For its fifth season, Desperate Housewives retained its best addition from season 4--Dana Delany as Katherine--and took a bold leap. That is, they took a jump five years into the future, and the new angle sparked the show to one of its more compelling seasons. Now Bree (Marcia Cross) is running a wildly successful catering business and Orson (Kyle MacLachlan) is finally out of jail. Susan and Mike (Teri Hatcher and James Denton) are split again and sharing custody of son MJ (Mason Vale Cotton), and dating a new guy, Jackson (Gale Harold), and lonely Katherine, respectively. Lynnette and Doug (Felicity Huffman and Doug Savant) are struggling to make ends meet at the pizza restaurant, and Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) is now a mom and trying to keep a house together with a blind Carlos (Ricardo Chavira). Following her forced exit, Edie (Nicollette Sheridan) has returned to Wisteria Lane with a new husband, Dave (Neal McDonough), who seems to be everyone's friend but has a deeply sinister side. He encourages Tom to take unnecessary risks, and starts a husband band that leads to a local "Battle of the Bands" that takes a dark turn and lands one of the Scavo teens in hot water.

Edie's unlikely friend, Mrs. McCluskey (Kathryn Joosten), has her suspicions and enlists her private-investigator sister (Lily Tomlin), not realizing she's made a target of herself. Every season, one Housewife seems to step up as a star, and this time it was probably Longoria, still impossibly self-centered but showing new depth as a frustrated mom. Other guest stars include Frances Conroy as Carlos' too-close client, Steven Weber as Julie Meyer's new boyfriend, Joanna Cassidy as a potential new member of Bree's family, Polly Bergen as Lynnette's mom, Swoosie Kurtz as Susan's coworker, and Beau Bridges as a one-episode handyman named Eli Scruggs. --David Horiuchi