The Bad Things About Melrose Place on CW

[MarkSinacori]

Sydney and Michael in episode 3 with the flashbacks! This was the BIGGEST FLAW in the return of the series! The writers made up the worst way to prove Syd faked her death from someone who wanted to kill Craig!


They probably did not know Carter was her lover before Craig--It would have been better had Sydney been stalked by Carter until her wedding night and then when he saw her run over he took her away and paid that doctor to say she died! That would have been so much better than Martin Abbott which I think they were going to expose at some point and never once did! Plus the writers knew smack of the original! And Carter was not from her past! Martin Abbott happened in 1995 and this was only 2 years later when she was run over! Plus---SAM's Dad ran her over! SOOOOOOO DUMB! Made nooooooo sense!


Had Carter faked her death it would have made sooo much more sense! He was RICH! He whisked her away and then died on some island and Syd inherited his money and that's how she bought Melrose Place! She was so poor to buy anything!

Also Michael was up and about and had rare bandages on his hands after Peter threw him through the window at Burns Mancini! Michael's hands were fully bandaged at least a month later after Syd was killed! He couldn't have done that in that scenario! Made no sense at all!

Syd also told Auggie that Michael made her so depressed she drank and was an alcoholic when they were married in 1994! LIE! That never happened! She was a prostitute but that's it!

I couldn't wait for the show to be cancelled after that!



Jane returns--we don't hear about Kyle if she was still with him or if they broke up! We don't hear if she had the baby she was pregnant with in 1999 or what!

Jo returns and says some guy proposed to her and she let him go-- I wonder if that was Domonick O'Malley or some other guy! We don't even hear if they were still together or what happened to him!


Amanda comes back and says she was bored with the Island and Peter! She doesn't say how she got away with faking her death OR if Peter was still on the island or where he is now!

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

The original character returns felt really contrived on the Melrose Place continuation. Like I know that they probably felt that they needed a link to the past to create some buzz but none of the returns worked in my opinion.

However, I think that the main problem with the show was the new characters. Most of them were just boring. I didn't really care for Auggie, Scarlet, Jonah or Riley. There was potential in the other three although I never understood the Ella and Jonah thing. They were such a mismatched couple.

 

[Marika]

The whole reboot would have worked better without any ties to the original show.

The pilot episode had 2.3 million viewers (which was even low for CW standards), and in the following weeks, ratings dropped significantly. There was no way the show could have been rescued.

Like its lead-in "90210", the target demo of this show were teenagers and young adults – and they didn't want to see 50-year old Amanda, who could barely move her face, argue with people who were 30 years younger than her. Locklear's salary clearly strained the budget so they couldn't afford to hire new actors and after the removal of Auggie and Violet they had to rely on 5 main characters (plus Amanda).

However, we can be grateful that this trainwreck of a show only survived one season and is barely remembered. Look what damage "90210" did to the franchise – and it lasted 5 seasons with almost nobody tuning in during the final 2 seasons.

 

[Soaplover]

The reboot could have worked even with ties to the original. Even though the show knew nothing about Jo and her backstory...she was written closer to what she was like in her first seasons oin the original show.

I do think violet/auggie were the weak links.

 

[MarkSinacori]

They didn't even have Jo mention her son she gave up for adoption! Would have been nicer had he been friends with David or something and Jo meets him face to face when she was in the courtyard or something! I think that's how the show should have dealt with her! They didn't care! Austin was 15 at that time Jo made her last appearance on the show!

 

[tommie]

Well, first of all - Sydney would have no idea who ran her over, so fair play that she might have thought whatever-whoever might've done it. I don't find it implausible that THE CULT would've come after her, but they never made it clear in Melrose Place 2.0. They just brushed it over as "someone something whatever whatever is trying to kill me please let us get past this plot point". Michael also wouldn't have been on duty of course since his hands were wrecked from falling through a glass window and had to have stiches all night to them.

But whatever.

I'm fine with them not explaining everything - too much explanaition can actually get contrived and confuse new viewers. The biggest problem was that they made it seem like Melrose Place was a luxurious complex. It wasn't on the original - yes we all wanted to live there, but from a character point of view it was crappy. I also think it was too contrived - why not have the pilot mirror - somewhat - the original?

Have Ella (the best character) come to Los Angeles with dreams grandeur. Have her go to her new job at Woodward, Parker & ?; have her tell her new boss (Amanda) that she doesn't have a place to stay - have Amanda say she knows one. Have Ella meet Lauren, who is a doctor at Wilshire Memorial etc etc.

I never expected big answers from MP 2.0. God knows Melrose Place dropped storylines left and right like a bored child anyway.

 

[Marika]

I never expected big answers from MP 2.0. God knows Melrose Place dropped storylines left and right like a bored child anyway.

Did they? I don't remember the show having many plotholes or abandoning stories.

To me, a "dropped story" means that a character is in situation A in one episode and in situation B in the next episode with no follow-up to situation A. But like I said, I don't remember the show doing these kinds of illogical jumps.

There were of course several shorter filler stories (for example Matt, Jo and the strange cop in season 3) but even these type of stories usually did have a climax and and a resolution.

Do you have any examples?

 

[Soaplover]

The closest thing would have been the Sydney cult story in season 3...where it was left open ended.. but it was resolved enough where she had been rescued and made peace with Jake/Jane.

 

[Marika]

The closest thing would have been the Sydney cult story in season 3...where it was left open ended.. but it was resolved enough where she had been rescued and made peace with Jake/Jane.

In this case, that story was most likely written as open ended because the viewers were kept in suspense if the cult would take revenge on Sydney at a later point. Ultimately they didn't – but I wouldn't call that a dropped story.

Rhonda's exit at the end of season 1 was of course very abrupt, but I wouldn't call that a dropped story either – because there was no real story to begin with and it wasn't important to any of the other characters (well, except Matt) or to the general flow of the show.

On the other hand, "90210" (the 2008 series) was a serious offender of dropping stories and characters without explanation. In some cases they didn't even remember things that happened two episodes prior.