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12/1/17

Re-watching 'Melrose Place' 25 years later


Forgotten iconic show and ultimate soap opera 'Melrose Place' first aired on July 1992, 25 years ago, and back then was my ultimate guilty pleasure. The show started as a spin off of '90210' and the first episodes were a crossover with Kelly getting involved with Jake, and that's how everything started. And as i loved the show when i was a teen and hadn't watched a single episode since then i decided to re-watch the whole thing this last Summer. A total of 7 seasons and 226 episodes.

Re-watching 'Melrose Place' has been an ultimate pleasure at first. The first three seasons are really entertaining and a joy to watch as those are the best episodes from the show. It seems unbelievable but at first they all got along. In the famous apartment building, there was Allyson Parker who found in Billy Campbell a new roommate, also newlyweds Jane and Michael Mancini, there was Matt Fielding who was the gay character who was never seen kissing anyone, and hottie Jake Hanson; and also there were Sandy, who got written out after 13 eps, and Rhonda who didn't come back for the second season. And despite the show being famous for the backstabbing and cheating, at first they all were friends, making pool parties in the building and barbecues with all the neighbors.

All the good vibes between them started to fade halfway the second season and with the introduction of characters like Sydney, Jane's envious little sister, Kimberly Shaw, who already appeared on season 1 but wasn't gone crazy back then, and special guest star Amanda Woodward, who also appeared on the first season and she was even nice and friendly with Allyson! But that didn't last long. Soon she would seduce Billy interfering in his and Allyson's blossoming romance while Michael would start cheating on Jane with Kimberly and later with Syd. And the story only started to get more and more entangled. But it was fun to watch so it was cool.

But time has been unfair and while there were many cast departures and replacements, many actors gpt their start by living in Melrose, like Marcia Cross who reunited with Doug Savant in 'Desperate Housewives', Kristin Davis played Brooke and later was Charlotte in 'Sex and the City', Laura Leighton who was Hannah's mom on 'Pretty Little Liars', Lisa Rinna now turned into a 'Real Housewife', 'Charmed' Alyssa Milano, Grant Show who has now made a comeback in the reboot of 'Dynasty' or Kelly Rutherford who was in 'The OC' with Rob Estes and later in 'Gossip Girl'. And it's truly a shame that special guest star for six seasons and the best thing on the show Heather Locklear, who played Amanda, didn't really succeed after the series.

Winona Ryder in 'Reality Bites' said it, "Melrose Place is a really good show" but truth is it has fallen into oblivion and it should be given a lot more credit that it has, though after that failed 2009 reboot it only hurt the show more. But for me the series was part of my early teen days and it hasn't really aged that bad, so it remains one of my best guilty pleasures ever. And five years ago Entertainment Weekly reunited some of the cast for its 20th anniversary so below you can see the photoshoot to have some 90s nostalgia.


sources: ew & digitalspyuk

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