Melissa Harrold, Staff Writer

"Desperate Housewives," a new ABC Sunday night primetime soap, gives a sometimes comical, sometimes naughty and sometimes depressing glimpse into the lives of four upper-middle class women through the eyes of their deceased friend, Mary Alice.

The immaculately-kept shrubbery and beautiful, spacious homes of Wisteria Lane seem to embody all of the promise and bounty of the American dream -- at least on the outside. The men of the houses all have important jobs as doctors or businessmen, leaving their little ladies at home to care for the children, supervise the gardener and keep house.

What lies beneath all of this superficial serenity, however, is these women's desperation and unhappiness in the lives they thought they wanted, and possibly, something even more sinister.

Mary Alice (Brenda Strong) provides an incisive narrative into the lives of her friends; Lynette, the frustrated mother of four out-of-control kids; Gabrielle, an underappreciated housewife who's fooling around with her underage gardener; Bree, a pseudo-Stepford wife whose husband wants a divorce, and Susan, an unhappy single mother who's desperate for a man.

Ironically, however, while Mary Alice provides so much detail about her friends, her own life remains mysterious. At the end of the first episode on Oct. 3, her four friends discover a note addressed to Mary Alice that says, "I know what you did."

While her friends attempt to decide what to do with the note, Mary Alice's husband, Paul (Mark Moses), is shown digging up an unexplained box from underneath their in-ground swimming pool, and depositing it into a lake for safe-keeping.

Aside from this mystery plot, designed to keep audiences guessing, each of the other four main women participate in hijinks that reveal them to be comical and pitiful at the same time.

For example, in the pilot episode, Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) is scared that her husband Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) will discover that the young gardener John (Jesse Metcalfe) hasn't mown the lawn because Gabrielle has been keeping him to herself all day -- and it has nothing to do with gardening work, if you know what I mean. So, she leaves the formal party they are attending to frantically mow the lawn in her pink beaded evening gown, returning before her thoughtless husband even misses her.

In another sad but comical scene, a frazzled Lynette convinces a police officer not to give her a ticket for being unable to make her children buckle up in her sport utility vehicle by having a small nervous breakdown when he insults her parenting.

"I have no help. My husband's always away on business. My babysitter joined the witness relocation program. I haven't slept through the night in six years. And you stand there and judge me…" Lynette raved.

While desperately attempting to catch the eye of the handsome new widower in the neighborhood, Mike (James Denton), Susan (Teri Hatcher) and man-eating neighbor Edie (Nicollette Sheridan) participate in a war of the wiles, with the cunning Edie usually ending up on top. Each is continually coming up with a lame excuse to visit Mike.

Susan even went so far as to break into Edie's house when she thought Mike was visiting, and inadvertently knocked over a candle, burning down the home.

While Bree (Marcia Cross) would not bring herself down to the level of exhibiting human emotion, she is probably the most interesting character. When she and her husband go to a marriage counselor, it becomes apparent that her perfectionism is an attempt to cover up all her emotions.

"She doesn't like to talk about her feelings. To tell you the tuth it's hard to know if she has any," Rex complained to their marriage counselor.

One gets the sense that Bree will soon erupt and it will be goodbye Betty Crocker and hello reality.

Each of these characters can be easily judged as pathetic in some way, yet their stories make it easy to sympathize with the plight of an overworked mom, a lonely wife, a lonely single woman and an underappreciated mom.

And, as the mystery of Mary Alice's past unfolds, and her four friends' lives move forward, it will be tempting to find out where they all end up.