Press Tour: ABC Dramas Liveblog!

We're starting off with a 12-person panel for "Dirty Sexy Money" followed by "Private Practice" and "Desperate Housewives."

Someone asks how the "Dirty Sexy Money" team going to adjust the tone of the show in the coming season, given that ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson said it had gotten too serious.

"The show is now a musical," says executive producer Craig Wright. "A frothy, funny musical."

"And I can raise the dead," adds cast member Seth Gabel.

Actually, they say, the show is getting back to dirty, sexy, soapy basics.

  Amusement in the explanation of how Lucy Liu came to join the show. McPherson called her to tell her that her "Cashmere Mafia" wasn't being renewed, and, having seen the "DSM" pilot, she expressed her fondness for the show. Girl's not one to miss an opportunity. Phone calls were made.

Someone asks Liu if she will be paired off romantically on the show, which may be the question least likely to elicit a "no" answer the entire afternoon. She says she thinks she'll be paired "with everyone up here, including the women." Yow.

There are 12 people on the stage. We still haven't asked star Peter Krause a question.

A question about the transsexual Carmelita, who's the lover of William Baldwin's New York politician Patrick Darling, leads Wright to promise a very dramatic and it seems very public role for her. Interesting. The producers also say that Samaire Armstrong, who left the show during last season, will return for at least a couple of episodes, much as her prodigal-daughter character returns to the Darling family.

"It needs to be dirtier. It needs to be sexier. ... I think that we need to see Nick give in to some more temptation." - Krause on adjusting the tone of the show and his character, the Darling family retainer who is really the viewpoint character.

Wright says yes, Nick will face more temptations this season, "and we will track his moral and cognitive development."

Someone asks if Elliot Spitzer's troubles have made those of Baldwin's politician more believable for audiences. "I think Bill Clinton already took care of that," Baldwin says.

Next up: "Private Practice" and another crack at Shonda Rhimes.

Amazingly, the "PP" clip is the first one all day to use the new Coldplay song. I can't believe it took this long.

The first questioner congratulates Audra MacDonald on her Emmy nomination for best supporting actress and her colleagues and a lot of other folks gave her a nice little round of applause. Awww.

Rhimes on drama writing: "It's figuring out an impossible situation and putting your characters in it and seeing how they deal."

Lots and lots and lots of questions about the relationships between the characters. Many people are focused on this show like it's a romance novel.

Someone asks Kate Walsh about that sexy, sexy Cadillac commercial she did and she actually says something interesting: "In respect to 'Private Practice,' we pulled in a male demographic that was kinda nice. Suddenly there was this thing out there that brought some guys in, sports fans who were seeing it all the time..."
Rhimes: "I kinda got sick of seeing her..." (Laughter)

"Desperate Housewives" is up in a moment, and I hope it's funnier and/or newsier than these two panels. Marc Cherry was the highlight of the showrunners panel, and maybe he'll pump up the comedy jam.

Questioning begins: How do the "DH" actresses feel about the flash forward at the end of last season, when the characters aged five years. (That's where we'll pick up in the fall...)

Eva Longoria: "I was excited because I felt like it was a reset button. We got to start from scratch and explore... I was excited because of how Gaby looks now. To play something other then glamor was fun for me. ... I love it because now I come in to hair and makeup and it's like, 10 minutes and I'm all set."

Cherry: I wanted to get back to the problems of some ordinary women and they were relatable. Or course the ball will start rolling and pick up steam...""

Cross: "I was glad because Bree was going to get out of the house. Of course she's getting out of the house with her muffins, but still..."

Teri Hatcher:" I think it's great giving all the characters an opportunity to be something they haven't been. Susan for years is a woman who has been please love me, please love me, please love me, and now she's a woman who is more closed off to love and not so searching and needy of it."

Cherry reiterates a comment from the earlier session that he's going to close the doors after seven seasons because he'd be ready to go and he couldn't hand the show over to someone else. That means just three more seasons. "Not going to happen," ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson calls repeatedly from the back of the room. And then Cherry admits his own comment could be merely part of his plan to extract a vast fortune from ABC after season seven.

It's the first funny thing Cherry has said in this session. He's like a different guy from the showrunners panel. He's leading the discussion up there, dishing out compliments left and right, and not being bitchy at all.

Now there's an essay question about strong women...Nicolette Sheridan thinks women really like her character and want to be like her. Not my impression.

Cherry: "(Bree) is basically my mom. My mom loves that Marcia Cross plays her. She thinks it makes per prettier somehow."

Longoria says that the episode when Lynette (Felicity Huffman) left her misbehaving kids by the side of the road was a favorite of lot of women she hears from. They said, "I did that!" Cherry soon admits that his own mother briefly left him by the side of the road in Oklahoma one day when he was five and misbehaving. "It may have been child abuse, but it was effective."

Cherry on parenting: "My friends who have children have convinced me not to. (Laughter) And the gay single man thing is working out. ... You never know when kids are going to go bad, you never know when they're going to turn into snipers."

Gale Harold is joining the cast as the new man in Susan's life, "an interesting artsy guy who is very different from the previous man in her life and presents her with all sorts of new challenges, including that she's not sure she wants to be in a relationship," Cherry said.

The other new man in the cast is Neal McDonough, who "will be moving to Wisteria Lane and bringing a mystery with him, and all I'm going to tell you is, he has revenge on his mind."

Edie will also "return to Wisteria Lane in a very surprising way," Cherry said, and that's all he would say about that.