Ellen Gray: Hard times hit Wisteria Lane

SO MUCH television, so little time:

_ Lots of us are feeling a little desperate these days, but if you watch TV to escape, you might want to surf right past ABC's "Desperate Housewives."

That's because the economic news in fictional Fairview is nearly as grim as it is everywhere, with Tom and Lynette (Felicity Huffman and Doug Savant) losing their pizza parlor and Gaby (Eva Longoria Parker) resorting to blackmail to save her husband's bonus. Even Susan (Teri Hatcher) is scrounging, and her ex is a plumber.

Forget that most of the residents of Wisteria Lane - starting with Susan - become less likable by the week - what about the flash-forward? The show's current season, its fifth, is supposedly taking place five years later than Season 4.

Which means it's Future Fairview's economy that's tanking.

That might explain why the fashions, cars and electronics don't appear to have much changed - we'll be reusing the current stuff - but light at the end of the tunnel, it's not.

_ Now that I've learned to spell her name, I think I'm finally seeing "American Idol" judge Kara DioGuardi for who she is.

She's the Paula Abdul we only thought we wanted: more talented, more coherent, more likely to comment on the song a contestant just sang than the one he or she hasn't yet sung.

And just a bit more boring.

_ With NBC's "Friday Night Lights" and Fox's "Dollhouse" both needing every Nielsen viewer they can get, I probably shouldn't even mention Friday night alternatives.

Yet knowing that for some, there's still that "Lipstick Jungle"-sized hole at the end of the work week, I can't help but put in a good word for BBC America's "Mistresses," which launches the first of six episodes tomorrow at 8, 9 and 11 p.m. (Starting next week, new episodes will premiere at 9, with the previous week's show repeating at 8.)

As titles go, "Mistresses" is more suggestive of the bawdy and often crass "Footballers' Wives" than of the female bonding-with-sex-on-the-side the show actually delivers.

Sure, three of its four main characters - played by Sarah Parish, Orla Brady and Shelley Conn - are playing fast and loose with fidelity, their own or others', and the fourth, played by Sharon Small, may not be as unaffected by all this as she first appears.

But there's adult conversation here, not just adultery, as well as the fun of seeing "Fringe's" Anna Torv turn up in a very different role next week.

Having gobbled down all six episodes at a time when I should have been watching More Important Shows, I'm forced to confess that I was hooked.

_ Fans of HBO's "The Wire" may have noticed former cast members popping up all over this season - from the CW's "90210," with Tristan Wilds, to Fox's "Fringe," with Lance Reddick - but FX's "Damages" has a twofer.

First, John Doman, who played acting Police Commissioner William Rawls on "The Wire," brought that wonderful sneer to the role of corrupt industrialist Walter Kendrick, who'll stop at nothing to pollute his beloved West Virginia.

Doman, a native Philadelphian (and graduate of Northeast Catholic and Penn), isn't as scary, though, as the "Damages" character played by another "Wire" alum, Clarke Peters. Peters, who's also appeared this season on ABC's "Life on Mars," was known on HBO as Detective Lester Freamon, the guy who kept "the wire" up and running.

Meanwhile, a recent episode of Fox's "Bones" appeared to be going along with the typecasting of Deirdre Lovejoy, who played assistant state's attorney Rhonda Pearlman on "The Wire" and guest-starred in a similar capacity on ABC's "Eli Stone."

But, no, her assistant U.S. attorney character turned out to be a serial killer, the Gravedigger, whom the "Bones" team first encountered in Season 2.

Which would seem pretty original if it weren't beginning to appear that nearly everyone on "Bones" is only a season or two away from being outed as a serial killer with a cool nickname.

_ Until the other night, I'd probably have considered Max Gregson, the character John Corbett plays on Showtime's "The United States of Tara," TV's most understanding husband.

But that's only because I'd forgotten Joe Dubois (Jake Weber) of NBC's "Medium."

Sure, Max is pretty cool, what with putting up with his wife, Tara (Toni Collette), and the often-annoying alternate personalities who sublet her body.

But Joe - Joe hasn't had a night's sleep in years, thanks to his wife, Allison (Patricia Arquette), and her tendency to wake him at 3 a.m. with premonitions of murder and mayhem.

This week, he caught her, apparently in the grip of one of her visions, building a fertilizer bomb in the garage.

And, OK, he did lose his temper there for a moment, what with her working on a weapon of mass destruction with their three daughters a few feet away.

But then he helped her return the piles and piles of fertilizer to the home center.

What a mensch. *

Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com.