'Desperate Housewives'

With Jesse Metcalfe moving out of Wisteria Lane, Mehcad Brooks wants to make himself feel right at home.

"There's a 15-minute scene of me and Eva (Longoria) I wrote. I keep trying to slip my pages into the script, but they don't allow me to do that," he says during a phone interview from Los Angeles.

For the moment, Brooks -- who joins the hit ABC soap opera Desperate Housewives as Alfre Woodard's son in tonight's season premiere at 10 p.m. on ABC and CTV -- will have to wait for his close-up with Longoria and just be satisfied with working on one of TV's most-watched series.

This, of course, comes with its own peculiar pressures.

The show may have averaged more than 23 million viewers last season, but that sort of success is difficult to sustain and already pundits are questioning whether or not the dramedy can maintain its ratings momentum.

"I don't even think about that. It was a big hit last year -- I hate to anticipate that everyone's going to watch, but I'm crossing my fingers. I'm hopeful," says Brooks. "I really don't feel any pressure, which is strange. But everyone has made it so smooth. It's hard to feel pressure when you're with people who feel so comfortable."

Comfortable? On a set that has been famously described as rife with tension, anxiety, catfighting and backstabbing?

Don't its leading ladies start fighting as soon as the cameras stop rolling?

"Only over me and I'm like, 'Ladies, there's enough of me to go around.' But no, I've never seen anything like that.

"I'd heard about the Vanity Fair shoot and thought, 'Oh my god, I'm going to be in the middle of it and there's going to be all this drama.' But I've been severely disappointed. Off-screen, we fit in just fine. Everytime we go out to a press thing or we're out promoting the show, it's like we're all friends.

"There's no drama. Marcia (Cross) and Teri (Hatcher) get on just fine. Eva gets along with everyone just fine.

"They all get along with me and Alfre. I don't want to say it's all just media hype, I don't know -- maybe it helps the show ... The entire world wants to know what they're like and they're so cool and down-to-earth. I thank my lucky stars."

MUM'S THE WORD

Woodard's character -- who was introduced at the end of last season -- is expected to be at the centre of this season's new year-long mystery.

Understandably when the subject of what his clan's secret is, Brooks is coy.

"Let's just say they fit in extremely well in that everyone else also has some dark secrets they're trying to hide.

"Ours is a much different secret, but at the same time, it's being hidden for the same reasons -- out of desperation and love."

One thing Brooks will confess to?

He wasn't a fan of the show last season.

"I didn't see it a lot. I was aware of it. With all the media attention, I knew it existed. I saw a few scenes here and there and actually liked it. I was like, 'I can't believe I liked this show.'

"But I never thought I'd be on Desperate Housewives. It just didn't occur to me. But when I read the part of Matthew, I was taken aback. I thought, 'This is really for me' and I wanted to see what I could do with the character.

"Hey, if I could get into Teri Hatcher or Eva Longoria's house -- that's right up my alley."