The Bitch Is Back

The classic Melrose Place cast including Heather Locklear (top left), Laura Leighton (centre) and Thomas Colabro (top right)

After the success of The CW's Beverly Hills 90210 relaunch (in the US that is – only a handful of episodes were ever screened in Australia, where it had the humiliation of being axed twice), it was only a matter of time before they did the same with the BH 90210 spin-off Melrose Place, which followed the (sex) lives of the 20-something inhabitants of an apartment building on LA’s Melrose Avenue.
This week filming has begun on the pilot for the new version, which stars Ashlee Simpson-Wentz (horrifying message board nerds and delighting me) and one-time Home and Away star Stephanie “formerly Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen” Jacobsen. Both appear to be playing prostitutes. So at least that’s in-keeping with the spirit of the original show.
Original cast members Thomas Colabro (the awesome Dr. Michael Mancini) and Laura Leighton (Sydney Andrews) are back on board, despite the fact that Sydney died at the end of season five in the arms of her new husband “Crag” (spelled “Craig” and played by the awful David Charvet).
Sydney has clearly been revived to take the place of Heather Locklear’s Amanda Woodward, as Heather, who clearly hasn’t heard about the financial crisis, wanted too much money. If the show is a hit she may yet change her mind.

It seems poor, desperate, hilarious Lisa Rinna who played a pair of lips named Taylor McBride has been overlooked for the new cast. Lisa has made no secret of wanting to return to the show, even taking to the streets of Hollywood wearing a sandwich board reading “Honk 4 Lisa Rinna on the new Melrose Place” with Ross The Intern from The Tonight Show. This may actually be the best thing to happen this year.

"Will over-act for publicity!"

Anyway, I actually want Lisa back in the cast; she was both crazy and amusing.
She even has plans for her character!
“I left the show pregnant, but I can't remember if it was Michael's or Peter's baby,” Lisa says (It was Michael's). “But you could age that baby up and add five years, and you have a teenager. Or maybe I come back to run the apartment complex. Or maybe I open my own ballroom dance studio.”
Be quiet now Lisa.
Also set to pop up on the show is Ryan Eggold, the “cool teacher” Ryan Matthews on 90210, who is set the cross between the two. While the shows are supposed to live in the same world, Jessica Lucas, who played Ryan’s girlfriend Kimberly MacIntyre on 90210, is playing Riley Richmond on Melrose, and 90210 regular Rob Estes (West Beverly principal Harry Wilson) was on the original Melrose as Kyle McBride (after a guest role years earlier as Sam Towler). Confused?
It will be interesting to see how the new version plays out. 90210 came back after the success of teen soaps like Dawson’s Creek and Gossip Girl, but there hasn’t been a successful adult soap since MP 1.0. And while the original series started as a straight-down-the line episodic spin-off of Beverly Hills 90210, it was only after producers turned up the crazy that anybody watched. Soon people were blowing things up and returning from the dead and everyone was having an affair with someone else. Which was excellent.
Let's hope they just cut straight to trash this time around. The trick for the producers will be walking a fine line between so-bad-it’s-good and, well, bad.
I for one hope the show is awesome and that Ten will air it for longer than two weeks.

Scott Keenan
So late it's almost tomorrow o'clock