 The first series of Desperate Housewives has ended in the UK |
More than four million viewers watched the season finale of TV hit Desperate Housewives on Channel 4 on Wednesday. At their peak the last two episodes of the quirky suburban comedy-drama were seen by 4.1m - a 22.6% audience share.
More than 30m watched the final episode of the quirky suburban comedy-drama in the US in May. A second series begins on Channel 4 early next year.
BBC America bosses hope to attract the show's audience by running ITV drama Footballers' Wives over the summer.
Wednesday's series finale revealed that narrator Mary Alice Young had shot herself because she had once killed the real mother of her son Zach.
Mysteries solved
The dramatic two-hour finale tied up many of the loose ends of the series in a series of flashback scenes, but left enough hanging over for the next.
The mystery surrounding Mary Alice's suicide was sparked when her friends and neighbours - fellow "desperate housewives" Susan Mayer, Lynette Scavo, Bree Van De Kamp and Gabrielle Solis - searched through her personal belongings and found a threatening note from a mystery person who "knew her secret".
 The series has made Teri Hatcher an A-list star once more |
At its peak, the Channel 4 show drew audiences of five million viewers.
The Daily Telegraph described it as "one of television's greatest recent adventures" while the Radio Times said it was "one of C4's canniest imports since Friends".
The programme won two Golden Globe awards in January, including an individual honour for former New Adventures of Superman actress Teri Hatcher.
Even American First Lady Laura Bush revealed she was a devoted viewer in a speech to the American media, in which she joked she was herself a "desperate housewife" who was always left watching the show alone because her husband usually had fallen asleep by that time in the evening.
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