te.

It apparently aired together with 2000 Malibu Road when it moved to Wednesdays in the summer of 1992 - odd that 2000 Malibu Road seem relatively remembered for a show with a short run, while you can find almost nothing online about Freshman Dorm. You have to wonder what CBS was thinking with programming two similar shows against Fox's Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place though - either they really didn't expect much from these shows (hence why they were so surprised when 2000MR was a hit) or they really wanted to destroy Fox's summer line up. Maybe a bit of both.

No, they didn't. I think they mentioned that she was on the way to meet him, but that's about it. If anything it seemed like the murder was arranged by Naldo from Dallas, but even that wasn't clear. It was more like she was murdered, there was a bit of press about it and that was it. I don't get the impression they cut anything out. It does feel like it had a mini-series ending - the only real cliffhanger is that Bibi and John Reilly's characters are still stuck in a marriage from hell. Everything else seemed to tie up nicely. I don't think the main issue for the series was the use of video either to be fair - overall there's a very low energy feeling of everything. Even scenes that felt like they were key scenes really didn't end up feeling as big as they should be. I really wanted Bibi to go full-on with her character but that just never kind of happened. I also think the people behind the scenes being more experienced in building a daytime drama rather than a primetime one didn't help - it really does feel like a condensed daytime soap; like one of those clip shows/omnibus episodes that certain international soaps does. Honestly, I doubt ABC were interested in picking this up considering the bare bones budget it must've had.

Just some final thoughts... Overall I can see why this didn't go anywhere. It clearly couldn't have been shown during the regular season because it would've stuck out like a sore thumb, so I'm not even sure what they were thinking when they ordered this. Did they just want it as an exclusive summer programming or did they intend on giving it a bigger budget if it went into the regular season?

Annoyingly, it looks like the first ten minutes of the second tape is badly damaged (I can watch it when I play it in 2x, but with no sound), luckily via the subtitles I can sort of follow it and there's no really interesting scenes from what I can see. Just a bit about the Chadway's money woes when sending the kid to college, them needing to fire Ada the maid and some minor progression with the Cheryl/David baby storyline that's a bit detached from the show anyway. Luckily it seems to be okay again around the 10 minute mark in.

There's sort of been a twist to the story as I'm watching it - I have no idea where they're going with this... John Reilly really plays a complete sleazebag well. There are some fun twists in this show so far at least, even if it does look very daytime.

Here's a poor rip of The Hampton's intro: I'll try to rip the episodes (or at least highlights) properly once I've finished watching it, though I think I need a better capture program because the quality of the program (honesttech) that came with my adapter is sort of dreadful and makes the VHS rips look even worse. "Supervising producer: Charles A. Pratt" - you have got to be kidding me.. Gosh, you can really tell this is shot on video - it makes it look SO cheap. And lol at the grandfather (?) character trying to make it up a couple of stairs about three minutes into the episode and then fall over what I presume is a heart attack. So hilariously random. Kate Dezina is playing it like she's drunk. Or had a stroke because she's slurring it. I think I've seen what must've been the cliffhanger to the first episode now. I feel it's quite obvious at least. Bibi Besch is playing the [!@#$%^&*] out of her embittered alcoholic harpy character. Looking at the locations I feel like some of these might've appeared on Revenge? I know there was a lot of CGI on those houses, but I do think there's a house that sort of bears some vague resemblance to the Grayson mansion (though not as extravagant). I guess it's just the architecture out there though.

Here's a bit of a rarity that I found on an old VHS (hence the quality) - the intro to Freshman Dorm, a college soap opera that ran briefly on CBS in the summer of 1992 (I guess they were really after the FOX demographic with this and 2000 Malibu Road?) starring Robin Lively, Casper Van Dien, Matthew Fox and Central Park West's Justin Lazard. Sadly, it was only the first few scenes plus the intro of the episode so there wasn't much else of interest recorded of the episode besides the intro:

In all honesty, it's not unusual at all for cast members to miss photo shoots. I guess in this case they just didn't bother photoshop him in, though it wouldn't surprise me if there's a picture where he "appears" next to Linda - it seems almost like they purposefully kept that spot empty.

Bless whoever brought up Alison's ugly robe.

I'll certainly report back - too bad there isn't any footage available from the original run to compare it to if they cut out / added stuff. It wouldn't surprise me though if they tried to tack on some sort of ending, even if it's like Lisa Hartman's narration at the end of the European mini-series version of 2000 Malibu Road. Apparently it's 3h 45m in length, so it has to be pretty much the entire series (5 episodes x 45 min).

Thomas Calabro will be on it supposedly! He's been missing from the last few reunions, so that's great news.

Huh. This is random, but at one point The Hamptons appears to have been released in Finland in two VHS parts under the name Chadway-klaani: http://www.fixgalleria.net/release.php?id=9446 http://www.fixgalleria.net/release.php?id=9448 Really random. I wonder if it was released in other places. ETA: further researching it was also released in other Scandinavian and Dutch countries as Long Island with The Hamptons as a subtitle. Anything to avoid actually calling it The Hamptons... either way I just bought it on VHS! Hopefully I'll get it this week.

I don't think it was too bad, but you sort of have to like The WB shows of that era to enjoy it. I could imagine it not doing much for those who are just strictly fans of Dark Shadows. It certainly would've paired ok with Charmed at the time.

Garcelle lived through Models Inc., including one of the hookiest bulimia storylines on television. Why should this show be an issue for her?

Did we know that the WB Dark Shadows pilot is finally floating around online? I haven't had time to watch it yet so I'm not sure if this is it, but it does seem like it. I've been wanting to see this since it was originally rejected and considering it's been shown at fan events I've always been shocked it never seemed to leak online.

Bless her. I really wish she'd stay away from the fillers, but considering the massive mental health crisis she's gone through she doesn't look bad.

If you compare the revamp of CPW to other 90s prime time soaps then it's not too bad, however, when you compare its former self then it's highly disappointing especially when you see how they're wasting/writing out almost all of the younger cast. The Darren Star created Central Park West was sleek, sexy and cool, while the Marchetta-led CPW was reheated Dynasty scripts adjusted slightly for the 90s. Carrie blowing cigarette smoke on Stephanie's warderobe while being given a tour of her apartment is still one of my favourite bitchy things to do. Some of these days I must take up smoking in order to do so if I ever get an invitation to my favourite enemies apartment. If it's true that the Linda / Allen's "divorce trial of the century" was going to be the umbrella story in part II of the original season then I feel we were robbed.

Re: the Alison / Allison debate, I was listening to a Melrose podcast and saw this: 'tis Alison (but you already knew that).

It's such a shame 13 Bourbon St. never surfaced - it would've been interesting to see what it would've done, but I guess both Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210 had started their declines back then. Still, I believe a pilot was shot and I'd kill to see it.

Which was never true, at least episodic salaries. She got in the £100k range per episode (which was huge back then and still is today of course), but at the same time nowhere near producing a pilot. With that said, since Melrose pulling out 32-34 episodes per season that was still 3-4 million per season to Heather alone.

I think the reason they might not reach out to ask her is because she might be enthusiastic about doing something, but they know that she's not really well enough. As awful as it is to say this, but going by her appearances and videos it doesn't seem like she would be able to work, but I'm not sure she realises that herself.

Exactly and the key word is INTERACTION. In seasons 4-6 everyone became weirdly islanded and wouldn't interact outside their storylines. In season 7 everyone felt intertwined. No, it wasn't perfect but at the same time it was a major improvement (similar to Dynasty's season 9) and the show felt engaging again. It shouldn't have ended over 90210 which was trash at the time. Damn you Tori!!!!!

Actually, Aaron Spelling nixed her cameo, citing it as "stupid". She didn't want a speaking part and was only going to be seen briefly in the bar scene in the background where Eve tries to run down Amanda and Peter.

Jake did have a happy ending though - leaving to live with his kid and the mother in the middle of nowhere, supposedly raising a family. I will always advocate that Billy's last scene should've been knocking at a door in Atlanta and a blonde woman opening (unless they could get Courtney to do a cameo).

It certainly could've worked after the Shelley mess and Jake getting into trouble with a loan shark. Kimberly was, erm, resourceful enough to deal with such things.