Marc Cherry's latest soapy drama Devious Maids isn't exactly dominating in the ratings, but that's the great thing about a cable TV series. It doesn't need to. What's more, the series has actually shown an increase in viewers since its premiere back in June, which is why it's not particularly surprising that the show was picked up by Lifetime for a second season.
TVLine reports that Lifetime has ordered a second season of Marc Cherry and Eva Longoria's drama Devious Maids, giving the primetime soap a 13-episode order for Season 2. This news comes amidst the series' first season on the cable channel, with a handful of episodes to go until the season wraps up for the summer.
As mentioned, the ratings for Devious Maids were just ok from the start, with about 2 million people tuning in to meet the titular maids of this story, whose lives and work are intertwined with the wealthy people they work for. TVLine notes that the series is Lifetime's fastest-growing drama ever, securing Lifetime ash cable's top network in the Sunday at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT time slot among women. The series managed to draw in more than 2.8 million viewers for the episode that aired at the end of July. Though the last two episodes came in a bit lower than that, they were still noticeably above the barely-two-million viewer premiere. So renewal seems like the right call for Lifetime, and given the growing number of viewers the series has acquired, there are plenty of fans surely celebrating this news.
Much in the way Cherry's Desperate Housewives focused on a group of female friends whose lives and drama were intertwined, and also included some dark murder-focused mysteries, so too does Devious Maids, only instead of focusing on beautiful upper-middle-class housewives, Devious Maids follows the beautiful hired help of beautiful wealthy people. The pilot episode, which is based on Mexican series Ellas son la Alegria del Hogar, introduced us to Ana Ortiz's character Marisol Duarte, a woman who takes a job as a maid and is determined to uncover the truth behind the murder of one of the previous maids. Not only is she infiltrating the household, but she also sets out to befriend some of the other maids in the neighborhood in the hopes of getting information to clear her son's name of the murder. In addition to Ortiz, the cast includes Dania Ramirez, Roselyn Sanchez, Edy Ganem, Judy Reyes and Susan Lucci, among others.
Admittedly, I didn't get past the pilot, as Sunday nights are packed this summer, but I've already vowed to get caught up on the series on Netflix if and when the show becomes available. Hopefully Lifetime will make that happen between the end of Season 1 and whenever Season 2 debuts. If they do, perhaps the series' viewers will improve even more when the show comes back for its second season.
