The cast of Desperate Housewives.

The five-year leap forward seems like 50 years ago now.

At the beginning of this season, Desperate Housewives made what seemed to be a bold move by jumping five years into the future. The show’s creator, Marc Cherry, and the cast all talked about how freeing it was creatively.

Well, as the season progressed, the move didn’t seem so bold any more.

In fact, if you had spent 10 months in a cave and emerged to watch the past few episodes of Desperate Housewives, you might not know anything substantial had happened to the time-line. Your only clue would be that Gaby (Eva Longoria) now has a couple of kids who don’t really look as if they could be hers (we guess they could be her husband Carlos’ kids, so we’ll let it slide).

Remember the shock at the start of the season when Gaby wasn’t glamourous any more, but rather was a frazzled, frumpy housewife? Longoria didn’t take that for very long.

Gaby is back to being slim and sexy, and by the way, Carlos (played by Ricardo Antonio Chavira) didn’t stay blind, either. Shocker!

This forever will be remembered as the season in which Edie (Nicollette Sheridan) was killed off. But whether you like that move or not, it certainly was not necessary to spring ahead five years to achieve it.

The two-hour season-finale of Desperate Housewives airs tonight on CTV and ABC. The show still makes us chuckle from time to time, but this might have been the weakest season in the five-year history of Wisteria Lane.

One of the nagging issues has been the ongoing story-line with Edie’s husband Dave, played by Neal McDonough. Dave’s one-note “crazy cool” persona has begun to wear very thin.

Dave, of course, married Edie simply so he would have a cover story to move to Wisteria Lane.

Dave initially sought revenge against Mike (James Denton), because Dave thought it was Mike who was driving the car when Dave’s former family was killed in an accident. But Dave now knows it was Susan (Teri Hatcher) driving, so that puts both Susan and her young son in Dave’s crosshairs for the finale.

Two seasons ago, Desperate Housewives struck gold when it added Dana Delany to the cast as the mysterious and complex Katherine, and maybe Cherry thought Dave would serve the same role this season. But not only is Dave irritating, but the Katherine character has been emaciated, too.

Seriously, whatever Dave is going to do, we wish he would just do it, or get caught, or whatever.

Whether it’s five years ago, or five years ahead, or freakin’ Groundhog Day, his presence no longer is desired in the present.

Other high-profile season-finales this week:

Sunday: Survivor, The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of the Hill, American Dad, Sit Down, Shut Up.

Monday: 24, Medium, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, CSI: Miami.

Tuesday: Dancing with the Stars, 90210, Cupid, Law and Order: SVU, According to Jim.

Wednesday: American Idol, Law and Order.

Thursday: Ugly Betty, Southland.

bill.harris@sunmedia.ca