Melrose Place is just like real life

as a teenage gay i always saw Andrew Shue in me... quite deeply.

My friends and I used to joke that Melrose was a documentary. There was so much draaama and sex in our lives before we all calmed down.

The only thing I remember is a red headed girl being kept in a dirt pit covered with boards by a cult. What was going on with that?

My friend used to watch it.

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Do you see yourself as Daphne Zuniga's Jo, the photographer with the cavernous nostrils?

I see myself as Kimberley Shaw.

It was mean girls back then. Life wasn't like Melrose Place then. Melrose Place is like life now.

Sure.

I loved Kimberly! Such a crazy bitch.

Never understood why the press covered the Ananda storylines so much; I watched for Kimberly Shaw and turned the show off after they killed her off for the second time.

Kimberly was THAT bitch.

Alison was such a drip and a waste of Courtney Thorne Smith. I really enjoyed her on Ally McBeal.

Grow up OP.

Kimberly was the best character by far.

It seemed ahead of its time the way they were nasty to each other.

The D&D storylines definitely captured corporate life than anything I've ever seen in film or television. We've all had a boss like Amanda Woodward at some point or another. Alison vs Amanda was iconic.

Alison's pitches always made me laugh.

Amanda outsmarts Alison. LOL.

"Dear Amanda, congratulations on your promotion, love Bruce"

And then they cart his dead body out of the office and its never really mentioned again.

Kimberly, Sydney and Michael were the best characters on the show to me.

This kind of thing happens at the office Christmas party pretty much every year. Relatable. Love drunk Alison. I'll stop posting clips now.

Ok one more.... "all you will be left is that proverbial wish you had never been born"

I'm rewatching it and Jo just joined the cast.

Given her name, I was hoping Jo would talk Alison into double-dating at the Chug-A-Lug out by the highway. It's just loaded with college guys.

So good until Darren Star left. Whoever became show runner after him was completely boring and straight.

It was absolutely like my real life. I was the president of an ad agency that held the account for "Glorious Gowns." Or was it "Gloria's Gowns?" I get confused.

No, I can't say I found the show even slightly realistic, especially when they started to really go off the rails. But I fucking love it anyway - well, not so much the boring & cringeworthy Billy & Allison storylines. Christ, they were annoying. I did enjoy seeing Amanda treat Allison like shit, though.

I loved Lexi Sterling.

Lexi was the best thing about last two season's of the show.

I always found it hilarious that Billy would be at the D&D staff meetings and none of his female co-workers were the least bit perturbed that he'd banged every one of them.

I hated my asswipe brother from childhood on a "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" level. I got such a kick out of Jane attacking turncoat Sydney -- who abused her horribly but would inevitably turn to her when she was in dire straits -- in her wedding dress and hurling her into the pool. Years later, my brother and I got into it at a family event and ended up in the pool too. It was prophecy -- and one of the greatest moments of my life!

Laura Leighton is a great singer IRL, I searched for any video there might be of her singing - I totally forgot she ended up marrying Doug Savant from that swimming pool clip.

I'm in Season 2 now, re-watching for the first time since reruns on E! in 2003.

First off, I'm 39 and it's weird to be watching these now that I'm older than all of the goddamn characters (even Kimberly, who always seemed way older than the rest).

Jane is a hateful witch. Awful character, awful actress. Josie was not up to whatever the hell they were trying to do with Jane. Some neo-Norma Shearer thing. She looked like a boy. Also, there was just something inherently hateable about Jane and Josie, both. Why did she pronounce "designer" as she did? Alison is utterly incompetent and completely unstable. I can't abide when CTS flicks her tongue out between her teeth.

Billy actually reads "slow" most of the time. He reminds me of Blair Warner's "special boyfriend."

Jo's fantastic in Season 1. They ruin her in S2.

Amanda just seems like a bitter old hag now.

I think I enjoyed Kimmy and Sydney more because their characters began as supporting cast and took some time to develop.

I fucking love Laura Leighton and her "scary glitter eyes."

Katya was annoying as fuck.

I hated Sydney the first time I saw the show but love her now. I guess it’s because I’ve matured.

I always hated Alison. She was such a drippy bitch. I love Sydney. Mainly because I have a horrible older sister who thinks she's superior to everyone.

Sydney always brought out the compassionate oldest sibling in me. She was just a diamond in the rough. I feel like everyone she tried to turn to kicked her in the face.

Alison is especially heinous during the Steve McMillan story.

I'm re-watching these off VHS tapes specifically because I want to hear the original background music. I tried watching the DVDs and the substituted music changed it too much.

They didn't know what to do with Jo after the first season. She's like a different character in the second season.

R37, Alison's ad campaign speeches were some BAD TV!

Make that R35. I've mixed Melrose and cannabis on my way to a "European trip" marathon of I Love Lucy. I live at Datalounge House.

I love what an over the top bitch Amanda was.

Was Alison a frau? Jane was a frau, yes?

Jane was definitely a frau and so was Alison. Amanda was smarter than the average frau and Sidney and Kimberly were cool. Jo became a crazy frau with all that "my baby" shit.

I thought the real apartment building was in the Melrose area. I could've sworn I saw one like it driving up Sweetzer one day. But it's Los fucking Feliz! And Michael and Kimberly's house is waaaaay out in Oxnard?? WTF? I wonder how they find these places.

Amanda really didn't seem all that awful. I've known women like that and I appreciate their directness.

I'm watching one of the Kristian Alfonso as Lauren episodes. KA plays Lauren a little too well.

I did enjoy "Dark Depressing Villain Jane" from the reboot.

R41 weren't Jane and Alison too young to be fraus?

They were only in their 20s, if their fraus than do was,Kelly Taylor in the post college episodes of 90210

I think you can tell which ones will be fraus from high school. Kelly was DEFINITELY a frau.

Was Jo a frau?

Who was the guy originally cast as Billy who got fired cause he got fat?

Stephen Fanning, R47.

I love how the Lisa Rinna and Peter story line was such an obvious rip off of Vertigo.

I hated Lisa Rinna on this show.

I never talk to anyone in my apartment building.

Drunk Alison right before getting blown up: "GO AWAY!!!!!!"

I don't know why I found her drunken howl so funny in that scene.

My favourite plot lines were (obviously) Kimberly going nuts and taking off her wig to show that brain surgery made her go nuts, and (also obviously) when Sydney started ho-ing and started pulling down some big bucks with her ho-ing.

I love the Henry scenes...

LOVED drunk Alison.

Same r55 way better than lame sober Alison.

Drunk Alison was okay. Still a drip though, even after three martinis at lunch and a ferocious dressing down from Amanda.

That tablecloth trick scene was great. I wish she didn't go into rehab so quickly.

I'm halfway through S2. Michael has a video tape of Jane's new boyfriend fucking one of Lauren's whores.

Watching Jane get screwed over was part of what I enjoyed about these seasons.

Oh, yeah, R16. D&D was just like real corporate life. Didn't Billy start as a taxi driver and then by the end of the series (what-5 years later?) he was president of D&D International and all subsidiaries.

The only reason to see the show is because it inspired such hilarious scenes from SNL and Seinfeld.

"OH THAT JANE! SHE JUST MAKES ME SO MAD!!!"

Jane is so goddamn bland. An architect of her own misery, like Sue Ellen Ewing, who I can't stand for similar reasons.

Alison is like a lizard, flicking her tongue between her teeth.

Jake comes across like a closet case. The moody rebel masc thing seems a put-on.

Amanda is just a nasty old woman. She's too old to be acting the way she is, blackmailing Billy over the rubbish bin sex they had a few episodes back.

Jo is with Reed and from here on out, she'll be all victim, all the time.

I miss all the recap and news sites from the 90s internet, they were as much a part of watching Melrose as the show itself.

R62 the funny thing is Heather Locklear was only 31 when she debuted as Amanda in January 1993 and Amanda was supposed to be 26, Heather always seemed to be older for some reason

R63, that's it: even though I knew she was "young," she always seemed "older."

I think it's the fried hair. It makes her seem older. I love Heather, but she also had that nasal twang and maybe that was it.

Kimberly also felt "older" even though she was only supposed to be a few years older than Jane. Michael also felt much older than Jane (reflecting the real-life age difference between Calabro and Bisset), but they attended the same college reunion later, so were apparently the same age?

I’m the Amanda.

I fear that I've become Jo.

I'm Lauren FUCKING Ethridge!

The weirdest thing about that show was it had some of the worst acting on television, and yet it was a monster hit. Laura Leighton and Marcia Cross are both fine actors; Thomas Calabro, Daphne Zuniga, Grant Show, Doug Savant, and Heather Locklear are only just barely passable; and Courtney Thorne-Smith and Josie Bisette were just plain awful. And of course Andrew Shue is a complete non-actor.

Kristian Alfonso was fantastic as Lauren. Truly, the most psychopathic character the show ever created, although some may argue that was Kimberly, I would say that Kimberly became what she did because of the car accident. Lauren on the other hand was somebody you just knew was born evil. I absolutely believed she would do to Sydney everything she threatened... it wasn't just words.

r68, the reason the show was such a hit was because it had an essentially European sensibility... by Season 3, it was intelligently written to be comic and tragic at the same time, the grim, seedy side of Los Angeles it presented was really no escapist fare, but it was the absurdity of the characters within that setting that just made it laugh out loud funny. It often made me think of Weimar Germany in the 1920s, its characters were grotesques and the truth of what we are. American culture often prefers the sanitised and sentimental approach but Melrose was just wickedly subversive and, compared to dreck like Friends, was actually compelling.

To add to r70 post, I like to thing Melrose takes place in the same universe as Showgirls. At the end of that movie when Nomi Malone flees Vegas for Los Angeles, I like to think she moved into Melrose Place, soon to be followed by Cristal Connors!

I loved Traci Lords as the cult member Rikki. Especially when she trashed Shooters.

Lauren did feel genuinely evil, I agree. She reminded me of the sinister coachman in Disney's version of Pinocchio.

I'm 99% sure I'm watching the episode where Jo gets her ass thrown in a cargo hold aboard the Pretty Lady.

I loved the weird triangle of Sydney/Michael/Kimberly. Sydney was so conniving but Kim was deranged and Michael was just a horrible person. Throw them all together, and it was wild.

And Jane kept getting in there; Michael seemed to go after her once a season for a while there.

Of course.

I do this all the time!

It exists in the same universe as 90201, which I believe caused Aaron Spelling and Darren Starr to make 90210 more "Melrose like" beginning with its 5th (94-95) season

It made the later years of 90210 WILDLY uneven, you would have over the top and trashy Melrose Place like storylines mixed with social issue and lesson storylines that 90210 did in its early seasons

The 90210 connection was just a way to get viewers to tune Melrose, it was nothing more than that and the shows were very different animals.

To true fans of the show, Season 5 is the real finale season and wraps everything up in a very down to earth and satisfying way. Marcia Cross got to play a wonderful and moving exit story with Kimberly's brain cancer and Sydney finding love before getting run over was the best possible ending for a character who always lived by the seat of her pants. And then with Alison leaving, you knew it was over.

R78 yes they were different but 90210 did become more similar to Melrose with all the bed hopping and cheating. The problem with the later years of 90210 would be that you would have those racy Melrose storylines and then you would have social issue stories mixed in there as opposed to Melrose Place which by season 2 knew and accepted that it was fun and campy trash.

Again the later seasons of 90210 were very uneven because of it

R71, Cristal Connors was already ON Melrose Place. She's the one who introduced Sydney to Lauren. She just went by Ellen.

Alison came to a depressing end. We kept hearing about how horrible she was doing, even after CTS left the show.

I haven't seen the show in ages. What did happen to her after she left LA?

She went to Atlanta and I think at some point in 1998, Amanda told Billy that Alison had suffered a few drinking relapses out there. There may have been mention that Alison went to rehab again, but I can't remember.

I wanted Dr Peter Burns in me deeply.

Me, too, R85. You know he was a freak in bed.

I wanted to rip off Dr Peter Burns suspenders. I hated that Jane ended up with Kyle McBride.

I love R70.

Jane looked like battered hammered shit in the series finale. I know Josie was pregnant, but she looked awful.

Of course, they left Jane pregnant from Michael and passing it off Kyle's. In the reboot, Jane seemed so much darker that I assumed she lost that baby or it went up for adoption after she and Kyle broke up. He would have realized she was too damn needy! And weren't they living in Michael and Kimberly's beach house in the last scenes?

I actually liked the reboot.

I liked Alison, especially when she was drunk. CTS played her very well.

The first season, especially the first part of it, is so different from what came next. Also, Billy and Alison were both supposed to be very young, fresh out of college at the start.

I likes the reboot too but I dont think they were clear on who their audience was. Also its clear that the ptb didnt really wacth the original series. The way Amanda and Jane were written were complete disasters.

Poachers get shot.

And one more.

You're right. Pretty soon Heather Locklear is going to start calling herself Betsy and go to Tupperwear parties.

Kristin Davis stole this scene.

To be fair, Kristen steals every scene when she's paired with a blonde.

Any Kristin gossip from her time at Melrose?

She hated her pear shaped figured and demanded to be shot waist up as much as possible.