Melrose Place

[j swift]

 

 

Wait, are we forgetting that there was a reboot in 2009 right around the time of the 90210 reboot?

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[te.]

I mentioned the 2009 reboot in my post...

 

But yes, we kind of are.

[Chris 2]

They could do a reboot that’s set in a 55-and-over community. Alison and Billy relocate to a Margaritaville-like community and persuade their old pals to join them. Drama ensues when Amanda buys the community and moves in!

Edited July 12, 2022 by Chris 2

[j swift]

Did they ever reference Amanda's mother again after Models Inc?

IIRC, there was scene where Amanda told her mother never to contact her again, which explained their lack on interaction between the two shows.  But, I stopped watching before the final seasons when they derived stories from Amanda's youth, so I was wondering if they talked about her Mom?

[FrenchBug82]

Of course the whole premise of the one-season-later Parezi story was that she had faked her death to hide from an abusive mob husband, which doesnt quite jibe with the fact her father and mother had both spent extended time with her in LA and openly so.

[te.]

No. I think they might've referenced Amanda's step-mom in the season 7 plot, but from memory they did focus a lot more Mrs Damarr (Julia Adams, famous from Creature from the Black Lagoon). It has always been my guess that if the show hadn't been cancelled that she would've been involved with the murder of her son (like him surviving the fall from the bleachers and she coming in later, clearing Amanda and Eve) since they cast a a somewhat noteable horror movie star in a role that turned out to be so small.

[Chris B]

This is the type of reboot that should've always been done. With 90210, I get the desire to set it in high school since that was initially a high school show, but people liked Melrose Place for the characters, not the location. I would've kept it in the neighborhood, but not necessarily at the apartment complex. Now with the premise they had, there are ways they could've done it that would've worked better (like putting Taylor in Sydney's place and using her son with Michael instead of creating a new one), but that would take people who knew the show.

[Vee]

I think bringing Sydney back was a great idea; I think she has more cachet with the audience than Taylor (though Lisa Rinna could definitely be a draw). I think killing her immediately and embroiling her and many other characters (including Amanda) in some nonsensical art theft mystery was stupid as hell.

The David character Shaun Sipos played was intended until the eleventh hour to be Jake's son with Colleen (Stacy Haiduk), who he left the show to be with - even the name is the same. At the last moment they decided they needed a direct tie to a more popular character and made him Michael's son with some fling.  I didn't mind that because Michael is far more interesting than Jake. But either way, I do agree any potential revival now would have to be about the characters, not the complex, and how LA has changed for people like them.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Vee

[Taoboi]

Well that is intriguing either way.

 

 

[te.]

Well, I think a huge charm of Melrose Place (especially before they started islanding characters) was that they lived so close together and got embroiled with each others lives (one of my favourite examples of this is an episode in season 2 when Sydney has started hooking and Jo starts noticing that's something is "off" with Sydney's "modelling" career - two unexpected characters that never really interacted starts unexpectedly interacting because they live next to each other). I think the idea could work with a new cast - LA Complex was proof of that and more Melrose than the reboot. It just needed better writing and drop the entire premise of a murder mystery. The new creators clearly wanted to do their own show rather than reboot Melrose Place - they weren't even fans of the old one!

Edited July 18, 2022 by te.

[Chris 2]

I knew that David in 2.0 should have been Jake’s son, but I always assumed that it was changed because they couldn’t get Grant Show to appear.

[j swift]

I agree in concept, and having lived near the fictional address for most of my late 20s, I watched it religiously, but upon reflection I have some thoughts.

1.  An inherent weakness in setting a soap in an apartment complex is that there's no opportunity for stories about upward mobility without "islanding" the characters.  Amanda is a perfect example. When she bought the building it made sense that she wanted to be close to Billy, but, in reality, after two months without off street parking and central air any person wealthy enough to buy the complex would have hightailed it out of there as soon they had to exchange quarters with Jake for the laundromat.

2.  It is a known fact that in Los Angeles once someone moves to Malibu (or anywhere west of the 405 freeway) you will not maintain a relationship with that person.  It takes 75-90 minutes to drive from West Hollywood to Malibu on a good day, so nobody is casually dating someone there because they are geographically undesirable.  Fans of Vanderpump Rules will recall that once Sheena moved to Marina Del Rey her friends found any excuse not to visit her because the drive is too exhausting.  So, it was like setting a soap where half the cast lives in Chicago and the other half lives in Dallas, writers would have to invent increasingly unrealistic ways for them to interact.

 

[Chris 2]

I thought the fun thing about MP was that it was a soap, but about characters much younger than the ones featured on the 80s soaps. They were just starting out in their lives. Once everyone became successful - running ad agencies and jazz clubs and what not - I lost interest.

What you said about moving west of the 405 is really interesting. Maybe what they should have done was gradually phase the characters out as they grew older and got wealthier. And then bring in new, younger residents to replace them. It could have kept the show fresher longer. Instead everyone hung around a season or two too long, and then there was a mass exodus at the end of season 5.

[te.]

To be fair, the show itself never brought up that there was some major distance between the apartment complex and Michael's beach house, so I think it's a case of Convenient Soap Distances where it's sort of fuzzy where everything's located. Most watchers won't have ever been in Los Angeles, much less know how long it takes in real life to travel from one distance to another. Beverly Hills 90210 also did this sort of thing where things would either be located just around the corner/walking distance or miles away depending on what the plot was that week.

[Vee]

LMAO, this is 100% true. It was not plausible that half the cast was still living there by Season 4 at the latest.