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Melrose Place Put on Chopping Block
Spelling Says “Thanks, for the Mammaries...”
This is much worse than any Y2K bug that might hit. I mean, who cares? By then, we will all be in withdrawal from the absence of Melrose Place...
Yes, it's true. Melrose Place as gotten the axe. Supposedly poor ratings have led to its demise. C'mon, I just watched an episode of "7th Heaven," and let me tell you, I had a hard time keeping my dinner down. (Of course, the fact that it was Dinty Moore stew may have been a factor, but I digress...)
The following are 2 articles, reprinted from Variety and E!Online. Please, I don't want to hear about any mass suicides, okay?
Now, I'm even debating whether I should even bother continuing to write summaries for these last remaining episodes... :-((
Here are the facts:
ARTICLE 1 (Reprinted from E! Online):
"Melrose Place" : The Obituary
by E! Online News Staff
Feb 1 1999 7:25AM
First Jo left. Then Jane. Then Alison. Jake, too. Finally, even Billy--dear, dim-bulb Billy--moved on. And then, well, did it really matter anymore?
Not really. And this spring it'll cease to matter at all: Melrose Place--the trashy, campy and ultimately defining prime-time soap of the Gen X-era--has been served its eviction notice. And a generation mourns.
Fox posted the closing sign Friday--the same day ABC finally gave up on Home Improvement. No word on its final air date. But this much is clear: Melrose will expire, the network said, at the end of this season--after seven TV years, 227 episodes and innumerable Heather Locklear micro-miniskirts. Cause of death: The usual. Lousy ratings.
But other contributing factors cannot be ignored, chiefly: If Melrose Place really was the defining soap of the Gen X-era, then understand that the Gen X-era itself is dead--squeezed out by Generation Y and all the Sarah Michelle Love Van Der Beek thangs of Dawson's Creek, et. al. Demographics all but demand that the generation once over-shadowed and out-numbered by baby boomers will be over-shadowed and out-numbered by the spawn of the baby boomers. Goodbye, Melrose Place. Hello, Felicity.
In announcing Melrose's demise, Fox deigned it a "pop culture icon of the '90s." Put another way: The 1990s end in 11 months. Time to shove the old lady off the iceberg before the new millennium.
"...I will miss it and everyone involved very much," executive producer Aaron Spelling said in a statement.
Melrose premiered on July 8, 1992, a spinoff of Beverly Hills, 90210 (which is looking more and more like it may eek out another season.) In the beginning, it was a tame, episodic look at the lives and loves of twentysomethings in a Los Angeles apartment complex. Think Marcus Welby with a swimming pool.
Midway through the first season, Spelling enlisted T.J. Hooker/Dynasty alum Heather Locklear to goose the soft ratings and scare the bejeezus out of the nice-people likes of Alison (Courtney Thorne-Smith), Billy (Andrew Shue) and Jake (Grant Show). Locklear was Amanda Woodward, the advertising-industry barracuda who never met a washcloth she couldn't accessorize into acceptable office attire. Her short-term "special guest star" run never ended.
But as is the way of soaps, cast turnover is inevitable and, eventually, deadening. Daphne Zuniga as Jo the photographer left in 1996, Josie Bissett as good wife Jane left in 1997, Thorne-Smith, Show and Doug Savant (as Matt, the sensitive, and, yes, gay social worker) followed her out the door. Shue moved out last season. Dozens of other actors moved in and out of the series' revolving beds. In 1994, Melrose birthed its own spin-off series, the short-lived Models Inc.
Bissett returned to her old address this season, but it was too little, too late. The show is averaging a weak 4.8 rating. (Each rating point equals 998,000 TV homes.) Thomas Calabro as psycho doctor Michael Mancini was the only cast member to survive from Day One.
"Melrose Place is one of my all-time favorite shows," Spelling said.
He is not alone.
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ARTICLE 2 (Reprinted from "Variety"):
Melrose Place, to wrap this season
By Jenny Hontz of Reuters/Variety
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Fox's sexy soap "Melrose Place" will officially exit the airwaves at the end of the season.
"Melrose Place" is ending its run after seven seasons and 227 episodes.
Generally a solid performer, ``Melrose Place,'' which airs Mondays at 8 p.m., has been on the decline for the past year. This season, the show has averaged a 4.8 rating and 13 share in the key adults 18-49 demographic, down two shares from last season's 5.8/15.
"Melrose Place' is one of my all-time favorite shows,'' said executive producer Aaron Spelling, "and I will miss it and everyone involved very much."
In the same statement, Fox said "Melrose Place" would be remembered "as a pop culture icon of the '90s."