How Eva Longoria Feels About Desperate Housewives' Legacy

Recent years have seen streaming audiences flock to old television programs at a pace that would make a cheetah blush — and "Desperate Housewives" is one of the more surprising beneficiaries of that trend, with a reboot on the way. That renewed attention has also sparked conversation surrounding the show's legacy and the stars who helped make it such a hit in the first place.

Eva Longoria was at the forefront of the "Desperate Housewives" rush in the 2000s as Gabrielle Solis, one of the show's central characters whose seemingly quiet suburban life hid all kinds of salacious intrigue during its run on ABC. In a 2024 interview with The Guardian, Longoria reflected on the series' impact, noting that no one involved truly understood how big of a phenomenon it would become before the first episode even aired. Two decades later, the streaming era has only amplified the show's reach. "20 years since it first aired, people are still discovering it," Longoria admitted. "Thematically, it's timeless. The ideas that we dealt with — family, friendship, motherhood, divorce, love — are universal."

Longoria is spot on with these observations. In a fragmented media climate, there's something uniquely unifying about watching neighborhood scandal unfold within the old broadcast model. "Desperate Housewives" may be decades old, but its characters and themes remain just as resonant.

Longoria was already a household name for some viewers long before she ever stepped foot on Wisteria Lane. Her time on "The Young and the Restless" as Isabella Braña captivated plenty of daytime TV fans. Still, as big as "The Young and the Restless" is, ABC landed a massive modern hit with "Desperate Housewives."

In the same interview with The Guardian, Longoria recalled how quickly that fame went global — something "Desperate Housewives" kicked up to a whole other level. "When it came out, the first place outside the U.S. that I went was London," she explained. "I arrived at my hotel and there were crowds outside. I was like: 'Who's here? Is it a famous person like Bono or Madonna?' The driver looked at me and was like: 'They're here for you!' I went to China and people screamed my name. I was like: 'How do they know who I am?'"

Being on a long-running soap opera in the United States is one thing; joining a worldwide TV phenomenon in the heyday of broadcast television is something else entirely. Longoria and her co-stars Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, and Marcia Cross were among the hottest names in entertainment during the first year of "Desperate Housewives" in 2004. That fandom was fed across 180 episodes and a wild series finale on ABC. Given the continued success of "Desperate Housewives" on streaming services, there's still a robust market for the ladies of Wisteria Lane's trials and tribulations.