Now you can watch ‘Desperate Housewives,’ ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ in two minutes flat

TORONTO – There was a time when millions watched every episode of “Desperate Housewives,” especially during that gripping first season.

Then, the ABC drama got kind of weird and other shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Castle” stole its buzz. Viewership declined and people lost track of Bree and Lynette and Susan and Gabby and everyone else down at Wisteria Lane.

Now, after eight seasons, the Sunday night soap is shutting down with a three-hour finale scheduled for May 13 on CTV and ABC. Is there a quick, handy way for those early fans to catch up with the series?

As a matter of fact, there is.

“Quick Cuts” of the first five seasons are now up at CTV.ca. These one- to four-minute mini-episodes compress all the important details of what were once hour-long episodes into bite-sized bits. Each condensed Quick Cut has been fully edited and re-scored, squeezing in key scenes and dialogue and covering all the major plot points. Fans can find out what happened to Edie, witness a plane crash on the street and see Susan search for a kidney – all without sitting through all the boring parts.

You don’t even have to be home in front of your TV set to see it, you can catch up in transit on an iPad or other mobile devices.

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For executive producer Marc Cherry, the short cut for viewers seeking to catch up with the series can only be seen as a good thing. Cherry and series headliners Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross, Eva Longoria and others were at the most recent Television Critics Association press tour to promote the finale.

“God bless out little dysfunctional souls,” said Cherry, whose career as a writer dates back to “The Golden Girls” but who had fallen on hard times until “Desperate Housewives” became an instant hit for ABC in 2004.

He claims he’s had the idea for the last act in his head for eight years and he’s sticking to his plan. When he finally shared the idea with his writers they suggested a few twists but basically, the series will end the way Cherry always had in mind.

“I’ve had it down for quite a while now,” he says.

The only detail Cherry will share is that he will indeed appear in the series final episode.

“Yeah, I’m going to do a Hitchcock,” he says. “The hair and makeup people will go through more hell that day than they’ve ever gone through with this cast.”

He also ruled out any followup “Desperate Housewives” feature films. Cherry feels that worked for “Sex and the City” because the HBO series did far fewer episodes. “Housewives” will bow out having amassed 180 hour-long episodes, nearly three times the “Sex” total.

“I always thought the advantage for them was that they really hadn’t plumbed the depths of those characters,” he says. “After eight years, boy, I think we’re done.”

Beyond the Quick Cuts, ten of the most popular full episodes are also available for streaming now at CTV.ca.

CTV and ABC also offer Quick Cuts mini-episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy.” While other Canadian broadcasters have yet to go the Quick Cuts route, the innovation does call into question the value of watching entire episodes. If busy viewers, juggling several entertainment distractions, only need two or three minutes, why ever watch a whole show? Besides PVRing favourite series and scanning through commercials, fans can now track shows without even watching them through social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Deb Roy, co-founder of Bluefin Labs and a featured speaker at Thursday’s TV Day industry symposium held in Toronto, suggested that measuring how many people are talking about TV may be as important in the future as counting how many people are watching.

Some in the industry aren’t ready to step away from the old models yet.

Bell Media president Kevin Crull, whose CTV network is offering the “Housewives” Quick Cuts, points out that even though the estimated household penetration of PVRs has risen from two per cent in 2005 to 31 per cent in Canada today, more than 95% of what Canadian watch on TV is still watched live.

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