ABC assures improvement in new "Desperate Housewives" season

Following a less critically praised second season, ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson says the next season of "Desperate Housewives" will return to the "wicked comedy" that made the show a hit in its first year.

Although the show remained as ABC's top program last season, with nearly 22.2 million viewers each week, its audience had dropped 6 percent from its debut season. In addition, critics panned the show's progression to more complicated storylines, which one critic called a "creative collapse."

"I think everyone including (creator Marc Cherry) admitted that at the beginning of last year we stumbled a little bit," McPherson says. "(We) answered so many questions at the end of the first season that he really spent too much time, I think, setting up the mystery, setting up the new arcs, and this year we're going to jump right in."

But with Marc Cherry assuming more control over his show with the departure of executive producer Tom Spezialy, McPherson says the show has a clearer direction going into the new season.

"Marc, partly because of the responsibility of 100 percent falling on his shoulders, has really stepped up and gotten out ahead of it," he says. "And we have seen more arcing of the entire season from a specific story standpoint and soap standpoint than we've ever seen so far."