‘Desperate Housewives’ Creator Suggests Spinoff Set in 1996: “I Have a Couple of Ideas”

Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry says there are more than enough ideas for a spinoff of his beloved show — and he has a few ideas on how to make it happen.

“I would probably want to do the idea maybe in an earlier decade,” Cherry — who guesses he’s had “about 70,000 people” ask him to do a reboot of the series — told People. “Because the character I miss writing the most is actually Wisteria Lane. That was the most fun playground anyone in the history of television has ever had, because we owned the whole street.”

ABC’s Desperate Housewives ran for eight seasons from 2004 to 2012, and won multiple Emmys. The show’s ensemble cast included Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Eva Longoria, and told the stories of Wisteria Lane, a street in the fictional town of Fairview, in fictional Eagle State.

“I know that street like the back of my hand,” Cherry continued. “When someone shoots a commercial on that street, I know it instantly, because I know all those houses, I know the geography. It was such a fun place to write for. And there’s times when I go, ‘You know what? I wonder if I could write Wisteria Lane in like, 1966.'”

The catch, Cherry added, is deciding if “there is still stuff that needs to be said” — though he adds he’s had “a couple of ideas.”

“If you do a reboot, you have to have a really good artistic reason to do it,” he said. “And at some point, I’ll sit down with someone and go, ‘Okay, let’s talk about if there’s a good enough “why” to do it.'”

Those conversations have potentially already started, as Cherry says he remains close with much of the cast. “I ran into a lot of people, including Marcia when Eva Longoria got her star on the Walk of Fame,” he said. “I had Felicity [Huffman] over a few months ago. Brenda Strong and I are making plans together. And Doug Savant’s brother actually lives on my street, so I’ll bump into Doug occasionally too. I loved my cast and I treasure those people — every time I run into one of them, we pick up as if no time has passed at all.”

Cherry went on to sing the praises of his cast, saying, “You can write a really great script, but unless you get the right actors to say the words correctly, it doesn’t make much of a difference. I’ve had a couple of pilots where I don’t think I got the right cast, but in that one, the casting gods were with me. I lucked out.”

He also quipped, “Looking back, I never really anticipated having such an attractive cast. The prettiest actresses kept getting the part… And this sounds so stupid in retrospect, but I was worried critics would make fun of me for putting together the most attractive cul-de-sac in the history of television.”

Cherry also said he’d love to return to Wisteria Lane thanks to all he learned his first time on the block.

“I started to go back and go, ‘Okay, this was why that worked, or this is my approach to this,'” he said. “I did some things right the first season that were intuitive, more than intellectual. And I feel like if I ever got a chance to do that show again, I’d be better at the job. I learned so much.”