Melrose Place

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Melrose Place
Melrose Place logo
Genre	Serial
Created by	Darren Star
Starring	see Cast
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	7
No. of episodes	226 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Aaron Spelling E. Duke Vincent Darren Star (Seasons 1-3)
Running time	44 Minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	FOX
Picture format	SDTV
Original run	July 8, 1992 – May 24, 1999
Chronology
Preceded by	Beverly Hills, 90210
Followed by	Models Inc. 90210 Melrose Place (2009)

Melrose Place is an American prime time soap opera television series that originally aired on the Fox network in the United States from July 8, 1992, to May 24, 1999, running a total of seven seasons. The show was created by by Darren Star for FOX network and executive produced by Aaron Spelling for Spelling Television. It is the second series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise.

The show is set in a small apartment courtyard complex in the West Hollywood district of Los Angeles, where several young individuals reside, each with their own dreams and drives.^[1] The original plan for the show was to have minor stories conclude in every episode, but when that formula proved unpopular, the writers started developing long-term storylines to evolve during the season. Like its predecessor, the show struggled in its first season with low ratings, but a change in story writing and introduction of new characters attracted strong ratings from its second season onwards. The show was canceled in early 1999 due to failing ratings.

Filming for the series took place at a studio in Santa Clarita, California.^[2] The show had many cast changes during the run, and Thomas Calabro was the only original cast member to remain on the series throughout its entire run.

A "reboot" of the series, also called Melrose Place, is set to premiere in Fall 2009 on The CW Television Network.^[3]

[edit] Episodes

[edit] Cast and characters

Melrose Place's premiere season featured eight main characters: devoted husband Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro), who works at Wilshire Memorial Hospital; Jane Mancini (Josie Bissett), his budding fashion designer wife; Billy Campbell (Andrew Shue), the struggling writer adapting to life out of his parents' control; Alison Parker (Courtney Thorne-Smith),^[4] the receptionist at D&D Advertising; Jake Hanson (Grant Show), a struggling manual laborer and bad-boy biker: Matt Fielding (Doug Savant), a gay social worker; Rhona Blair (Vanessa A. Williams), an aerobics instructor; and Sandy Harling (Amy Locane), a Southern belle struggling actress who moonlights as a waitress at a bar called Shooters, the group's hangout. Locane was written off after 13 episodes, to be replaced by Daphne Zuniga Williams was not brought back for the second season, her character engaged as Jo Reynolds, a photographer running away from her abusive husband to a wealthy restaurant entrepreneur.

Actress Heather Locklear, who in season one had guest starred as Alison's ambitious boss Amanda Woodward, was promoted to series regular status in the second season. Season two guest Laura Leighton, recurring as Jane's troublemaking spoiled sister Sydney Andrews, was upgraded to series regular as of season three. Season four saw three new contract characters: Dr. Kimberly Shaw (Marcia Cross), a doctor with whom Michael had an affair in season one; Peter Burns (Jack Wagner), the ruthless hospital Chief of Staff introduced in season three; and Brooke Armstrong (Kristin Davis), a conniving intern at D&D Advertising also recurring the previous season. Davis's charcater was subsequently killed off in the middle of the fourth season. Zuniga left the series for the fifth season, which saw the addition of Rob Estes as restauranteur Kyle McBride, Lisa Rinna as his wife Taylor, and Brooke Langton as Samantha Reilly, an artist and a new tenant in the apartment complex. Bissett and Cross left the series in the middle of the season as Kelly Rutherford was brought in as Megan Lewis, a prostitute who has an affair with Michael, and David Charvet played Craig Field, Amanda's new co-worker. The season finale featured the exits of series regulars Thorne-Smith, Show, and Leighton. The season premiere of season six featured the departure of original cast member Savant.

In the sixth season, Alyssa Milano (recurring as Michael's sister Jennifer Mancini since season five) was bumped to series regular, with Linden Ashby joining the cast as the violent Dr. Brett Cooper and Jamie Luner as his seductive ex-wife Lexi Sterling. Charvet was written out, and the beginning of season seven saw the departure of Shue, Rinna, Langton, Milano, and Ashby. The show's seventh season introduced John Haymes Newton as Ryan McBride, Kyle's brother.

[edit] DVD releases

CBS Home Entertainment is releasing Melrose Place on DVD in Region 1. To date they have released seasons 1–4. Season 5, Volume 1 was released on February 10, 2009. ^[5] Due to music licensing issues, most of the original music has been replaced on these DVD releases. Starting with Season 2, some episodes are edited from their original broadcast versions.

[edit] GALA Committee

A group of artists and Melrose Place producers formed the GALA Committee, headed by artist Mel Chin, in order to bring artworks out of galleries and into primetime television. GALA artists designed artworks that were used as props by Melrose Place characters in the fourth and fifth seasons, often with hidden political messages:

• When Alison is pregnant, her quilt is decorated with the molecular structure of RU-486.
• A bag of Chinese take-out food is emblazoned with two opposing ideograms translated from Chinese as "Human Rights" and "Turmoil"; both terms were used by the Chinese government to justify a restriction on student protesters of June 4, 1989.
• Bottles behind the counter at Shooters bar are decorated with ads and documents chronicling the history of alcohol.
• As Alison quits D&D Advertising, a framed ad in the background features a bombed-out building. The damage to the structure is in the shape of a liquor bottle, and the words "Total Proof" appear on the poster.

Chin compared the works to viruses, symbiotic and invisible. The project was called "In the Name of the Place", as part of the "Uncommon Sense" art show at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, California in 1997. A portion of the Fifth Season was filmed at the Geffen Contemporary where the project was displayed. The artwork was also shown at the 1997 Kwangju Biennale in Kwangju, Korea and at Grand Arts in Kansas City, Missouri in 1998. Sotheby's Auction house auctioned almost fifty of these artworks for charity.

[edit] Related shows

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Melrose Place at the Internet Movie Database