The seventh season of Desperate Housewives, a television series created by Marc Cherry, began airing on September 26, 2010, and concluded on May 15, 2011. The deceased Mary Alice Young continues to narrate the events in the lives of her friends and Wisteria Lane residents, Susan Delfino, Lynette Scavo, Bree Van de Kamp and Gabrielle Solis. New housewife Renee Perry is introduced in this season. Paul Young returns to the lane and is the center of this season's mystery.
According to Cherry, he had intended for the series to conclude after its seventh season, but the eighth season ended up being the series' final season. The first episode of the season aired in Latin America on October 6, 2010. Season 7 premiered in Ireland on Tuesday, October 12, 2010. Season 7 began airing in the United Kingdom on October 17, 2010. It started airing at 9:00 pm on October 25, 2010 on OSN's Show Series in the Middle East. Season 7 began airing in France in the translated version on April 14, 2011 on Canal Plus.
The series saw the lowest ratings in its history in the seventh season. In the first 12 episodes, the series attracted very similar viewership to the second half of the sixth season and hit season highs of 4.4 in the 18-49 demographic and continued around 3.5 - 4.3 until mid January. But after the thirteenth episode of season seven, "I'm Still Here", the ratings declined heavily because of the consecutive competition from the 68th Golden Globe Awards and then saw even lower numbers, against the 2011 Grammy Awards and then the Country Music Association Awards. "Desperate Housewives" lost many viewers in the second half of its season, and unlike the previous season, it failed to pick up again towards the end of the season. The show hit series lows of 2.7 in 18-49 demographic twice and continued to receive ratings between 2.7 - 3.1 in the last 11 episodes with the exception of "Searching" which was promoted by ABC after the 83rd Academy Awards and had a lead in from the season premiere of Secret Millionaire. This is the first time in its history that it did not place in the 20 most watched shows, ranking as the 26th most watched show, although it did place as the 13th most watched scripted show during the 2010-11 television season. The season averaged 11.85 million viewers per episode and is ABC's third most watched scripted show in total viewers after Body of Proof and Modern Family. In the 18-49 demographic, the show ranked 20th.
