By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
February 9, 1998
The neighborhood is changing for “Melrose Place.”
Currently flailing in its sixth season, the frothy series about a group of attractive but none-too-bright tenants who live, sleep and quarrel with each other is in danger of being evicted from the Fox lineup.
“Melrose Place” airs at 7 p.m. Mondays on WFLD-Channel 32. Tonight’s special two-hour episode will include a guest appearance by Valerie Harper as the meddling mother of siblings Michael (Thomas Calabro) and Jennifer (Alyssa Milano).
Fox hasn’t announced whether “Melrose Place” will return for a seventh season. But chief programmer Peter Roth said last month, “To suggest that we weren’t concerned with some of the decline that we’ve experienced this year would be fallacious. . . . It’s a show that we really still believe in. . . . We’re looking at it very carefully, and we’ll have something to say to you, I think, pretty soon.”
Numbers talk. And they’re not good for the toothy residents. The show was never a Top 20 contender. But at its peak, “Melrose Place” attracted 19.3 million viewers for its second season finale. By comparison, last year’s finale attracted just 11.8 million fans.
The unspoken motto at “Melrose Place” used to be, “Who do you have to sleep with to land an apartment?” Now it could be, “Who do you have to sleep with to attract more viewers?”
Not that the writers haven’t tried. They’ve coupled just about all of the characters in every conceivable combination. There was Billy (Andrew Shue) and Allison (Courtney Thorne-Smith); Michael and Jane (Josie Bissett); Jake (Grant Show) and Amanda (Heather Locklear). Come to think of it, there was Amanda and Michael. Amanda and Billy. Allison and Jake. Jake and Jane.
The catfights that raged were fierce and funny, and the program served as the perfect excuse for young adults to get together for “Melrose” nights. “We used to have fans lined up around the block to get in to watch the show. There were hundreds of people,” said Matt Goldman, who handles promotion and marketing for the Wrigleyville bar Hi-Tops. “This year, we’re getting maybe a couple dozen each week. The show’s popularity isn’t what it used to be.
“Now we have a large following for `Ally McBeal’ (which follows `Melrose’ on Fox). It’s getting to the point where people are coming in more to watch that show than `Melrose Place.’ ”
Thorne Smith followed fans in defecting from “Melrose Place” to “McBeal.” Show and Bissett also permanently checked out, and Milano has said she’s next to go.
Which leaves the show with what? As nasty Amanda, Locklear is the resident star. Her crises are many, including the possibility of losing her fiance, Kyle (Rob Estes, who in real life is married to Bissett), to his ex-wife Taylor (played by the full-lipped Lisa Rinna), who is still in a rampage about being dumped by her dead sister’s husband, Peter (Jack Wagner).
Got that?
It doesn’t really matter if you do because “Melrose” has never been dishonest about its place in pop culture. The plot lines have always meant less than the length of Amanda’s skirts and the pecs of her rotating crew of lovers.
But that, too, grows old, even at “Melrose Place.”
