The first season of Desperate Housewives, an American television series created by Marc Cherry, commenced airing in the United States on October 3, 2004, concluded May 22, 2005, and consisted of 23 episodes.

It tells the story of Mary Alice Young, a seemingly perfect housewife who commits suicide, fearing that a dark secret involving her, her husband, and their son would be exposed.

At her wake, Mary Alice's four close friends and the main characters, Susan Mayer, Lynette Scavo, Bree Van de Kamp and Gabrielle Solis, are introduced.

[12] Marc Cherry wrote the script for the Housewives pilot and his agent appealed it to six networks, (CBS, NBC, Fox, HBO, Showtime and Lifetime) only to have all of them turn it down.

[21] Marcia Cross acted as Bree Van de Kamp, the uptight, perfectionist homemaker and mother of two teenagers who is struggling to save her marriage.

[26] Cody Kasch played Mary Alice's and Paul's troubled and mentally unstable son Zach Young,[25] and James Denton portrayed the neighborhood plumber and Susan's love interest, Mike Delfino, who has a secret of his own.

[29] Kathryn Joosten acted as Karen McCluskey, Lynette's neighbor across the street, and Christine Estabrook portrayed the neighborhood busybody Martha Huber.

In terms of a Ratings share, Desperate Housewives ranked 3rd in the 2004-2005 TV Season, coming behind the two separate airing spots of American Idol.

Robert Bianco of USA Today gave the pilot a score of four stars out of four, calling it "[r]efreshingly original, bracingly adult and thoroughly delightful", and going on to say that "[Desperate] Housewives is a brightly colored, darkly comic take on suburban life, sort of Knots Landing meets The Golden Girls by way of Twin Peaks.

), sharp writing and a funky vibe of its own" and that "Desperate Housewives was able to take some of the oldest formulas in the book and infuse them with their own subversive twists to whip up a frothy confection of sly wit and dark motives."

[37] Heather Havrilesky of Salon.com felt that after a few episodes, "this dark exploration of the lives of women has not only slid quickly into clichés, but the acting feels forced and overplayed, the stories are wildly unrealistic, the direction is stuck in some awkward nowhereland between campy and leaden, and the voice-over is so grating and so peskily imitative of Sex and the City that the whole package is almost unwatchable.

[39] Teri Hatcher picked up a Golden Globe Award in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy for her portrayal of Susan Mayer.

For Target stores in the United States, some select sets had a bonus disc attached that included a 23-minute special episode titled "Sorting Out the Dirty Laundry" that recapped the entire season; for Walmart stores, some sets had a bonus disc attached that included a preview of the ABC programming for the fall of the 2005 television season.