Seasons of Melrose Place

This is a summary of the seven seasons of Melrose Place, an American prime-time soap opera which was broadcast on Fox from 1992 to 1999. In 2004, Soapnet began repeating the series, and all episodes have been released on DVD.

Season one: 1992-1993

Main article: Melrose Place (season 1)

During its first season, Melrose Place was an earnest serial drama with low-key storylines focusing on young people who come to Los Angeles to realize their dreams. The series was introduced with a crossover story from Beverly Hills, 90210 in which Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) pursues Melrose Place resident Jake Hanson (Grant Show), a laborer and bad-boy biker. Jake appeared in the last two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210's the second season, and Kelly appeared in the first three episodes of Melrose Place; Jake breaks off the romance because of their age difference and his inability to commit to her. Tori Spelling appears in the first two episodes as her Beverly Hills, 90210 character Donna Martin; Brian Austin Green appears in the first three as David Silver, and Ian Ziering appears as Steve Sanders.

Michael (Thomas Calabro) and Jane Mancini (Josie Bissett) are the building's stable couple. Michael (the building superintendent) is a physician at Wilshire Memorial Hospital, and Jane is a budding fashion designer. Their neighbors are roommates Alison Parker (Courtney Thorne-Smith) and Billy Campbell (Andrew Shue). Alison is a receptionist at a local advertising firm, and Billy is a struggling writer who makes ends meet as a dance teacher, a taxi driver, a local newspaper reporter and a furniture salesman before finding a job at Escapade magazine near the end of the season. Alison and Billy later began an affair. Gay social worker Matt Fielding (Doug Savant) files a sexual-discrimination lawsuit against the halfway house at which he volunteers.

Other original cast members are aerobics instructor Rhonda Blair (Vanessa A. Williams) and her roommate, Sandy Louise Harling (Amy Locane), who moonlights as a waitress at Shooters (the group's hangout). Sandy was written out of the series after 13 episodes and Rhonda left after the first season, when she becomes engaged to wealthy restaurateur Terrence Haggard (John Marshall Jones).

Early in the series, photographer Jo Reynolds (Daphne Zuniga) arrives from New York to escape her alcoholic ex-husband. Jo and Jake become friends and enjoy an on-again, off-again romance.

Faced with mediocre ratings, its producers attempted to revamp the series during this season. Heather Locklear appeared as Amanda Woodward, the art director at D & D Advertising who became Alison's confidante. Intended as a guest star, Locklear remained on the series throughout its run. Amanda became vice-president, having affairs with several Melrose Place residents and vying with Alison for Billy's affections. The series evolved from an episodic format to a soap opera with ongoing, interwoven stories, beginning with Michael Mancini's affair with co-worker Kimberly Shaw (Marcia Cross) and Alison's affair with a married man who begins stalking her in the season finale after she ends the relationship. The season ends with Alison and Billy becoming a couple, Michael and Jane splitting up when Jane discovers his affair with Kimberly, and Amanda's miscarriage of Billy's baby and her purchase of the building because of the love triangle made up of her, Billy and Alison.

Season two: 1993-1994

Main article: Melrose Place (Season 2)

As the second season began Jane divorced Michael, who would become engaged to Kimberly and have a fling with Jane's younger sister Sydney (Laura Leighton), a prostitute and stripper. While waitressing at Shooters Sydney is introduced by a co-worker to Lauren Ethridge (Kristian Alfonso), a Hollywood madam who recruited Sydney into her call girl ring. Although Sydney quits, she is arrested for solicitation. Michael bails her out of jail, blackmailing her to break up Jane and her latest love interest: her divorce lawyer, Robert Wilson (Steven Eckholdt).

A drunken Michael crashes his car (apparently fatally injuring Kimberly), but escapes manslaughter charges when Matt alters his blood-alcohol test results at the hospital. Sydney uses this knowledge to blackmail Michael into marrying her, despite Jane's objections. Her plans are foiled when Kimberly reappears alive and well, saying that her mother lied about her death to keep Michael away. Kimberly is more ruthless and unstable as a result of brain surgery and the accident. She reclaims Michael, revealing her desire to kill him; removing her wig in front of a mirror, a gruesome scar from the accident is seen.

Sydney takes over Lauren Ethridge's call-girl ring while Lauren is in jail. When Lauren is released, she demands the profits from her escort service while she was incarcerated. Sydney works as a stripper and a prostitute to raise the money. She is attacked on the street by other prostitutes; in the hospital, Kimberly recruits her for her scheme to kill Michael.

Early in the season Matt loses his job when the halfway house closes, and Michael finds him a job in the social-services department of Wilshire Memorial. He befriends a Russian doctor, Katya Petrova (Beata Pozniak). Katya is attracted to Matt, who tells her he is gay. When she is in danger of deportation, he offers to marry her so her five-year-old daughter Nikki (Mara Wilson) can remain in the U.S. However, Matt's "marriage" now hampers his love life. When Katya returns to Russia to visit her family she decides to stay and sends for her daughter, freeing an emotional Matt from their arrangement. He becomes romantically involved with Jeffrey Lindley (Jason Beghe), a closeted U.S. Navy officer, although he disagrees with Jeffrey's secrecy. Although Matt persuades Jeffrey to come out, he regrets it when Jeffrey is discharged from the service and leaves town.

Jake buys a struggling motorcycle-repair shop, which soon burns down in a fire accidentally started by Amanda. Jake never discovers that Amanda is indirectly responsible for the fire, and ends his romance with Jo. Jake becomes romantically involved with Amanda, whose father Palmer Woodward (Wayne Tippit) offers him a job as a mechanic. He learns that Palmer is involved in a scheme to sell reproduced cars as originals, and is forced by the FBI to help it arrest Palmer.

Jo becomes romantically involved with her former high-school flame, ex-convict Reed Carter (James Wilder), who smuggles drugs on boats he works on. When she discovers his stash, he kidnaps and tortures her on the boat in the Pacific Ocean. Jo kills Reed in self-defense, later learning that she is pregnant with his child.

Alison and Billy's romance has its ups and downs. She has a relationship with Steve McMillian (Parker Stevenson), a new client at D & D Advertising after Amanda becomes senior vice-president. Although Alison tries to set up Jo with Steve, Steve leaves to work in Europe and Alison and Billy reconcile. Billy rises through the ranks at Escapade, moving to New York to work. This strains his relationship with Alison, and he returns to Los Angeles to propose to her.

Struggling in her romance with Jake and running D & D Advertising, Amanda has an uncomfortable reunion with her estranged mother Hilary Michaels (Linda Gray). Hilary is CEO of Models Inc., which would spawn a spinoff series. Jo meets Sarah Owens (Cassidy Rae), a model at Hilary’s agency, whom she helps end an abusive relationship. Hilary asks Amanda to employ her fiancé, Chas (Jeff Kaake), at D & D and Amanda fires him after he harasses her sexually. However, Chas files a sexual-harassment lawsuit against Amanda and her company. Hilary learns the truth about Chas, testifying against him and ending the case in Amanda's favor. However, Amanda cannot forgive her mother and Hilary returns to the modeling agency.

Alison and Billy become engaged, and plan a wedding in the building's courtyard. On her wedding day, when her father hugs her she experiences flashbacks of his molesting her as a child. Alison flees through a window and goes to San Francisco to see her sister, Meredith, who was also abused by their father. The season ends with Kimberly (in a short blonde wig) running Michael down in Jane's car, followed by Jane's arrest.

Notes:

• The scene in which Matt and Rob kissed in the season finale was edited in the wake of a possible advertiser boycott. Darren Star says to Variety: "We filmed it. The network had the final cut. It was a kiss too far from their point of view. It was a place they didn’t want to go. Twenty years ago, it was verboten. When you watch "I Love Lucy," two married characters were not allowed to share a bed. Network TV has always been archaic and frightened about showing sexuality. That’s always been their biggest taboo. They’ve caught up a lot. It has to stay somewhat relevant to the audience that watches it".
• Linda Gray (Hillary) and Cassidy Rae (Sarah) were cast members on the Melrose Place spin-off Models Inc. They appeared in five episodes of Melrose Place to introduce their characters to the public.
• Second season finale on May 18, 1994 was ranked #18. This is the best rating performance in all show history.
• Darren Star and Aaron Spelling's favorite Melrose moment is "The Bitch is Back"'s ending scene (2.28), when Kimberly removes her wig to reveal a nasty scar on the side of her head. They introduce the clip on the documentary "Love Thy Neighbor: The Baddest and the Best of Melrose Place" (1995).

Season three: 1994-1995

Main article: Melrose Place (Season 3)

Jane and Sydney are blamed for Michael's hit-and-run accident, which leaves him with amnesia. Although he regains his memory (and realizes that Kimberly is his attempted murderer), they reconcile and marry in Las Vegas.

Jo is embroiled in a custody battle with the Carters (Reed's parents), who want to take their (yet unborn) grandchild away from the woman who "murdered" their son. Although Kimberly seems to help Jo by faking the baby's death so Jo can escape with her son, she steals the baby because she cannot have children of her own. When Jo reports Kimberly and Michael to Wilshire Hospital chief of staff Peter Burns (Jack Wagner), Michael returns the child. Kimberly tells the Carters that Jo's baby is alive, and they hire a nanny to steal the baby. After Jo is shot in the back while tracking them down, she decides to surrender her son for adoption.

Matt briefly reunites with Jeffrey, who tells him that he was discharged from the Navy when he tested HIV-positive. Matt is uncomfortable with Jeffrey's lust for life, and they break up. He becomes involved with married, closeted plastic surgeon Paul Graham (David Beecroft), who murders his wife in the season finale and frames Matt.

Unable to exonerate herself for Michael's attempted murder, Sydney became an outcast from this point onward for the rest of the series. After her imprisonment, Jane had her committed to a mental hospital before employing her in a work-release program. Sydney is sexually harassed by Chris Marchette, Jane's sociopathic Australian business associate. After embezzling most of the funds from Jane's business, Chris fled the country after losing the stolen money gambling in Las Vegas (with Sydney his hostage).

Sydney returns to waitressing at Shooters and grows closer to Jake. However, their relationship disintegrates when Jake learns that Sydney slept with Chris to protect him from an attack by an associate. When Sydney advertises for a roommate to help pay the rent, Rikki (Traci Lords) moves in. A conniving sociopath, Rikki convinces the Melrose residents that Sydney is destroying their possessions and encourages her to join a cult led by Martin Abbott (Remy Zada). When Sydney tries to leave the cult, she is kidnapped and Jane and Jake free her. Jealous of their romance, Sydney reverts to her devious self and breaks them up and avenges herself on Michael and Kimberly by extortion (using the money to control Jane's design business). Although Jane fights back, her business goes into foreclosure and she joins MacKenzie Hart Designs—where she becomes involved with co-owner Richard Hart (Patrick Muldoon).

Jake buys Reed Carter's boat but it is destroyed when Amanda's fugitive father (Palmer) returns and hired a contract killer, named Brittany (Kathy Ireland), to murder Jake for making him lose his business. Brittany, however, plans to kill Palmer and escape with his money and Jake. When Jake refuses to go along Brittany blows up the boat, apparently killing him. However, Jake jumped overboard and is rescued. He buys Shooters with a $50,000 FBI reward for his help in the Palmer Woodward case (leading to the off-screen arrest of Brittany and the recovery of Palmer's money).

Jake reconciles with Jo and reunites with his auto-mechanic half-brother, Jess (Dan Cortese), when their mother dies in their hometown. Jess follows Jake to Los Angeles, getting involved with Jo and arranging for Jake to be shot in an armed robbery at Shooters so Jess could take over Jake's business. Although Jo did not believe Jake that Jess arranged the shooting, when she asks Jess how he could afford an engagement ring when he proposes to her he attacks her. When Jake learns about the attack in the season finale he and Jess fight, falling off the edge of a high platform at a construction site.

Alison's reluctance to marry Billy after the revelation about her father leads to Billy ending the relationship as Alison becomes an alcoholic. Since he still cares for her, Billy arranges for Alison to enter rehab and begins working at D & D copywriter. Amanda becomes involved with Wilshire Memorial chief of staff Peter Burns, who helps her take over D & D by buying stock. When D & D president Bruce Teller (Stanley Kamel) is ousted he commits suicide, and Amanda replaces him. Peter conspires to remove Amanda in favor of his old girlfriend, Caitlin (Jasmine Guy); he engineers a fake appendicitis attack and tries to kill Amanda on the operating table, when Michael rescues her and he is arrested.

Amanda discovers that she has lymphoma, and is replaced at D & D by Alison. However, Alison could not cope with the sudden responsibliy and workload and she quickly became aggressive, ruthless, heartless and assertive just like Amanda. While treating her, Michael begins to fall for Amanda and they have a brief affair (enraging Kimberly). Amanda ends the affair when she recovers, teaming up with the conniving intern Brooke Armstrong (Kristin Davis) to reclaim D & D. Brooke becomes involved with Billy, and sends Alison to Hong Kong on business. After helping Amanda force Alison from D & D, Brooke begins plotting to take over the company. She marries Billy in the season finale, when Alison interrupts the ceremony to beg Billy for another chance.

After she is sued for divorce, Kimberly frames Michael for assaulting her. He is bailed out by Peter Burns (who got out of prison for Amanda's attempted murder), who needs his and Kimberly's help to retain his medical license. Peter seduces Kimberly so she will testify in his favor, but his appeal is unsuccessful. Realizing that Peter used her, and hallucinating, Kimberly plants four firebombs in the apartment complex.

Notes:

• Melrose Place moves from Wednesday night to Monday night on FOX. There was a memorable ad campaign: the words "Mondays are a bitch" on Amanda's face (photo here:[1]).
• Former porn star Traci Lords appeared in a five episodes arc. Darren Star remembers: "Mostly, she looked like someone who actually lived in L.A. at that age... She had that quality. Like she could recruit you into a cult."
• Showrunners regret giving Amanda cancer. Darren Star says: "I remember having to tread carefully. Hodgkin’s is a serious illness. It wasn’t much fun.""

Due to the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (one month before the episode), the bombing did not appear onscreen in the U.S. until the beginning of season four.

• Third season finale on May 22, 1995 was ranked #20.

Season four: 1995-1996

Main article: Melrose Place (Season 4)

Kimberly sets off a series of explosions which destroy half the Melrose apartment complex. Surprisingly, only Jane's potential new boss (Richard Hart's ex-wife Mackenzie Hart) is killed, and Alison is temporarily blinded. Peter and Michael join in a private practice, Mancini-Burns, at Wilshire Hospital.

Jess' death in the fall at the construction site leaves Jake plagued by guilt. He sleeps with Shelly Hanson (Hudson Leick), Jess' ex-wife (in town for his funeral), and hires her at Shooters. She plans to ruin Jake financially as revenge for what she sees as Jake killing her ex-husband. Jake sees the light after she tries to murder him, and she is arrested.

Matt is exonerated of Paul's wife's murder when Paul makes a deathbed confession after he is shot by the police. But Matt's boss, Calvin Hobbs (Francis McCarthy)—the Wilshire chief-of-staff who replaced Peter—fires him anyway for his inappropriate relationship with Paul. Matt wins another sexual discrimination lawsuit after his attorney goads Hobbs into making homophobic statements in court. Matt uses the settlement to enroll in medical school, and works at Wilshire Hospital as an intern.

Kimberly is declared legally insane after the bombing and institutionalized. Peter cares for her, telling Sydney that his concern stems from the memory of his late sister (who had similar mental problems). Kimberly says she was encouraged in violence by a man named Henry; her mother recalls Henry, the family gardener whom Kimberly stabbed to death as a child when he tried to rape her mother. Kimberly is released to Peter, but is lonely when he begins to rekindle his romance with Amanda.

Her eyesight regained, Alison returns to D & D Advertising and marries Brooke's father, Hayley (Perry King); Brooke and Hayley interfere with each other's marriages. Discovering he is financially ruined, during a trip with Alison, Hayley drowns in a drunken fall from his yacht. Brooke and Billy's marriage is rocky due to her jealousy, dishonesty and cruelty. They reconcile after Brooke's suicide attempt, but Billy leaves her for good. A drunken Brooke slips, hits her head on the edge of the Melrose Place pool and drowns. Haunted by her death, Billy tries to keep her memory alive. Soon, he resorts to unethical decisions while at D&D, including sleeping with clients, though later realizes the error of his ways.

Amanda admits faking her death years ago in Miami to escape her violent husband, Jack Parezi (Antonio Sabato Jr.)—a businessman with Mafia connections—who tracks her to L.A. and dies in an accident. She ends her relationship with Peter when she is reunited with her long-lost first love, Jack's brother Bobby (John Enos III). Peter gets involved with Alycia Barnett (Anne-Marie Johnson), Matt's lawyer in the Paul Graham case, and they conspire to ruin Bobby so Alycia can control his cable-TV empire; Peter hopes to win Amanda back. When Bobby discovers the plot, he attacks Alycia at Peter's office and she accidentally knocks him out the high-rise window to his death. Peter is arrested for the death, and Alycia dies in a car accident when she tries to leave town.

Kimberly and Michael remarry, but she develops multiple-personality disorder and often reverts to a violent 1950s housewife named Betsy Jones. When she drives with Peter to the police station to provide his alibi for Bobby's death, Kimberly (as Betsy) instead commits him to a mental institution to avenge his declaring her insane.

Jo gets involved with Richard Hart after breaking up with Jake, creating a rift between her and Jane. Jane pretends to seduce Michael to make Richard jealous; this infuriates Sydney, who spikes Jane's drink with prescription pills which cause a paralyzing stroke. Jake begins a relationship with Jane as she recovered, but after Richard rapes her during a business trip to New York she breaks up with Jake in her determination to harm Richard.

Matt, in medical school classes and interning at Wilshire, begins a romance with closeted film actor Alan Ross (Lonnie Schuyler). Alan lies publicly about his sexual orientation, fearing that revealing his homosexuality would blacklist him in Hollywood. Behind Alan's back Matt begins a short-lived relationship with David (Rob Youngblood), who took his old social-services job at Wilshire Hospital, but feels guilty about cheating on Alan. He breaks up with Alan after he enters a lavender marriage with co-star Valerie Madison (Jeri Ryan) as a publicity move. When Matt contracts meningitis from a patient he becomes addicted to painkillers, stealing pills from the hospital's stores.

Jo begins a relationship with Matt's medical-school professor Dominick O'Malley (Brad Johnson), who helps her care for Matt and deal with Sydney's school friend in a spousal-abuse case. When Dominick invites her to join him in Bosnia as part of a Doctors Without Borders program, she hesitates at first but eventually agrees. Amanda and Michael try to rescue Peter from "Betsy" at the mental institution. Kimberly returns to reality before falling from a scaffold; comatose, she leaves Peter again in jail with no alibi for Bobby's murder. Although Billy asks Jake to help reunite him with Alison, Jake and Alison begin a relationship of their own.

In the season finale, Jane discovers that Sydney is responsible for her stroke and blackmails her into helping her murder Richard. Sydney apparently kills Richard with a shovel, and the sisters bury him in a field. In the final scene, however, Richard's hand pops out of the ground while Jane and Sydney speed off in their car.

Season five: 1996-1997

Cast

Starring in alphabetical order

• Josie Bissett as Jane Mancini (15 episodes, 5.01-5.15)
• Thomas Calabro as Michael Mancini (34 episodes)
• David Charvet as Craig Field (30 episodes, 5.28)
• Marcia Cross as Kimberly Shaw (5.01-5.27, 27 episodes)
• Rob Estes as Kyle McBride (34 episodes)
• Brooke Langton as Samantha Reilly (34 episodes)
• Laura Leighton as Sydney Andrews (34 episodes)
• Lisa Rinna as Taylor McBride (34 episodes)
• Kelly Rutherford as Megan Lewis (30 episodes, 5.16)
• Doug Savant as Matt Fielding (34 episodes)
• Grant Show as Jake Hanson (34 episodes)
• Andrew Shue as Billy Campbell (34 episodes)
• Courtney Thorne-Smith as Alison Parker (34 episodes)
• Jack Wagner as Peter Burns (34 episodes)

Special guest star

• Heather Locklear as Amanda Woodward (34 episodes)

Recurring

• Greg Evigan as Dr. Dan Hathaway (12 episodes)
• Katie Wright as Chelsea Fielding (12 episodes)
• Chad Lowe as Carter Gallavan (8 episodes)
• Alyssa Milano as Jennifer Mancini (7 episodes)
• Nancy Lee Grahn as Denise Fielding (7 episodes)
• Phil Morris as Walter (7 episodes)
• Scott Plank as Nick Reardon (6 episodes)
• Stacy Haiduk as Colleen Patterson (6 episodes)
• Donna Mills as Sherry Doucette (4 episodes)
• Patrick Muldoon as Richard Hart (3 episodes)

Production

• supervising producer Dee Johnson
• co-executive producer Carol Mendelsohn
• co-executive producer Charles Pratt, Jr
• producer Chip Hayes
• executive producer Aaron Spelling
• executive producer E. Duke Vincent
• executive producer Frank South

Summary

A detective tells Amanda (now married to Peter and incarcerated for Bobby's murder) that Peter is not who he claims to be. Jane and Sydney are concerned that the truth will emerge about what happened to Richard, who harasses and threatens the sisters (who do not know that he is alive). Jake and Alison begin an affair behind Billy's back. Kimberly couldn't remember her dinner with Peter, and his trial was only a few days away. Two characters are introduced: Taylor McBride (Lisa Rinna) and her husband Kyle (Rob Estes), a Boston restaurateur. Learning of Peter's arrest, Taylor goes to Los Angeles for answers, rents Jo's vacant apartment and persuades Kyle to move their restaurant to L.A. She seems to have a secret involving Peter, and clashes with Amanda.

Richard stalks Jane and Sydney. Artist Samantha Reilly (Brooke Langton)—Jane's new roommate—suspects that something is wrong. He is killed by a police officer when he tries to shoot the sisters at a rural convenience store, and the police let them keep the money he stole from Jane.

Kimberly begins to remember the dinner, and the waiter who waited on her and Peter is found. Peter is released as Taylor grows closer to him. Drinking heavily, he spends time at Kyle's restaurant. Alison declines Billy's proposal; she and Jake grow closer, and Billy's jealousy increases. When Jane learns about Jake and Alison's relationship she throws a brick through their bedroom window, slashes Alison's tires and obtains a restraining order against Jake. Taylor tells Peter that she is Taylor Davis, younger sister of his late wife Beth. Amanda begins to lose Peter as his interest in Taylor increases.

Another new character, Megan Lewis (Kelly Rutherford), meets Michael when he runs on the beach. They begin an affair, since Kimberly has been ordered by her psychiatrist not to have sex. When he learns that Megan is a prostitute, Michael wants to be the only man in her life.

Amanda meets a co-worker, Craig Field (David Charvet), whose father (Michael Des Barres) is her boss. Craig learns that he inherited the company from his mother, and harasses Amanda. His father dies of a heart attack after Amanda learns that he was involved in Craig's grandfather's murder.

Michael finds Megan and Kimberly talking, and learns that Kimberly hired Megan to sleep with him. Michael makes Megan give up prostitution (assuring her that he will pay her living expenses), and Kimberly learns that she has a brain tumor and three months to live.

Jane discovers that she was adopted and meets her mother, Sherri (Donna Mills). After she is robbed, Jane leaves her apartment and business to Sydney and visits her family in Chicago.

Alison learns that she is pregnant with Jake's baby. Ambivalent about the pregnancy, she returns to D & D and has a miscarriage which leaves her infertile. Despite this, they marry.

Matt's drug use becomes known and he enters rehab, beginning a relationship with director Dan Hathaway (Greg Evigan). Dan is domineering and physically abusive, and Matt leaves him after Peter threatens to have Dan fired if he does not address his behavioral problems.

Taylor and Kyle's marriage is troubled, and Kyle has a one-night stand with Sydney. Sydney is in a relationship with millionaire Carter Gallavan (Chad Lowe), which ends when he learns about her attraction to Kyle. A con artist fakes an accident at Sydney's store and, left penniless after a trial, she becomes a con artist herself.

Michael and Kimberly divorce as she coaxes him towards Megan. After Kimberly tells Megan she is planning suicide, she and Michael are injured in a car accident. Although Michael has a dream where Megan pulls him into heaven as Kimberly pulls him into hell, he promises Kimberly he will spend his last days with her and they reconcile.

Billy and Samantha begin a relationship after her fling with Craig. After they move in together, her father (who has escaped from prison) appears, demands money from them and takes off; the police tap their phone.

Jake reconciles with his son and ex-girlfriend after her husband leaves them, and Alison (who sees that he needs a family) pretends to start drinking again so he can leave her. Alison leaves for Atlanta, and Jake sells Shooters and moves to Ojai to join his former girlfriend and their son.

Peter and Taylor begin an affair, and Kyle and Amanda both file for divorce. Peter begins making Taylor look and act like his late wife, which she detests. Michael and Megan marry; this is his fourth marriage.

He and Taylor drug Peter, convincing him that he has epilepsy. Michael cheats Peter out of the chief-of-staff position by tricking him into signing a contract. When Peter learns the truth he throws Michael through a window, cutting the surgeon's hands, and tries to push Taylor off a lighthouse in the season finale when she tells him she is pregnant.

Sydney plots against Amanda, falling down a spiral staircase during a party at D & D and faking injury. Although Craig pretends to be concerned about Sydney to save D & D from a lawsuit, a genuine relationship develops.

Kimberly's brain tumor in remission, she tries to break up Michael and Megan before dying in her mother's arms from a ruptured aneurysm. Amanda loses control of D & D after Craig and Sydney launch a new advertising agency, and Sydney accepts Craig's proposal.

Michael's troublemaking younger sister, Jennifer (Alyssa Milano), appears. The woman with whom Kyle had an affair in Boston, she tries to break up his marriage to Taylor and (later) his romance with Amanda.

Matt's teenaged niece, Chelsea (Katie Wright), moves in with him after her father's death. Her estranged mother, Denise (Nancy Lee Grahn), initially wins a custody battle with him for his niece, who decides to stay with Matt anyway.

In the season finale, Sydney and Craig marry; Kyle leaves in the middle of the wedding to find Amanda, who plans to move to New York, and they reconcile. Working as a grocery-store cashier, Samantha is taken hostage by her father and in a high-speed police chase. As Craig and Sydney stand outside the church Samantha and her father (with the police in pursuit) plow into the wedding party, crash through a bus stop next to the church and run Sydney down. The episode ends with Craig sobbing over Sydney's body.

Note

• Hunter Tylo, of The Bold and the Beautiful fame, was originally cast as Taylor McBride. However, because of her pregnancy, she was fired before she could film any episodes. This led to the actress suing Aaron Spelling as a result. She was then replaced by Lisa Rinna.
• Five cast members left the show during this season: Josie Bissett, Marcia Cross, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Grant Show and Laura Leighton.

Season six: 1997-1998

Cast

Starring in alphabetical order

• Linden Ashby as Dr Brett Cooper (34 episodes)
• Thomas Calabro as Michael Mancini (34 episodes)
• David Charvet as Craig Field (16 episodes, 6.01-6.17)
• Rob Estes as Kyle McBride (34 episodes)
• Brooke Langton as Samantha Reilly (34 episodes)
• Jamie Luner as Lexi Sterling (31 episodes, 6.04)
• Alyssa Milano as Jennifer Mancini (34 episodes)
• Lisa Rinna as Taylor McBride (34 episodes)
• Kelly Rutherford as Megan Lewis (34 episodes)
• Doug Savant as Matt Fielding (1 episode)
• Andrew Shue as Billy Campbell (34 episodes)
• Jack Wagner as Dr Peter Burns (34 episodes)

Special guest star

• Heather Locklear as Amanda Woodward (34 episodes)

Recurring

• Dan Gauthier as Jeff Baylor (17 episodes)
• Jeffrey Nordling as Eric Baines (9 episodes)
• Susan Walters as Christine Denton (7 episodes)
• Scott Plank as Nick Reardon (6 episodes)
• Katie Wright as Chelsea Fielding (1 episode)

Production

• supervising producer James Kahn
• co-executive producer Charles Pratt, Jr
• co-executive producer Carol Mendelsohn
• producer Chip Hayes
• executive producers Aaron Spelling
• executive producers E. Duke Vincent
• executive producers Frank South

Summary

The season marks the departures of Andrew Shue, Brooke Langton, Lisa Rinna, Alyssa Milano and Linden Ashby (6.34).

At the beginning of the sixth season, the show's ratings steadily fell. During most of the first half of the season, Heather Locklear's pregnancy was hidden from viewers with most of Amanda's scenes showing her from the chest up or hidden by props.

The day after Sydney's death Craig blames Samantha, but he later apologizes. In the season opener, Michael recommends Matt for a job at an AIDS clinic and Matt moves to San Francisco with his niece Chelsea. Before leaving, he says that he wanted to say goodbye to everyone but "nobody's home".

Two new characters are violent, vindictive Dr. Brett "Coop" Cooper (Linden Ashby) and his seductive ex-wife, snobbish heiress Lexi Sterling (Jamie Luner). The season focuses on Kyle and Amanda's troubled relationship; Amanda returns to her nasty ways after starting her own agency, Amanda Woodward Advertising. With Jake Hanson gone after selling Shooters, Kyle (backed by Amanda) opens the Upstairs Jazz Club and the bar becomes the group's new hangout. Amanda and Kyle's ex-wife, Taylor, continue their rivalry over him.

Kyle ignores warnings from Jennifer, Michael and Taylor that Amanda is untrustworthy and incapable of love. Amanda's mentor from a New York advertising agency, Eric Baines (Jeffrey Nordling), arrives in Los Angeles for a visit and tries to seduce her. When Amanda spurns his advances, Eric purchases the building with Kyle's restaurant and the jazz club to shut them down. Amanda then agrees to Eric's proposition, keeping it a secret. When Kyle finds out, he attacks Eric and threatens to kill him; Eric then returns their property and leaves town. However, Kyle is angry with Amanda for keeping Eric's proposition a secret and agreeing to it.

Billy and Samantha become engaged, and he asks Craig to be his best man. The couple have a falling-out after Samantha's old friend, Connie (Megan Ward), arrives in town. Although they reconcile and marry, Billy soon cheats on Samantha with Jennifer. Despite the affair, Billy is committed to making his marriage work. Samantha begins an affair with Jeff Baylor (Dan Gauthier), a minor-league baseball player.

Jennifer tries to attract Craig, who is grieving for Sydney, and he agrees to a physical relationship. Craig enters a business partnership with Michael for a mechanical surgical glove, an idea Michael stole from Cooper. Michael betrays Craig, using Jennifer to break up with him so Michael could dissolve the partnership and keep all the profits.

Craig attacks Jennifer after Michael ruins him, but she is helped by Billy after Billy destroys Craig's new advertising company. Craig escapes, steals Jennifer's car and commits suicide.

Peter ends his romance with Taylor after learning that she cooperated with Michael to trick him into thinking he had epilepsy and unseat him at chief of staff at Wilshire Hospital. Taylor tries to win Kyle back, pretending to be pregnant with his baby and asking Michael to impregnate her to make her story believable. She becomes pregnant, has a change of heart and tries to attract Michael, her baby's father.

Kyle is confronted with the return of Christine, his former Gulf War partner who was reported missing in action (and presumed dead) in Iraq, and Amanda is jealous of their friendship. When Christine attempts suicide before Kyle and Amanda's wedding, he abandons Amanda to save her. It is later revealed that Christine is not actually Christine, but she is actually Tiffany Hart (Susan Walters), a woman who Nick hired to pretend to be Christine (telling Kyle she had reconstructive surgery). In the psychiatric ward of Wilshire Hospital Tiffany is manipulated by Nick (another war buddy of Kyle's) and the jealous Taylor. After "Christine" sends another suicide letter to Amanda, Amanda visits her and threatens to kill her.

Tiffany (as Christine) escapes from the hospital to find Kyle and Amanda and tell them the truth about Nick and Taylor. However, Nick runs Tiffany into Kyle's car, accidentally killing her, and he and Taylor bring her dead body to a railway line. After their wedding Kyle and Amanda receive a desperate letter from "Christine", and rush to the railway to rescue her. They are too late; she is "killed" by a train.

Amanda, guilty about Tiffany/Christine's "suicide", breaks up with Kyle. When she marries evil businessman Rory Blake (Anthony Tyler Quinn), Kyle ruins the ceremony after discovering that the woman he saw killed by a train was actually a swindler. Taylor and Nick had manipulated the fake Christine into working for them; the real Christine had been killed by a bomb in Iraq. After Rory tries to kill Amanda for her money, Kyle kills him in self-defense and they remarry.

Peter begins a romance with Cooper's ex-wife, Lexi, who asks for his help getting more alimony from her ex-husband (who had a brief affair with Kimberly Shaw when she was recovering in Ohio years earlier). Lexi is addicted to antidepressants, and Peter saves her from a lethal overdose. Her father, who disapproves of her relationship with Peter, dies of a stroke during an argument with him. Blaming Peter, Lexi breaks up with him and reconciles with Cooper (who tries to help her run her late father's business). Cooper forces Lexi to remarry him, ostensibly to protect her from prosecution for her late father's business deals but also to kill her and get her father's money.

Michael faces off with Cooper, who tried to ruin his life because of Kimberly's death. Megan divorces Michael over his manipulation in unseating Peter as the hospital's chief-of-staff and begins a relationship with Cooper. Fired from the hospital, Michael opens a clinic in a poor Los Angeles neighborhood and avenges Megan and Cooper by ruining their plans to move to Philadelphia. He reconciles with Peter after saving his life when they were fishing, regaining part of the Burns-Mancini practice and his job at Wilshire.

Michael attends his high-school reunion and reunites with Jane, his first wife, who followed him to Melrose Place. Samantha and Jeff try to break up Billy and Jennifer by sending a fake fax from Alison in Atlanta, which breaks Jennifer's heart because she thinks he still cares about her.

Samantha, Jennifer, Billy, Taylor and Coop leave by the end of the season. In the season finale, Taylor gives birth to Michael's son (Michael Junior McBride) and agrees to share motherhood with the returning Jane. She then reconsiders, returning to Boston to raise the baby alone. After Coop's attempt on Lexi's life on a fishing boat, he leaves town to take a job with a man who had tried to con Megan into sex.

Note

• Only Thomas Calabro and Andrew Shue are original cast members to remain. Shue left in season finale.
• Doug Savant left after season premiere.

Season seven: 1998-1999

Cast

Starring in alphabetical order

• Josie Bissett as Jane Mancini (28 episodes)
• Thomas Calabro as Michael Mancini (28 episodes)
• Rob Estes as Kyle McBride (28 episodes)
• Jamie Luner as Lexi Sterling (28 episodes)
• John Haymes Newton as Ryan McBride (28 episodes)
• Kelly Rutherford as Megan Lewis (28 episodes)
• Jack Wagner as Dr Peter Burns (28 episodes)

Special guest star

• Heather Locklear as Amanda Woodward (28 episodes)

Recurring

• Rena Sofer as Eve Cleary (25 episodes)

Production

• co-producer Heather Locklear
• co-producer Antoinette Stella
• coordinating producer Robert Del Valle
• supervising producer Peter Dunne
• executive producer Aaron Spelling
• executive producer E. Duke Vincent
• executive producer Charles Pratt, Jr.
• executive producer Carol Mendelsohn

Summary

New characters were added for the series' final season, including Kyle's younger brother Ryan McBride (John Haymes Newton) (whose daughter lived in a New York convent after her mother's death) and Eve Cleary (Rena Sofer), Amanda's friend from school. Matt, who had moved away a year earlier, is revealed to have died in a car crash on his way to a reunion dinner at Kyle's restaurant. He kept a coveted journal of all the secrets the residents shared with him.

After her sham remarriage to Cooper, Lexi apologizes to Peter for blaming him for her father's death and they reconcile. However, Peter realizes that he still cares for Amanda and Lexi dumps him again, and this time for good. Lexi then launches a campaign against Amanda, buying the Melrose Place building from her and opening a new advertising agency, Sterling-Conway Advertising, which drives her out of business.

Amanda and Eve Cleary were high-school cheerleaders in Dallas, Texas. An ugly encounter ended in the death of Eve's boyfriend and her 15-year imprisonment. Kyle learns about their past, agreeing to keep it from Peter (Eve's new husband).

When Kyle and Amanda try to conceive Peter accidentally gives him the wrong test results, indicating that he is sterile. Kyle descends into alcoholism; Amanda is depressed by his behavior, until they reconcile after Kyle finishes rehab. Although Amanda agrees to sell the building to buy their dream home, their marriage ends.

Josie Bissett returned to the series as Jane in 1998, and plotlines centered on her rekindling relationship with Michael. She slept with a client of Amanda's the day before her wedding to Michael, leading to his distrust of her as they decide to marry again. After exchanging vows again, they are estranged and on the road to divorce within hours. They have a brief reunion at Christmas.

Megan and Ryan begin a relationship, marrying in the series finale. Jane joins Kyle (the actors were married in real life) and Amanda joins Peter (despite his marriage to Eve). Lexi becomes sexually involved with Michael, but they break up after she rejects his proposal (realizing that they cannot be faithful to each other).

By early 1999, Fox decided to cancel the show due to falling ratings and high production costs. In the final episode, Amanda and Peter face mounting scrutiny; he is investigated for embezzling from the hospital, and she learns that Amanda (not Eve) killed her boyfriend 15 years ago. When they flee the country their hideout explodes, apparently killing them both. Eve cracks at their memorial service, throws Peter's ashes on Lexi and is jailed. Michael becomes Wilshire Hospital's chief-of-staff. Kyle and Jane discover that she is having Michael's baby, and an anonymous envelope appears containing Amanda's locket. At the end of the series finale Amanda and Peter marry on a tropical beach, rejoicing at their success in faking their deaths and paying Michael a million dollars in hush money. In the final scene, they walk along the beach to "Closing Time."

Notes

• Thomas Calabro and Josie Bissett are the only original cast member to appear in season seven.
• Thomas Calabro appeared in the most episodes of Melrose Place, 222, sixteen more than Heather Locklear (206) and twenty-four more than Andrew Shue (198).
• On January 31, 1999, FOX announces Melrose Place cancellation. Lot of tributes were released by Los Angeles Times, New York Times, TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly.
• This also marks the final appearances by Rob Estes, Jamie Luner, John Haymes Newton, Kelly Rutherford, and Jack Wagner in the franchise. Estes later played Harry Wilson in the 4th spin-off 90210.