Production

The idea for the series was conceived as Marc Cherry and his mother were watching a news report on Andrea Yates. Prior to Desperate Housewives, Cherry was best known for producing and writing episodes of Touchstone Television's hit comedy series The Golden Girls and its successor, The Golden Palace. In addition, he had created or co-created three sitcoms: The 5 Mrs. Buchanans, The Crew, and Some of My Best Friends, none of which lasted longer than a year. Cherry had difficulty getting any television network interested in his new series; HBO, CBS, NBC, Fox, Showtime, and Lifetime all turned the show down. Finally, two new executives at ABC, Lloyd Braun and Susan Lyne, chose to greenlight it, reportedly after The O.C. on Fox premiered in 2003 and showed that a soap opera could succeed in prime time. Shortly thereafter, Disney had both Braun and Lyne fired, following their approval of another new drama series: Lost.

The ABC executives were not initially satisfied with the name of the new show, suggesting Wisteria Lane and The Secret Lives of Housewives, instead. However, on October 23, 2003, Desperate Housewives was announced by ABC, presented as a primetime soap opera created by Charles Pratt, Jr., of Melrose Place fame, and Marc Cherry, who declared the new show to be a mix of Knots Landing and American Beauty (1999) with a little bit of Twin Peaks. While Cherry continued his work on the show, Pratt was credited as executive producer for the pilot episode only, remaining linked to the show as a consulting producer during the first two seasons.

On May 18, 2004, ABC announced the 2004–2005 lineup, with Desperate Housewives in the Sunday at 9:00–10:00 p.m. ET slot, which it held all through the run of the show. After only three episodes, on October 20, 2004, ABC announced that Desperate Housewives, along with Lost, had been picked up for a full season. A couple of weeks later after Housewives premiered the owners of NBC called to see who had passed on the series due to its ratings success.

Desperate Housewives was produced by creator Marc Cherry (Cherry Productions), Austin Bagley and, since 2007, ABC Studios. From 2004 to 2007, Desperate Housewives was produced in association with Touchstone Television.

Production crew

Cherry, Tom Spezialy, and Michael Edelstein served as executive producers for show's the first two seasons. Spezialy, who also served as a staff writer, left his previous position as writer and executive producer for Dead Like Me to join the Desperate Housewives crew. He had also worked as writer and co-executive producer on several shows, among them Ed, Jack and Jill, and Parker Lewis Can't Lose, while Edelstein had been the executive producer of Threat Matrix and Hope & Faith.

Second season conflicts arose among the executive producers. Subsequently, Edelstein left the show mid-season, and by the season's end, so did Spezialy. For the third year, Cherry was joined by award-winning writer and producer Joe Keenan—of Frasier fame—and television movie producer George W. Perkins, who had been a crew member of Desperate Housewives since the show's conception. Although receiving praise for his work on the show, Keenan chose to leave Desperate Housewives after one season to pursue other projects. Replacing him as executive producer for season 4 was Bob Daily, who had joined the crew as a writer and co-executive producer during season 3. Daily's previous work include writing for the animated series Rugrats, and for Frasier. Also joining Cherry, Perkins, and Daily for season 4 were John Pardee and Joey Murphy, who had been with the series since the beginning. Both had also worked on Cherry's previous show, The Crew, in 1995, as well as on the sitcom Cybill.

In the first four seasons, Larry Shaw and David Grossman have been the most prolific directors, together directing more than half of the episodes.