Melrose Place

Melrose Place was another huge success in Russia when it first appeared there many years ago. After that, it had many successful repeated runs in various Russian TV-channels. Why such a great popularity? Due to several reasons. First, the excellent choice of actors. Heather Locklear, Alyssa Mylano, Daphna Zuniga, all others are a great and very precise shot. They play their often malicious and cruel heroes with a surgical accuracy and with such persuasion that a mere serial becomes a real serious drama. All the events are another big plus. We are thrilled and attracted by the endless string of high-voltage events, all those slanders, kills, lies, love relations, fires and fights going on there. The serial is never boring. You see so many characters there and you know them all. And then, this is a true detective story. I have counted no less than 10 people killed there! And the marvelous performances of Marcia Cross or any other actor! Well, this is not a trivial small serial. No, this one is mature, strong and very exciting work.

In its heyday, Melrose Place was a fun and complex 60-minute roller-coaster ride every week. It started off slow and weak, but began to pick up steam midway through the first season with the addition of Heather Locklear. Though many credit Locklear for the show's success, the real stars of the show were people like Thomas Calabro, Laura Leighton and Marcia Cross, as the Kimberly/Michael/Sydney storyline was the driving force of the show. The show peaked in its second and third seasons, but by season four things began to fall apart. The writing, while always over the top, reached a new level of ludicrousness towards the end of season four and the show made no sense whatsoever (i.e., Evil Billy, Amanda using Billy to keep her job at D&D, and Kimberly's mutiple-personality story which culminated in her attempting to lobotomize Peter ). To its credit, the show realized its mistakes and several behind the scenes changes were made at the end of season four (namely the firing of several writers on the show ). By season five, the show had back down to earth and told more traditional soap stories (i.e. the Billy/Alison/Jake/Jane quadrangle and the Amanda/Peter/Taylor triangle ). New players, including Lisa Rinna, Rob Estes, David Charvet, and Kelly Rutherford were added to the show. The show rebounded, but towards the end of season five things began to fall apart again due to the loss of several veteran cast members. By the end of season five Marcia Cross, Laura Leighton, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Josie Bissett and Grant Show were gone. Especially damaging was the fact that the show had killed its two best characters in Kimberly and Sydney. That's why, for me, the last "real" episode of MP was the fifth season finale on May 19, 1997. Spelling and Co. saw many of these departures coming, but figured the void would be easily filled by the new faces that were brought in in season five. They were sorely mistaken. Season six was a disaster, for the most part. Even more new faces (Linden Ashby and Jamie Luner) were added to the show and another veteran cast member (Doug Savant) was gone after the sixth season premiere. The combination of too many new faces and poor writing irrevocably damaged the show. The show hit rock bottom in early 1998 when FOX announced the show would be pulled after March 30 and return sometime in the summer. It was also announced that the show would be once again retooled and thus several cast members would leave later that season and original cast member Josie Bissett would return. When the show returned in the summer of '98, there was a flicker of hope as several storylines became interesting to watch (i.e. the Kyle/Amanda/Peter triangle, the Billy/Samantha/Jeff/Jennifer quadrangle, and the rekindled Jane/Michael romance). But the fun was short-lived. On September 7, 1998, Billy, Samantha, Jennifer, Coop and Taylor all left L.A. for greener pastures, and on September 14, the "new" Melrose debuted. It was obvious from that episode "The World According to Matt" that no matter how hard TPTB tried, the magic was gone. The show sputtered through its final season, as the addition of Rena Sofer proved to be a failure. The final episode on May 24, 1999 was exactly like the final two seasons of MP: disappointing.

This is another drama by Speiling that defined the 90s, unlike 90210 this focused on young adults and the themes wore more mature compared to it's sibling, not as popular as Beverly Hills this was as long lasting and influential A decent view for the nostalgic.

I loved Melrose Place. I wish it would make a comeback now that Heather and Jack are really dating now. That show still had so much life in it and I am surprised that even Beverly Hills 90210 lasted like one more year after melrose place and I never watched that show because I feel the actors on that show were not as good or as interesting as the Melrose Place characters. This show was more like an adult show than 90210 was, it dealt more with adult situations no kiddie high school crap. My favorite male actors on the show were the guys that played Peter, Micheal, Craig, kyle, jake, and of course the cute hunk billy babe. Please do a reuion show soon I want to see what has happened to all the actors and how they look now of course.

What can you say about Melrose Place? I first saw it when it was still on air. At the time I was only a teenager, but I remember absolutely loving the hell out of it for one simple reason: The craziness never ended! Almost every episode ended with such a cliffhanger that you couldn't help but watch the next episode. It was like a drug. You just needed to know what happened each time. Yes, many of the lines were cheesy and sometimes the acting could've been better, but the show worked. People from all over the globe were watching it and everyone loved to talk about what was happening on it. Personally, I'll never forget some of those conversations. There were times when I almost gave up on it, but just when you thought you were done with it, they pulled you back in. One thing is for sure: The '90s would not have been the same without Melrose Place.