TV Shows Like Desperate Housewives
If you like Desperate Housewives, here are 12 similar TV shows — each with its current AI renewal verdict, so you can see which are still going and which have been cancelled.
ABC · Mystery · Desperate Housewives is ended
Desperate Housewives works because it never lets you forget that the prettiest streets hide the ugliest secrets. The show's central joke, if you can call it that, is that suburban domesticity is a performance, and everyone behind those white picket fences is either running from something or about to be caught. Mary Alice narrating from beyond the grave gives the whole thing a mordant wit that keeps even the darkest storylines from feeling oppressive. It is, at its core, a show about women holding each other up while also occasionally pushing each other off a ledge.
The best shows like Desperate Housewives
1. Good Girls
Three suburban moms who have played by the rules decide they are done doing so, and the show has real fun watching respectable women cross lines they cannot uncross. Like Desperate Housewives, it finds dark comedy in the collision between ordinary domestic life and genuinely dangerous situations. The friendship between the three leads is the emotional engine, and it is messy and warm in equal measure.
Stream on Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Cancelled0%
2. Imperfect Women
A murder at the center of a close female friendship, and the investigation slowly peeling back decades of secrets, is almost exactly the kind of plot Desperate Housewives would stretch across a full season. The show is interested in how well women can really know each other, and how much they choose not to see. If the mystery element was always your favorite part of Wisteria Lane, this one is worth your time.
Stream on Apple TV, Apple TV Amazon Channel
Ended0%
3. Why Women Kill
Three different eras, three different marriages, the same essential question about what women are expected to swallow quietly. The show has Desperate Housewives' eye for the absurdity of domestic performance and its taste for dark, stylized storytelling. It leans further into camp than its predecessor, which is either a selling point or a caveat depending on your tolerance.
Stream on Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel , Paramount+ Amazon Channel
Cancelled0%
4. Dexter: Resurrection
This one is a genuine tonal departure, but Desperate Housewives fans who were always most gripped by the serial-killer-in-the-cul-de-sac storylines will recognize the appeal. It follows a man with a murderous secret trying to hold a fractured family together while someone from his past closes in, which is a premise the show shares more DNA with than it might first appear. Think less neighborhood comedy, more thriller with family stakes.
Stream on fuboTV, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel , Paramount+ Amazon Channel
Likely Renewed65%
5. The Beast in Me
A woman who suspects her powerful new neighbor might be a murderer is basically a Desperate Housewives season-one premise in miniature. The show plays it as a psychological thriller, so the laughs are fewer, but the core dynamic of a woman sizing up a dangerous man across the property line is immediately familiar. It is a tight, watchable cat-and-mouse story built around exactly that kind of suburban menace.
Stream on Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Ended0%
More on shows like Desperate Housewives
Fans of the show tend to be drawn to a specific combination: female friendship under pressure, a neighborhood that functions almost like a character in itself, and a mystery thread that keeps you watching past your bedtime. They want drama with a knowing sense of humor, and they want women at the center of it who are complicated in ways the show refuses to apologize for. The next show does not have to be a carbon copy, but it needs that same willingness to look at the respectable surface of things and ask what is rotting underneath.
The recommendations here split into two clear groups. Good Girls, Why Women Kill, and Imperfect Women all stay squarely in that female-ensemble-with-dark-secrets territory. Good Girls is the most propulsive of the three, leaning into crime-thriller energy while keeping its suburban-mom heart. Why Women Kill takes the most stylistic swings, jumping across decades to ask the same question about marriage and rage over and over. Imperfect Women is the most purely mystery-driven, built around a murder that slowly dismantles a long friendship. The Beast in Me is a tighter, more focused thriller, but its DNA of a woman sizing up a dangerous neighbor is very much Wisteria Lane logic. Dexter: Resurrection is the odd one out in terms of setting and tone, but fans who always wanted more of the serial-killer-next-door energy will find something to chew on there.
None of these shows are Desperate Housewives, and they should not try to be. What they share with it is an interest in the gap between how lives look and how they actually feel, and a willingness to let women be the ones driving the story, even when the story goes somewhere uncomfortable.
More shows like Desperate Housewives
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like Desperate Housewives?
- Good Girls is the most popular show similar to Desperate Housewives in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like Desperate Housewives still on the air?
- Of the 12 shows similar to Desperate Housewives listed here, 0 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like Desperate Housewives?
- The recommendations come from TMDB's similar-titles data, and each is shown with its current AI renewal verdict so you know which are still going.