Central Park West

I was a big fan of "Central Park West" and I was hoping it would go down in infamy with other great 90's shows like 90210 and Melrose Place, but instead it's one of those virtually-forgotten cult favorites like Models, Inc. I loved how this show tried to be so ambitious and over the top, sultry, sexy and bitchy. It was like the producers were trying to revamp "Dallas" for the 90's. Too bad it failed. Not once but twice. Even once it was reintroduced as "CPW" and it failed again. Michael Michele as Nikki Sheridan was my favorite character. At least she went on to star in successful shows like "ER". Even the star power of Mariel Hemingway, Lauren Hutton, and Raquel Welch couldn't revive this show. Too bad. It had so much potential and so many pretty faces.

For the widening landscape of television history, there are a few names that just keep turning up. Norman Lear, Carl Reiner and Garry Marshall have all already appeared in this list of the 400 Most Notable TV Shows Set in NYC. Here's another for that "multiple appearances" list: Darren Star.

Mr. Star had a surprise hit with "Beverly Hills, 90210" which followed the lives of a couple of teens from Minnesota who moved with their family to their new and fabulous SoCal Zip Code. He followed that up with an even more adult look at a geographically close area, when he examined the lives of the residents at an apartment complex located on "Melrose Place."

With those two shows concurrently running, Star was living up to his surname as far as the suits at Fox were concerned. Then came this.

"Central Park West," as it was originally known, focused on an industry closely associated with The City: Publishing.

Stephanie Wells (Mariel Hemingway) who created Body Magazine and turned that into a major success in the fitness world, and her husband, freelance writer Mark Merrill (Tom Verica) are the Brenda and Brandon of this series, moving from their peaceful digs in Seattle, because Stephanie landed the job as Editor-in-chief of Communique, a pop-culture magazine headquartered in the Flatiron Building.

The "Central Park West" of the title comes from the location of the new home of this couple, where the woman is far more successful than the man, and they have a duplex with spectacular Park views for three-thousand dollars a month ("a steal!" Stephanie tells her spouse in 1995). Meanwhile, that property in 2024 wouldn't rent for less than 25K a month, plus utilities.

Stephanie runs into a buzzsaw at work, dealing with Carrie Fairchild (Mädchen Amick) who gets an enormous salary for writing a column about the nightlife scene and who just happens to be the stepdaughter of the magazine's owner, Allen Rush (Ron Liebman). There is an immediate dislike between the two, which gets amped up as Carrie decides to wreck Stephanie's marriage by seducing Mark.

Apparently this runs in the family as Carrie's brother Peter Fairchild (John Barrowman) is also a libidinous sort, continually on the streets or in the sheets with some starlet or model, when he wasn't being a corporate lawyer. His barrister boss is sick of the "Page Six" publicity and wants him to tone down the mattress trampolining.

Nikki Sheridan (Michael Michele) can help Peter settle down? She's Peter's old friend and a gallery owner who is part of Carrie's beat for her column, and who inadvertently introduces him to Alex (Melissa Errico) who turns up at a Central Park softball game she arranged where Alex and Peter both have a "love at first sight" moment.

And Peter's pal Gil (Justin Lazard) is an investment banker who lost his girlfriend's entire bank account on a bad deal, and now she's out to get him back.

Carrie and Peter's mom, Allen's wife, is played by the stately Lauren Hutton, to add that air of regality that every nighttime soap needed. Meanwhile, Allen arranged for Mark to get a job teaching English at a prestigious prep school, just so he actually had something to do besides sitting in coffee shops trying to write his novel. But Mark implicitly understands that Allen, being on the School board, just pulled those strings so he could get wifey to edit his periodical and balks at the circumstances.

New York plays a part because it's everything: the downtown scene, the uptown style, the worlds of art, print and of course sex are all about everything that's going on. And the pressure of turning a profit on an issue of this monthly mag is important even back when people actually bought magazines, so this is a job.

What I believe went wrong was that the show drew in the same audience that loved Star's other two programs. However, "Central Park West" had the same sort of flavor as those 1980s nighttime soaps like "Dallas" and "Dynasty," and really "Berrenger's." That was a completely different tone from "90210" and "Melrose," and is a clear reason why they didn't capture that demographic.

CBS pulled the show and retooled it. Mariel Hemingway left the cast after that first season and Raquel Welch came in. The show went the other way and totally leaned into the concept of those 80s soaps at this point. Though, to try to stay hip, they sort of changed the name to "CPW." They still kept the full name of the show but mostly referred to it using the initials, maybe as a way of connecting to Star's other program which got reduced from its full name to that five digit number?

If you loved those previous nighttime soaps, you probably would have liked this one also, but the villainy wasn't nearly as earth-shattering and the passion wasn't nearly as steamy, which would have made sense for Darren Star's high school cast, but not so much for full grown adults in Manhattan.

Central Park West could have been (and was probably planned as) the one and only true heir of DYNASTY, with condign successors, especially for Fallon and Krystle, including a revived lily-pond-catfight now in a more public place -- a restaurant fountain. The leading ladies were lovely, especially (in that order) Lauren, Raquel, Mädchen, and Mariel. What was missing were hunks -- one Tom Verica is not enough -- and most of all a condign successor for Alexis,'cos there's only one Joan Collins.

I don't want to be a bore, but IMDb forces me to fulfill their minimum of ten lines. Wait -- ten lines of something would have been something causing Carrie Fairchild's interest. Ten lines would have been a breakthrough for Mark Merrill's writers' block. Ten lines would have been -- wait, the minimum is done!

May I add a line? Please, CBS, release this stepchild of yours.

The channel clearly didn't know what the show was, or where to take the stories. First, a Melrose Place clone set in NYC. Which, even though they were playing worn out strings, was a fine and surprisingly entertaining reimagining of the concept. Then, after a revamp in season 2, it lost half of its cast members, and writing skills as well. Which made each twists more tacky, and desperate than the one before (that last one takes the cake). I would definitely buy the first season, if it was ever to be released on DVD (with Mädchen Amick having her own « hot » new show these days, in the name of Riverdale, this isn't such a stretch) hell, even the complete series set. If they don't butcher the soundtrack of course... But I'll keep seeing it as a hit and miss 90s soap, that didn't have the Spelling name attached to it. And maybe that was its biggest disadvantage. The characters went straight to obnoxious at one point too, which made the episodes harder for me to enjoy, without feeling frustrated some of the most revolting ones never got what was coming to them. Good cast overall though, and a pleasant set of city sightings, with places you might recognize from other TV shows and movies, even.

Central Park West is quite simply one of the best soaps ever and it was really cheap of CBS to cancel it after only 21 episodes. This was such a terrific, trendy and very well-acted show with some of the most intriguing storylines ever. All the actors did remarkable jobs, especially Raquel Welch. Another thing that is so great about CPW is that it wasn't so completely wild, stupid, idiotic and over the top like Melrose often was. It was just one season, yes, but what a season! CPW had sophistication, style and great lines. I'm just waiting for a similar and equally entertaining TV series to show up.