te.

I love how Dominique isn't worthless in this and that they're actually making the most of her. Bravo nuDynasty writers!

Another relationship I felt was a bit wasted - I loved their brief interaction in season 2 when Jo noticed that Sydney was all of a sudden flush with cash from hooking and not buying into her story about being a soopah model.

Someone did point out once that after 4.15 (the winter finale with the Christmas party where Jane has a stroke) the show just starts treading water and nothing much really happens. Having re-watched it a while ago I tend agree with that - I think Darren probably did help craft the season until then more or less. After that, Brooke basically becomes a screeching harpy until they kill her off in a panic mode and of course the Jane / Sydney / Michael / Kimberly storyline goes around in circles.

Since Knots Landing was written before Dallas, my theory about Kenny and Ginger is that they were the original Val & Gary - ie young new couple who were supposed to act as our way into the cul de sac. Once of course CBS greenlit it as a Dallas spin-off David Jacobs just added Val and Gary, but didn't lift out his original newly wed couple Ginger and Kenny from the script and they sort of became mostly obsolete as a result.

Yeah, that's a fairly good guess at where they would've ended it (at 3:06) as it would've left all the characters down a la the Dynasty massacre. I think the shot of Sydney/Laura a few seconds after that was clearly shot when she had gotten a new hairstyle. I feel like they might've had Amanda being thrown down the stairs and then the shot of the building burning at circa 3:18 as the actual fade out.

I think it also had to do with the fact that they would sometimes shoot outside the real apartment complex, so they might not have wanted to change anything too drastically. But yeah, with the apartment complex blowing up it would've been the perfect time to "revamp" the sets, but I guess Aaron was way too cheap to do that. I found it funny that Amanda supposedly renovated the apartments to look exactly the same as before. It was also funny how furniture turned up in apartments that were blown up in the explosion, sometimes with a new coat of paint or with new fabrics. I guess the residents were enviromentally conscious. TBH, I don't think they milked the residents having to room up with each other enough. They certainly could've gotten more mileage from Sydney / Amanda bunking up.

The issue of course was that they really only had three apartment sets - one for the one bedroom ones (Apartments #1, #2, #5, #7, #8), one for the two bedroom apartments (#6, #3) and of course one for the studio that magically expanded and became Amanda's apartment (#4). Like Southfork, it's pretty pointless in trying to figure out how the actual layout was possible because of the simple fact that it wasn't. I guess originally they figured that there were other people living there that just didn't hang out with "the gang", but I guess it just became too bisarre that this close-knit group wouldn't interact with the other neighbours at all so they were just mysteriously vacant (how that's even possible in central Los Angeles - though I guess after Kimberly bombing the place people might be a bit more weary of moving in!).

IIRC, Sydney is supposed to be 19 when she first appears. She had just dropped out of college and they do establish that when Jane and Michael were dating, Sydney was "a kid", which probably means 13/14. Of course, in real life Laura was older than Josie. I believe Jane is supposed to be a few years younger than Michael, though that might have changed with Jane appearing at their college reunion in season 7. The show was never good at keeping consistent backstories anyway - Jane watched her birth tape and talked about being an only child before Sydney appeared and Michael talked to Sydney about having a brother, until they realised they were losing Sydney and needed an insta-replacement and created Jennifer. Hey now - they spent all that money on the explosion so they probably couldn't afford showing an actual plane crash at that point But I'll defend the show on that one - I think they meant to show that Alison had evolved and wasn't the same mess as previous seasons.

Plus, there was a pretty extensive promotional campaign leading up to the show where they made sure to mention that Matt's gay as a sign about how hip'n'happenin' the show was

I've said it before, but Darren was there and helped plan the first half of the season. When you re-watch season four with this in mind it becomes very obvious especially with characters like Jake - the transition from the Shelly storyline to the loan shark is pretty natural (if too dragged out), then all of a sudden he and several other characters just start treading water and doing nothing. Then of course the show starts spinning right out of control with Kimberly re-marrying Michael and getting multiple personalities. I think it's fairly telling that Models Inc managed to have three revamps/distinct time periods (!) during its only season. Chuck tends to be able to pull out some exciting moments, but long-term planning is not his forte. I remember watching his 2006 ABC pilot "Secrets of a Small Town" that was probably meant as a companion to Desperate Housewives. While it was actually quite good I could see him trying to explain his long-term goals with the show to ABC execs and that being the reason it was turned down.

Probably - I remember back in the 90s people kept spelling it Alison / Allison which made me take notice on her name plates on D&D etc and it was always spelled Alison from what I can remember.

@Brolden I'm pretty sure the show was consistent with spelling it "Alison", but I might be wrong.

I agree that Richard was likely dumped because Muldoon was very wooden, then again - Andrew Shue, anyone? With that said, I assume that if he had worked out better he would've been moved up to contract in season 5, just like how Laura and Marcia started out as regular recurring guest stars. He was, after all, in almost every episode in season 4. Honestly, if Darren hadn't left I feel he would've put the show in a better position to handle the upcoming departures, add in that Zuniga probably would've stayed since she got the part because they used to be roommates to begin with. He did always say that he expected Melrose to have a Knots Landing-style of run rather than "only" running for seven seasons since people could always move in and out of the complex.

Alison and Jake is one of those couple that looks like a great idea on paper and they even teased it in season one, but yeah, for whatever reason they screwed it up really badly. It didn't help that they ended up islanding them once Jane left and Billy lost interest in Alison, but I guess at that point they knew Courtney and Grant were itching to leave so maybe they just didn't feel like trying to integrate them into the cast. It was exciting, but really short-sighted - it felt like before Darren left, he set up several potential "next generation characters" that could move in (Peter / Alycia / Bobby / Richard / Brooke) and potentially fill some gaps, but once Frank South properly took over he screwed almost all of them up. Brooke especially, who just turned into a screeching harpy - I feel like she was sort of originally supposed to be modelled on Melissa from Falcon Crest rather than... whatever they ended up doing with her.

I kind of always assumed that they were originally going to bring Jasmine Guy back along with Jack Wagner, but maybe that didn't work out for whatever reason and brought in Alycia Barnett / Ann-Marie Johnson instead. It would've made sense too since Caitlin promised to get revenge on Amanda. In general, with season three there were really stuff there they could mine for future storylines with both Caitlin and Traci Lords & the cult. Either way, killing off Alycia was clearly a short-sighted move considering the cast exodus that was about to come. Even if they had kept her as recurring she would've added some cast consistency to the show, plus it was sort of shocking that they didn't have a resident lawyer anyway.

In all honesty, the first half of season 4 is still kind of "Peak Melrose" for me - it's only around half-way in when Darren Star's proposed arc ends (he apparently helped put up a plan for the first half of the season - I'm guessing Oy! To The World is the last episode he helped plan), the show suddenly starts treading water for a few episodes and then of course goes completely OTT to compensate (Brooke slips, dies and becomes a ghost! Kimberly gets a gazillion personalities!) . 😛 As much as I liked Central Park West (well, at least before Camille Marchetta took over) I really wish Darren would've stayed or Aaron would've at least let him stay as a consultant as he wanted instead of bitterly shunning him. Maybe Darren would've returned to the show after he got the rug pulled out from under him at CBS.

I agree and it was pretty clear that when they only ordered six episodes instead of the 13 proposed. I guess if the ratings had remained high during the six episode run they might've done another season, but it's obvious Fox never saw this running for several seasons especially considering how quick other reboots have burnt out ratingswise. In all honesty, a six episode revisit with the old 90210 characters would've worked better. Just a quick dip into their lives 20 years after it ended. Clearly the metaversion was meant to run for multiple seasons, so it just seems like a lot of different wills at work.

I think it's interesting that you compare it to the early days of television, because it kind of is in the way that they're still trying to figure things out. Where I live I noticed that there's a live streaming show that starts around 4pm and goes on until 7pm that's being targeted towards commuters who are watching stuff on their phones, so the format is adjusted to that. I imagine that if there are future daily streaming soaps they'll be targeted to such a crowd - people who'll end up watching something on their phone on their way to work, on their lunch break etc.

I heard Christina Crawford (Joan, The Secret Storm) had a famous mom...

Most of the original cast had chip on their shoulders when they left during the big cast exodus of season 5. I think Josie Bissett and Courtney Thorne-Smith were the only ones who really never "turned" on the show at that time - I mean, it took Marcia Cross until she got a second wind on Desperate Housewives to seemingly get behind the show again. I assume it also has to do that most were in their late 20s/30s and that was their "last" chance to make it big beyond Melrose Place that was a stress factor too for a lot of them.

Who knows? Maybe he was bitter / disappointed it didn't lead to anything else - or he just agrees to do things if he gets paid? Too bad Grant Show couldn't, err, show, but I guess he's based in Atlanta these days when filming Dynasty.

From what we could read from Corday's lawsuit it seems like they're ambitious about developing the app and utilising the shows backcatalog but Sony, for whatever reason, is blocking them. With the 1976 clip appearing I have some hope that Sony might be loosening up a bit.

Interesting that they were able to post that considering Corday has expressed interest in using the large library Days has - it was even a part of the lawsuit. Maybe something is moving on that front?

It followed pretty much the pattern of other reboots that landed on networks, the only difference that Fox didn't own this one and had no secondary source of income from it unlike let's say Will & Grace on NBC with Hulu. It was more like the Murphy Brown reboot in that sense that there was little incentive for Fox to keep it on as they wouldn't be a part of the other profit it generates. I really think a real reboot would've gone the same way when put on Fox. I think CBS All Access would've been a decent option for it as it rated well in the 35-50 age bracket which would probably be "young" and appealing to them, lol.

*shrug* It would've done the same regardless - high debut, then fizzling out through the run. It should've always been on streaming, proper continuation, reboot or otherwise.