Old Melrose Place

Aaron Spelling’s "Melrose Place" concerned a group of young people in an LA apartment complex, and in its time, it was a highly popular show. Melrose really started to take off when Heather Locklear joined the cast at the end of season 1. She seemed to supply the missing ingredient, i.e., the resident bitch, and before long, Melrose was THE show to watch and discuss. It’s not a coincidence that two of its stars, Marcia Cross and Doug Savant, appear on the very high-profile "Desperate Housewives." High profile shows seek stars of past high profile shows.

The show had a lot of nice, campy touches that made it famous, as well as some fascinating characters. One of my favorites were the ubiquitous establishing shots that seemed to be shown weekly: a young woman walking her dog, the jogger, and the pool boy cleaning the pool.

As for interesting characters, there was Michael, who started off as a devoted husband and became a rogue, slutty Sydney, and Kirsten Davis as the girl Billy (Andrew Shue) almost married, who lays across a bed and announces, "I’m ovulating," which I heard the next morning when it was played on a local radio station. But my favorite was Dr. Kimberly Shaw, star of Melrose’s most startling moment. After she returned from the dead, she took her wig off at the end of one episode and took a look at that scar! A real shocker, and the kind of thing that made Melrose, in its prime, the best.

Most of the younger actors on Melrose became established because of the show and went on to other things afterwards, particularly Cross, Davis, Throne-Smith, and Savant. And let’s not forget Locklear who, in my opinion, really set this show on its hit course.

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.

Old Melrose Place

Season 1