Melrose Place

[Gray Bunny]

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/07/01/unauthorized-melrose-place-story-works-lifetime

I sure hope they do a mock Melrose opening, complete with Locklear's Special Guest Star billing!

[JWDrama1980]

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Paper Doll Fun

 

http://thesoapoperasaga.blogspot.com/

Edited November 12, 2015 by JWDrama1980
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[YRBB]

After a torturous three years and 2 months, I have managed to finish Season 6! Jesus. I love that they randomly lumped two episodes together and quickly stopped the season in March. Mostly just deathly boring. Having said that, I have to say Taylor's a complete hoot and there was a brilliant scene after Amanda slept with that utterly disgusting pig Rory Blake where she went into the bathroom and quietly broke down that is one of my favorite Amanda moments ever. Locklear played the hell out of it. It was almost touching! And I'm feeling that love/hate friendship they're building for Michael and Peter.

[carolineg]

Bumping up this thread after a number of years.  I have been watching seasons 1-half of 5 so far through Amazon Prime.

I can't believe the decline of the show from 5-7.  It's been mentioned a million times, but I don't understand why so many core characters departed in season five and the casting choices after.

I am a huge CTS/Alison fan.  One of the few as I can see reading this thread.  She was the heart of the show.  Alison and Billy should have ended up together.  It's criminal they didn't send them off together or at least show him at her door at the serious finale.  Jake and Alison have a spark, but then they became dull as dirt.  I remember they had some chemistry in Season 1 when she was helping get his GED and the building was all aflutter with rumors about the two of them.  None of Alison's other pairings really did anything for me except Hayley.  I loved drunk Alison, bitchy D&D Alison and Alison/Amanda's rivalry.  They should have done whatever to keep her or get her back for the finale.  Although I understand now as an adult why people weren't crazy about her.

I don't see where Brooke had to go after she became completely dependent on Billy.  Her exit was perfect timing to me.

Kimberly was a great character that outlived her usefulness.  They kept her story going far too long after the explosion.  I did always enjoy Marcia Cross.

Sydney is fabulous and the only good thing about Jane.  There was nothing interesting about Jane at all.  Even evil Jane was stupid.

Jo was good for a hot minute and her and Jake were good.  The rest of the time her character was utterly useless.

I like Matt in recent viewing.  Never cared for him much before, but I liked some of his stories even with his silly love interests and drug addiction.  Idk, I think he's a pretty good actor.

Billy is Billy.  Alison, Amanda, and Brooke made him interesting.  Him being power hunger and evil is a joke.  He worked best as the guy next door.  I am not even going to get into his love interests post-season 4.

Jake was a real loss as was shooters.  To isolate him and Alison was bizarre and to build them up only to break them up in the end was a strange choice although I do enjoy the Billy/Alison scene at the airport.

Michael is awesome as always.  He had a lot of clunker storylines especially in the end but he always sold him.

Peter was blah in repeats, but I remember liking him at the time and him and Amanda.

Everyone else is not worth mentioning except Rena Sofer as Eve, but only because of my Lois love from GH.  Taylor slamming herself into the door is the only memorable thing about the dying days of Melrose.  I like Jamie Luner, but prefer her as Peyton in the too short lived Savanah.

[John]

They left after season 5 cause all the originals had 5 year deals that all expired in 1997

[carolineg]

I totally understand that, but they managed to keep a lot of 90210's around for years.  I think they should have worked harder to keep Jake and Alison or at least let Alison and Billy go together.  Jo, Jake, Alison, Jane, Kimberly, I  missing anyone?   Matt?   That's a lot of people to loose and it seemed like they had no real game plan going into six and I realize Heather Locklear's pregnancy messed things up, but they should have tried harder to get some of the originals besides Jane back in the end.  I mean it's like two different shows after season 4 and especially after season 5.

[Gray Bunny]

 

I like your assessments @carolineg Agreed on Billy, Jo, Brooke, Matt, Michael, etc..... and count me in as another big Alison Parker fan! She had some low points there (hooking up with Steve McMillan; her being a tyrant season 3 at D&D), but she definitely was the heart of the show, as was well established in season one. 

 

I would say for the most part, Jane was only interesting when fighting with Sydney. Even her romantic partnerings occur mostly offscreen, whereas you would actually SEE what was happening in Alison or Amanda's relationships. However, she is a great ensemble character and is a breath of fresh air in Season Seven after the clusterfunk of Season Six. 

 

I also agree that in re-watching the series, Peter Burns has a lot of blah moments. He's a huge buzzkill for a lot of season 5 when he's all pissy-pants about not being able to practice. He takes it out on Amanda and later becomes some crazed zombie, treating Taylor like some sort of sex robot reincarnation of his dead wife, Beth. 

 

Jake and Allison are great characters separately, but together in their Shooters cocoon, totally petered out into oblivion. The couplings you would expect to be endgame, based off their Seasons 1-3 heyday, don't work out due to actors leaving at different times. By all means, Billy & Allison and Jake & Jo should've gone off into their respective sunsets together. 

 

And indeed, Kimberly, fantastic character as she was, outlived her usefulness post-explosion. Her becoming a psychiatrist was ridiculous enough, but then the split personality storyline was the point of no return, and her long, drawn out "dying" storyline in Season Five was horrible. It gave us Megan at least, but the storyline itself was terrible. 

 

Always a joy rehashing the goings on at 4616 Melrose!   

Edited February 10, 2016 by Gray Bunny

[te.]

Ah, yes, the failed Jake and Alison pairing. It's one of those pairings that technically seem like a good idea - the good girl and the bad boy is a classic recipe. But sadly, characters ended up becoming more and more islanded as the show went on, so it all ended up in an island of misery at Shooters.

Kimberly's "brain tumour" storyline was indeed ridiculous, mostly because Marcia Cross was in contract negotiations, hence why she'd sometimes suddenly go into remission until they finally killed her off. Personally, I probably would've written her off for the bulk of season four and then *maybe* have her come back towards the end of the season without anyone really knowing if she's still insane. Either way, I wouldn't have paired her up with Michael as soon as they did at least, that's really the point where they started running out of steam. Her becoming a psychiatrist was at least funny since it could've been entertaining if random Melrosians started seeking advice from everyone's psycho psychiatrist. I would've written Kimberly's advice as well-intentioned, but completely terrible.

 

Billy's exit felt like it should've been so easy to write  - just write him knocking on a door in Atlanta, have a blonde woman open the door from the back if they couldn't get Courtney to do a cameo (though, her being on Ally McBeal they could've worked out something if they had actually made the effort).

[Gray Bunny]

DEFINITELY. 

 

His endgame being Michael's sister? Meh.... They definitely should've followed up on that , when Amanda revealed that Allison had contacted her in Atlanta, and had fallen off the wagon again. 

[John]

I believe Doug Savant wanted to stay but they wouldnt give him a romance. They had made Katie Wright who played his neice a regular but Savant didnt just wanna play Dad & left three shows into season 6. Then they killed him off in S7. Im not even sure if they even tried to get him back or it was story dictated

[Vee]

IIRC, Season 5 began as a very deliberate attempt to make the show 'grounded' again after it went totally apeshit (while fun) in Season 4. It was discussed by the showrunners at length in the press at the time. I think they went too far in the other direction. Sam Reilly especially was a debacle, a very pointed attempt to introduce a new 'normal person' to MP.

 

The advantage of parts of Season 5 is that you can see long-term relationships build and change - Amanda and Peter's marriage, etc. Others, like Jake and Alison (supposedly asked for by CTS and Grant Show, who I think were dating at the time) are inexplicable and coma-inducing and just leave the characters with nowhere to go. Alison had a great exit with Billy at the airport but a wasted year, and leaving her hanging again at the end of Season 6 was awful. I think the way they treated Marcia Cross and Laura Leighton - in part a direct response to the misguided backlash against Season 4, IMO - was terrible and I think losing them was a deathblow to the show. Kimberly becoming a kooky nymphomaniac therapist and potentially mixing it up with everyone on the show as a sort of devious confidant was a great idea but they wasted it too quickly and then brought in the dumb Betsy storyline.

 

Season 6 is easily the worst and it seems like they have no idea what to do with anything or anyone until the last few episodes they burned off in the summer, where Lexi finally went nuts and came into her own. Season 7 was something of a comeback and I think the show is pretty decent for a lot of that year, especially with the Michael/Lexi pairing, the improbably great Michael/Jane reunion and some other stuff, but it still never fully comes together because after their Seasons 2-4 heyday too many people at the show became both risk-averse and cheap.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Vee

[te.]

Actually, Doug Savant (and Katie Wright) originally signed to do 13 episodes of season six - however, Heather Locklear's pregnancy meant they had to start filming early and Doug was doing Godzilla at the time, so he was abruptly written out in the season premiere and took Katie Wright with him. I believe if Doug had stayed for those 13 episodes, then maybe they would've given Katie Wright a full season contract. I think her character was supposed to be 17, so there was time to turn her 18 and make her live in the building - sort of makes sense as Jennifer was portrayed as being maybe 21-22 at the oldest, so I guess a "young-adult" scene might've been on their minds briefly.

[Gray Bunny]

For the best, then. Don't know why they thought Katie Wright was special. She was on the short-lived Malibu Shores (with unknowns who eventually became known, like Keri Russell, Susan Ward, Charisma Carpenter, etc.), just as dopey and uninteresting as she was on MP. 

[carolineg]

I get they tried to make it more grounded but Sam was lame and Alison was a complete jerk to Billy.  Yeah, he did some bad things but I mean, c'mon, he put up with A Lot of crap from her.  Her just kinda leading him on but not seriously considered him at all was just mean after all they been through.  If CTS and Grant Show thought Jake and Alison  was a good idea then I know their next career is not in writing.  Watching the Unauthorized Melrose movie made it seem like there was no love lost between CTS and Andrew Shue  after they broke up, so maybe that had something to do with it?  Who knows it's one of the most annoying parts of MP IMO that they built Jake and Alison up only to just break them up and neither left with the correct partners.  I am sure they could have worked something out with CTS for the finale with her on the same network.  So I guess Alison is just drunk in the ATL?

MP needs one of the eighties movies of the week that Knots Landing and I think Dallas did where we catch up with the og characters.  I bet most would be game.  Besides Laura Leighton are any of them working?  Beside JW doing stints on GH as Frisco?

I feel like I could talk about the ridiculous of the exits of Sydney and Kimberly for days.  Kimberly should have been written off and brought back later.  And I saw the replies about Doug Savant so I guess that is understandable.   Killing him off is still irritating.........

Michael was the real savior of the show.  I like him so much more than I did when it aired.  Of course Amanda is amazing too, but she got all victim and there were points you could tell she was over it.  Michael sold everything.  The more ridiculous the better.

[Vee]

Jack Wagner stays busy on Hallmark - I think Josie Bissett is also over there now? She was on one of the ABC Family shows for several years as well. Daphne Zuniga seems to do whatever and be fine with it, from working on TED Talks to doing a long stint on One Tree Hill. Thomas Calabro, no idea.

 

Doug Savant stays busy post-DH and was just on X-Files. CTS did many years on that Jim Belushi sitcom and Two and a Half Men along with Ally McBeal so I imagine she's just chilling these days. Marcia is probably just fine after DH. Grant Show works. Heather - who knows. I worry about her lately given some of the stories.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Vee