel over in a hump and die. I love my baby. I love working with these gals, but the idea of letting anyone else take the show from me kind of makes me sad and sick to my stomach.

"I'm going to take it through seven years. And I think we're going to get out while people still like us."

The reason this wasn't Big News is that it wasn't new. It's exactly the same thing Cherry has been saying for years.

Like this, which ran in the Deseret News on Jan. 25, 2007: "I want it to run seven years. And the moment seven years is past, I will personally take down the sets."

If there was anything approaching Big News that came out of what happened during this summer's Television Critics Association press tour, it was this: As Cherry was vowing to shut down "Desperate Housewives" after three more seasons, ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson was in the back room loudly repeating, "Not going to happen! Not going to happen!"

And Cherry's response to that: "Of course, this could be some clever ruse on my part to get tremendous amounts of money in Season 8, but who knows?"

Even that's not exactly news, because it's sort of the way things go in Hollywood.

If "Desperate Housewives" is still chugging along in the ratings and if at least a couple of the show's Big Four — Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman and Eva Longoria Parker — agree to do an eighth season, there will indeed be an eighth season.

And that will be actual news.

TIME WARP: "Desperate Housewives" did indeed jump ahead five years in the final minutes of May's fourth-season finale, and there's no going back.

Well, almost no going back.

"Basically, we're committed to the five years," Cherry said. "It's not like we're going to be going back in time."

Executive producer Bob Daily clarified that a bit. There will be "some bouncing" but only in brief scenes.