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Melrose Place is an American primetime soap opera that ran between 1992 and 1999, created by Darren Star for the FOX network and executive produced by Aaron Spelling for Spelling Television. It is the second series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise, and is set in a small apartment courtyard complex in the West Hollywood district of Los Angeles, where several young individuals reside, each with their own dreams and drives.
Like its predecessor, the show struggled in its first season with low ratings.
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Encyclopedia
Melrose Place is an American primetime soap opera that ran between 1992 and 1999, created by Darren Star for the FOX network and executive produced by Aaron Spelling for Spelling Television. It is the second series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise, and is set in a small apartment courtyard complex in the West Hollywood district of Los Angeles, where several young individuals reside, each with their own dreams and drives.
Like its predecessor, the show struggled in its first season with low ratings. However, with the arrival of more interesting characters and over-the-top storylines, ratings increased. The show was cancelled after its seventh season. In 2004, the network SOAPnet began repeating the series. Seasons 1 through 5 are currently available on DVD.
Season One (1992-93)
During the first season, the show was a relatively earnest serial drama with low-key storylines, and focused on how young people come to Los Angeles to realize their dreams.
The series was introduced with a cross-over story from Beverly Hills, 90210 involving Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) pursuing Melrose Place resident Jake Hanson (Grant Show), a struggling manual laborer and bad-boy biker. Jake appeared in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Kelly appeared in three episodes of Melrose Place; Jake eventually breaks off the potential romance because of their different backgrounds. Tori Spelling later appeared in two episodes of Melrose Place as her Beverly Hills, 90210 character Donna Martin, and Brian Austin Green appeared in three as David Silver.
Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro) and Jane Mancini (Josie Bissett) were originally the stable couple in the apartment building, with Michael working as the building superintendent, and a sympathetic doctor at Wilshire Memorial Hospital, and Jane working as a budding fashion designer. Their neighbors were roommates Alison (Courtney Thorne-Smith) and Billy (Andrew Shue). Allison was a receptionist as D&D Advertising, a local advertising firm, and Billy was a struggling writer who worked odd jobs from a taxi driver to a copywriter at a local magazine company. Allison and Billy later began a love affair. Matt Fielding (Doug Savant), was a homosexual social worker who had no love life during the first season, and spent much of his storyline involved in one discrimination-related lawsuit after the next when he was beaten up in a gay-bashing incident, lost his job, and regained it.
Other original cast members were Rhonda Blair (Vanessa A. Williams), an African-American aerobics instructor, and her roommate, the blonde, budding Southern belle starlet Sandy Harling (Amy Locane), who moonlighted as a waitress at a bar called Shooters which served as the group's hang-out place. Sandy was written out after 13 episodes when the powers that be decided they were not interested in having to continually address her acting pursuits. Rhonda was removed after the first season when she got engaged to a wealthy restaurant entrepreneur.
Early in the show's run, photographer Jo Reynolds (Daphne Zuniga) arrived from New York to escape her alcoholic ex-husband. The tough Jo was compatible with Jake, and the two would enjoy an on-again, off-again romance, remaining close throughout whether they are romantically involved at the time or not.
Producers were faced with mediocre ratings and attempted to revamp the series during the first season. This revamp came in the form of the first-season arrival of Dynasty and T.J. Hooker alumna Heather Locklear as the opinionated and assertive Amanda Woodward, who worked as the ambitious art director at D&D Advertising and became Alison's confidante after she received a promotion. Initially intended as a high-profile guest, Locklear was retained on the series on a permanent basis but kept her "Special Guest Star" billing throughout the show's entire run. Amanda soon vied with Alison for Billy's affections and became a vice-president for D&D Advertising, and had affairs with several male residents. Amanda's malevolence, catty one-liners, and sexy "power dressing" wardrobe helped to make Melrose a guilty pleasure for many millions of viewers around the world. The show became less of an episodic series, and more of a soap opera with ongoing, interwoven stories, beginning with Michael Mancini's love affair with the lonesome co-worker Kimberly Shaw (Marcia Cross) and Alison's affair with a married man who eventually stalks her. The first season came to a close with Alison and Billy coming together as a couple, Michael and Jane splitting up when Jane finally discovered his infidelity with Kimberly, and the discovery that Amanda has purchased the apartment complex.
Season Two (1993-94)
As the second season started to simmer, Michael divorced Jane and got engaged to Kimberly, and then had a fling with Jane's immature and irresponsible younger sister Sydney (Laura Leighton). Sydney was presented as somewhat a chaotic schemer, often outwitted and double-crossed by others, forcing her into ill-advised jobs such as a stripper and later, a prostitute. While working at Shooters as a waitress, Sydney was introduced by a co-worker to Lauren Ethridge, a notorious Hollywood madam, who recruited Sydney into her call-girl ring. Uncomfortable with the work, Sydney quit, but soon got arrested for solicitation. Michael bailed her out of jail and used this damaging information to blackmail Sydney to break up Jane and her latest love intrest, her divorce lawyer Robert.
The storylines began to heat up when a drunken Michael crashed his car, sending him and Kimberly tumbling down a ravine. Kimberly's angry, grieving mother sent word that her critically injured daughter had died in a medical facility in Ohio. Michael eluded potential manslaughter charges when Matt faked Michael's blood alcohol test results at the hospital -- and Sydney used this information to blackmail Michael into marrying her, despite her sister Jane's protests, leading to a catfight in the Melrose Place pool as Jane discovers Sydney stealing the family wedding dress. Sydney's plans for blackmailing Michael are foiled when Kimberly later re-appears, alive and well, revealing that her mother had lied to keep Michael away. Kimberly returned as a more ruthless, unstable individual, with her sanity negatively affected by brain surgery and her accident. She reclaims Michael as her own, and ultimately reveals her desire to take vengeance on him by killing him, and she enlists Sydney's aid. In one of the series' most famous moments, Kimberly removes her wig in front of a mirror to present a gruesome scar left from the drunken car accident.
Later in the series, after being rejected by Michael after Kimberly's return, Sydney took over Lauren Ethridge's call-girl ring when Lauren was in jail facing criminal charges. But when Lauren was released, she ousted Sydney and demanded all of the profits from her escort service while she was incarcerated. Sydney was forced to take a job as a stripper to get the money, and later as a street prostitute to pay off Lauren. Here, Sydney got attacked and beaten up on the street by some low-life streetwalkers and ended up in the hospital where the scheming and manipulative Kimberly recruited her in part of her scheme to kill Michael whom she blamed for the car accident that left her physically and emotionally disfigured.
Early in the season, Matt lost his job when the halfway house he worked in closed dow. Michael then gave Matt an office job at Wiltshire Hospital working as a social services worker. There, Matt met and befriended a Russian immigrant doctor named Katya Petrova. Katya showed a romantic interest in Matt at first, but Matt didn't recriprocate Katyas feelings. Matt told Katya that he was gay and the two became close friends after this. When Katya was in danger of being deported Matt offered to marry her, but only after rejecting Katyas initial proposal. If Matt married Katya she and her five-year-old daughter could remain in America. Katya seen better opportunity for her daughter in America over Russia. Matt agreed to the deal, but found that his "marriage" to a woman hindered his social cruising life. When Katya traveled back to Russia to visit her family, she decided to stay and had her daughter send back with her, thus freeing Matt from their arrangement. Matt became close with Katyas daughter throughout his marriage. Later in the season, Matt became romantically involved with Jeffrey Teller, a U.S. Navy officer whom was closeted, and whose choice to remain private did not suit well with Matt whom was out and proud of his homosexuality. Matt persuaded Jeffrey to "come out" about his sexual orientation, and soon regretted it when Jeffrey was dismissed from the service and left town shortly thereafter because of it.
Jake purchased a struggling motorcycle repair shop, which soon burned down in a fire that was accidentally started by Amanda. Jake never found out that Amanda was indirectly responsible for the fire, but the end result had him ending his romance with Jo. Jake then become involved with Amanda, whom had purchased the Melrose Apartment building, and she then gave him a job at her father's auto making factory. But Jake soon discovered that Amanda's father, Palmer, was involved in a scam of selling illegally reproduced cars as originals and was forced by the FBI to help in their arrest of Palmer.
Jo became romantically involved with supposedly innocent ex-con and former high school flame Reed Carter, who works on boats where he secretly smuggles drugs. Jo's discovery of his stash lead Reed to kidnap her on the boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Jo killed Reed in self-defense, but learns later that she is pregnant with his child.
As for Alison and Billy, their romance through the season had various ups and downs. Alison met and had a relationship with Steve McMillian, an eccentric entrepreneur whom became a new client at D&D Advertising. Alison tried to set up Jo with Steve to keep her interest in Steve suppressed, but found it hard to keep her romantic feelings for him to herself. Eventually, Steve left town for a job in Europe, in which Alison and Billy reconciled. Billy by then had taken a job at a top-line magazine company which had him trying to get ahead in the company any way he could.
Late in the season, while dealing with her difficult romance with Jake and struggling to run D&D Advertising under her aggressive and mean-spirited attitude, Amanda had an uncomfortable reunion with her long-estranged mother Hilary Michaels (Linda Gray) whom was the CEO of a top-line modeling agency called Models Incorporated, (which would leads into the spin-off series Models Inc.). Jo became acquainted with one of the models from Hilarys company, named Sarah Owens, whom she helped get out of an abusive relationship. Hilary asked Amanda to employ her charming (but very scheming and sociopath) fiancι Chas at D&D, whom made sexual advances against Amanda which resulted in her firing him, and it led to the devious Chas filing a lawsuit against Amanda and her company by typically playing the poor-innocent victim and making it look like that Amanda had taken advantage of him. But Hilary finally learned the truth about Chas' intentions and had her lawsuit against Amanda dropped, but Amanda refused to forgive her own mother for it and Hilary then departed from the series to settle on her own.
Late in the season, Alison and Billy got engaged and planed a wedding set in the building's courtyard, but Alison flees through a window shortly before the ceremony after she realizes that her recent nightmares are flashbacks to childhood sexual abuse perpetrated by her father, who threatened her on her wedding day. Alison ended up running away from the wedding, and Billy, and ended up living with her older sister, Meredith, in San Francisco whom was also a victim of sexual abuse by their father. The season wraps up with the psychotic Kimberly, wearing a short blonde wig, running Michael down with Jane's car, and ends with Jane getting arrested for the crime.
Season Three (1994-95)
As the high-octane third season gets underway, Jane first, and then Sydney, are blamed for Michael's hit and run accident, which has left him with amnesia and Kimberly, the real culprit, completely getting away with the crime. Though Michael eventually regains his memory and realizes Kimberly was his attempted killer, the pair reconcile and soon marry in an impulsive Las Vegas wedding.
The pregnant Jo gets embroiled in a custody battle with Reed's parents, who want to take their grandchild away from the woman who "murdered" their son. Kimberly appears to help Jo conspire to fake the baby's death so that Jo can escape and live in anonymity with her child; but, having recently learned that she is unable to bear children of her own, Kimberly actually steals the baby from Jo and starts to raise him herself. Once Jo reports them to Wilshire Hospital's chief of staff, the ruthless and conniving Dr. Peter Burns (Jack Wagner), Michael relents and returns the child. Enraged, Kimberly informs the Carters (Reed's parents) that Jo's baby is alive, and the Carters hire a nanny to steal the baby from Jo. After tracking them down and getting shot in the back for her troubles, Jo ultimately decides to give her son up for adoption.
Matt continued working at social services at the hospital. He briefly got back together with his former lover, Jeffrey Teller, who reveals to him that he was discharge from the U.S. Navy when he discovered that he was HIV-positive. Matt soon become uncomfortable with Jeffrey wanting to live the rest of life as fully as he could, and they broke up midway through the season. Later in the season, Matt became involved with a doctor, Paul, the new plastic surgeon at the hospital who is in the closet... and still married to a woman. But in the shocking season final, Paul ends up murdering his wife and meticulously set Matt up as the perpetrator.
In this season, Sydney transformed from being a seductive and crafty vixen into a victim to which one bad incident after another happened. She never was able to exonerate herself for the attempt on Michael's life at the end of Season 2, and everyone treats her with hostility and suspicion for the duration of the series. After being sent first to prison, and then to a mental hospital by Jane, who believed that Sydney was insane, she got released by Jane in a work release program under her. But Sydney ended up gaining the unwanted attention of Chris Marchette, an Australian businessman associated with Jane, and who was a closet gigolo and psychopath who made sexual passes at Sydney, and always denied any of his wrongdoing to Jane and everyone else. (Skepticism, betrayal, greed and mistrust became the recurring theme for the series from this point forward). Chris eventually embezzled most of Jane's business money and skipped town.
Sydney returned to work as a waitress at Shooters, where she grew closer to Jake. But Jake later broke up with Sydney when Chris forced her into sexual favors when he threatened to murder him, as well as Jane. Sydney's bad luck continued when she advertised for a roommate to help pay her rent, and a charming young woman named Rikki moved in. Rikki turned out to be another typical, conniving psychopath who hooked Sydney up with a religious cult led by a shady guru, named Martin Abbott. Eventually, Sydney was rescued rescued by Jane and Jake. Frustrated at this turn of events, and with everyone still treating her with distrust, Sydney finally gave up trying to be a good person and reverted back to her wicked, devious and crafty self and started by sabotaging a romance between Jake and Jane before it began. Shortly afterward, Sydney got back at both Michael and Kimberly by extorting money from them over their marital difficulties and used it to take control of Jane's design business. Jane, eventually learning that the only way to combat evil and win is to become evil herself, successfully ousted Sydney in a crafty scam of her own.
Jake bought the late Reed Carter's boat, only to have it destroyed when Amanda's fugitive father, Palmer, returned plotting to murder him for losing his business, and hiring a contract killer named Brittany to do the deed. But predictably, the greedy Brittany doubled crossed Palmer by stealing his ill-gotten money for herself, and then murdered Palmer and attempted to murder Jake by destroying his boat with explosives. Jake was rescued at sea, and for helping the FBI to track down Brittany, received a $50,000 reward which he used his windfall to purchase the bar Shooters.
Late in the season, Jake reconciles with Jo shortly before reuniting with his half-brother, Jess, when their mother died in his Washington state hometown. Jess followed Jake back to Los Angeles, and immediately set out to infiltrate Jake's life, first by getting involved with Jo and setting Jake up to get shot in an armed robbery at Shooters. Jo did not believe Jake's claims that Jess tried to have him killed in order to claim his whole life for himself, until Jess got violent with her. When Jake discovered Jo beaten up, he set off to avenge her, and he and Jess tumbled off the top of a construction site in their brawl during the season finale cliffhanger.
After ending her relationship with Billy (who was both unable and unwilling to understand Alison's mental problems), Alison descended into alcoholism and ended up in a rehab center to recuperate. She became involved with an NFL football player, only to not have it last. Billy remained irate at Alison for the duration of the season, and took another job as the copywriter at D&D, thanks to Amanda's ploy. Amanda got involved with Wilshire Memorial chief of staff Peter Burns, who secretly conspired to take her down as President of D&D so his old girlfriend, Caitlin, could take her place. He even went as far as to attempt to kill Amanda on the operating table in a fake appendicitis attack until Michael came to her rescue and Peter got arrested.
Amanda later discovered that she was suffering from lymphoma, causing her to lose her job as president of D&D, with Alison serving as her eager replacement. But Alison, unable to cope with this sudden change of career move, couldn't cope with the workload and became a villain herself when she developed the same aggressive, take-no-prisoners attitude which she resented in Amanda. Michael began to fall for Amanda while serving as her doctor and they had a brief affair--enraging the increasingly unstable Kimberly. Amanda rejected Michael's advances once her health was restored, and she puts her energies back into reclaiming her status at D&D, teaming up with upstart and conniving intern Brooke Armstrong (Kristin Davis) to overthrow the overwhelmed Alison as president. Brooke got involved with Billy and got Alison out of the way in a ruse that sent her off to a job in Hong Kong, while Brooke, after helping Amanda oust Alison from D&D (not surprisingly), began plotting to oust Amanda too so Brooke could take over D&D all for herself. Brooke marries Billy in the season finale, despite Alison's interrupting the ceremony to beg Billy for another chance.
Kimberly, after being served with divorce papers, plotted revenge against Michael once again first by setting him up for assaulting her. Michael is bailed out of prison by Peter Burns, (having served a short jail sentence for the attempt on Amanda's life) who needed Michael's and Kimberly's help in testifying to the medical board in the Amanda debacle in order for him to keep his medical license. Peter seduced Kimberly into a romance to get her to take his side. Once the medical board lets Peter go, his real motives become apparent to Kimberly, finally pushing her over the edge and, pushed by demonic visions in her mind, plants four fire bombs in the apartment complex in a thrilling third-season cliffhanger to destroy the whole apartment building and everyone in it. Note: due to the Oklahoma City bombing that occurred April 1995, one month before the May cliffhanger, the actual bombing did not take place onscreen until the beginning of season four.
Season Four (1995-96)
Picking up where Season Three left off, Kimberly sets off a horrendous and spectacular series of explosions that destroy half the Melrose apartment complex. Jane's potential new boss is killed and Alison temporarily loses her eyesight. Jess died in the fall at the construction site, leaving Jake plagued with guilt. Matt is exonerated in Paul's wife's murder when Paul confesses to the crimes before dying after being shot by the police. Matt later enrolls in medical school, turns to drugs to cope with his course load, and quickly becomes an addict.
Kimberly is declared insane by the courts for the bombing and locked away in a lunatic asylum. Peter takes special care for her, revealing to Sydney that his concern stems from memories of his now-deceased sister who suffered similar mental problems. Kimberly reveals that she is being coaxed into violent and murderous actions by visions of a man named Henry, and Kimberly's mother admits that Henry was once their family's gardener whom Kimberly, then a child, stabbed to death when she walked in on him raping her mother. Kimberly is released into Peter's protective custody, but becomes lonely when he starts devoting his time to rekindling his romance with Amanda.
Alison eventually gets involved with and marries Brooke's father Hayley (Perry King), and Brooke and Hayley interfere with each other's marriages. Hayley eventually discovers he is financially ruined and, during a trip with Alison, he drowns after falling from his yacht while drunk. Brooke and Billy's marriage is rocky from the start due to her jealousy over Alison, and Billy threatens to leave her when he discovers she lied about a pregnancy and miscarriage. They reconcile when Brooke attempts suicide, but Billy leaves again, for good, when he cannot put up with Brooke's behavior any longer. Brooke eventually drowns in the Melrose Place pool, and Billy is haunted by her death and tries to keep her "memory" alive by emulating her personality in his work life, becoming ruthless and vindictive.
Amanda reveals she faked her own death years ago in Miami to escape her violent husband Jack Parezi, a businessman with Mafia connections, who now tracks her down in L.A. and dies in an accident after trying to reclaim Amanda as his. Shortly after, Amanda is reunited with her long-lost first love, Jack's brother Bobby, and dumps Peter for him. Peter soon gets involved with Alycia Barnett, who had been Matt's lawyer in the Paul situation, and the two also conspired to ruin Bobby so that Alycia could take control of Bobby's TV cable company empire and, secretly, so Peter could win Amanda back. Bobby discovers the duplicity and, when attacking Alycia at Peter's office, she accidentally knocks him out of the high-rise window to his death. Peter is arrested for the crime, and Alycia is killed in a car accident while trying to leave town.
Kimberly and Michael reconcile and remarry, but her sanity begins to break down once again and she develops multiple personality disorder, often reverting to the persona of a '50s-era housewife named Betsy, who had a tendency to become violently angry. While driving with Peter to the police station to give her statement as his alibi for the night Bobby died, Kimberly slips back into Betsy mode and kidnaps Peter and takes him to a mental institution, where she locks him up in an act of revenge for previously declaring her insane.
After breaking up with Jake, Jo gets involved with Richard Hart, creating a rift between her and Jane. Jane pretends to seduce Michael to make Richard jealous, infuriating Sydney, who tries to sabotage Jane by spiking her drink with prescription pills, accidentally causing her to suffer a stroke, leaving Jane paralyzed on one side. Jake becomes an ally during this time, and he and Jane start a relationship as Jane recovers. But on a business trip to New York, Richard rapes Jane, and in her anger she unexpectedly breaks up with Jake and sets out to get revenge on Richard.
Jo begins a relationship with one of Matt's medical school professors, Dominick O'Malley, and must decide if she will move to Bosnia with him. And, as the season wraps up, Amanda and Michael set out to rescue Peter from "Betsy" at the mental institution; Kimberly snaps back to reality before tumbling off a scaffolding and falling into a coma, leaving Peter once again without an alibi. Billy decides to get back together with Alison and seeks Jake's help to reunite them, but Jake and Alison develop feelings for each other instead and begin a relationship of their own.
In the season's final episode, Jane discovers that Sydney was responsible for her stroke and blackmails her into helping her murder Richard. Sydney seemingly kills Richard with a shovel and the two sisters bury his body in a field. The last scene reveals that Richard is really alive as his hand shoots out of the ground as the two sisters speed away in their car.
Season Five (1996-97)
The Fifth Season seemed to have been the point where the series hit its peak. A detective reveals to Amanda, now married to Peter, that Peter isn't really who he claims to be. Jane and Sydney try to fight back worry of the truth being revealed of what happened to Richard. Richard rises from the grave and begins to harass Sydney and Jane, without letting them know that he's still alive. Jake and Allison begin a secret love-affair behind Billy's back. Kimberly can't remember her dinner with Peter, and his trial is only a few days away. Taylor McBride learns of Peter's visit to jail and comes to Melrose in search of answers where she rents Jo's apartment along with her husband Kyle McBride. Taylor appears to have a secret and it clashes with Amanda early on...
Richard continues to stalk Jane and Sydney while Samantha, Jane's new roommate, begins to suspect something is wrong. Richard is eventually killed by a police officer after trying to shoot Jane and Sydney at a convenience store. The police let Jane and Sydney leave with the money Richard stole from Jane. Kimberly begins to remember the dinner and the waiter is found who waited on her and Peter. Peter is released as Taylor begins to grow closer to him. Peter begins to drink heavily and spend time at Kyle's restaurant, Kyle's. Allison rejects Billy's proposal as Jake and Allison get closer. Billy eventually hates both of them. Jane learns of Jake and Allison relationship and begins to act out her heartache by throwing a brick through Jake and Allison's bedroom window, slashing Allison's tires, and then getting a restraining order against Jake. Taylor reveals to Peter that she is the sister of his deceased wife, Beth. Amanda begins to lose hold of Peter.
Megan Lewis meets Michael on the beach quickly begins to have an affair with him. Michael resists at first but eventually agrees with it as Kimberly can't have sex due to orders from her psychiatrist. Michael soon discovers that Megan is a prostitute and demands her to let him be the only man in her life. Amanda meets a new co-worker at work, Craig whose father is Amanda's boss. He learns he has control of the company from his mother's will and begins to make things rough for Amanda. Eventually, Craig's father dies of a heart attack after Amanda learns that his father was involved in the murder of Craig's grandfather.
Michael finds Megan and Kimberly talking with each other and we learn that Megan and Kimberly were working together the whole time. Kimberly had hired Megan to sleep with Michael. Michael makes Megan give up being a prostitute and assures her that he will pay for her living expenses. Kimberly learns she has a terminal brain tumor and she only has 3 months left to live.
Jane learns she was adopted after trying to find herself after everything that happened between her and Jake and Allison. Soon Jane meets her mother, played by Donna Mills. After being robbed, Jane leaves her business and apartment to Sydney and then leaves Melrose Place. Jane exits the series in Episode 15, "Escape From L.A."
Allison learns she's pregnant with Jake's baby, which leads to trouble in her life. Allison isn't even sure if she wants a baby and after a brief stint of returning to D & D, Jake and Allison hit a rough patch and Allison soon miscarries and learns that she can't ever have a baby. Despite this Allison and Jake get married.
Taylor and Kyle continue to have trouble in their marriage after coming to Melrose. Kyle ends up having a one-night stand with Sydney. Sydney, still running Jane's company, has a relationship with a millionaire which ends after he learns of her love for Kyle. A con artist fakes an accident at Sydney's store, leaving her trying to prove the truth. After the trial, Sydney is left with nothing and becomes a con artist herself.
Michael and Kimberly divorce as she pushes him and Megan together. She tells Megan she is planning on killing herself, which leads to a car accident hurting both Kimberly and Michael. Michael survives after having a dream of Megan pulling him to heaven and Kimberly pulling him into hell. Michael promises Kimberly he will spend his final days with her and he eventually ends up having sex with her.
Billy and Samantha form a relationship after Samantha has a short relationship with Craig. She and Billy eventually move in together and seem to be on the right track towards marriage until Samantha's convict father shows up, who has escaped from prison.
Jake begins to spend more time with his son and ex-girlfriend after her husband left them. Allison sees that what Jake really needs is a family, something that she is unable to provide. Allison fakes returning to alcohol so Jake could leave her. Jake is reunited with his son, and Allison leaves Melrose Place alone, heading for Atlanta.
Peter eventually ends up sleeping with Taylor and they start having an affair. Kyle and Amanda learn of the affair and they both file for divorce. Peter begins to make Taylor look and act like his dead wife. Taylor starts to get upset and doesn't think she can take it anymore.
Samantha's father demands money from Billy and Sam and goes out on the run. The police tap Sam and Billy's phone to learn what happened to her father.
Michael and Megan get married, making this his fourth marriage of the series.
Michael and Taylor drug Peter to convince him he has rage epilepsy. Michael cheats Peter out of Chief of Staff position by tricking Peter into signing a contract. Peter soon learns the truth and throws Michael through a window, cutting up Michael's surgeon hands, and then he attempts to push Taylor off a lighthouse until she reveals to him that she's pregnant.
Sydney's job as a con-artist heats up when she plots to take down Amanda. Sydney falls down the spiral staircase and fakes injuries during a party at D&D. Craig fakes concern for Sydney to save D&D from a lawsuit, but a real relationship soon develops.
Kimberly's brain tumor goes into remission and attempts a plot to break up Michael and Megan, but soon dies of an aneurysm in her mother's arms. Amanda loses her grip on D&D after Craig and Sydney launch a new ad business. Craig proposes to Sydney and she accepts. Michael's sister, Jennifer, shows up and begins to cause trouble. Matt finally gains custody of his niece. Sydney and Craig are married, while Kyle leaves the wedding to find Amanda who is planning on moving to New York to start over. Amanda and Kyle get together and begin to make love. Samantha is taken hostage by her father and end up in a high speed chase with the police.
Meanwhile, Craig and Sydney's wedding ends out in front of a church, while Samantha and her father have a car accident from the police chase. They crash through a nearby bus stop and run over Sydney, leaving Craig crying over Sydney's bloody body.
Season Six (1997-98)
After Sydney's death, Craig blames Samantha and holds her responsible, but later apologizes to her. After Michael's recommendation, Matt gets offered a new job working for an AIDS clinic and moves to San Francisco. Prior to leaving, he remarks that he wanted to say goodbye to everyone but "there's no one left."
New characters are introduced to revive the series, including the violent Dr. Brett Cooper (Linden Ashby) and his seductive, spoilt ex-wife, Lexi Sterling (Jamie Luner). The focal point of the season is the troubled relationship between Kyle and Amanda, who returns to her nasty ways after creating her own advertising agency, Amanda Woodward Advertising. Craig attacks Jennifer who is aided by Billy in a fight for her life after Billy successfully destroys Craig's new advertising company, but Craig escapes, steals Jennifer's car, and commits suicide, unable to live with the grief of losing Sydney months earlier.
Early on in the season Billy and Samantha are engaged, and he asks Craig to be his best man. As with all of Billy's weddings in the series it is not smooth sailing and the pair have a falling out after Connie creates friction. Fortunately they patch things up and get married, but it is not long before he starts cheating on her with Jennifer. In spite of his affair he is committed to making his marriage work.
The characters of Sam, Taylor, and Coop depart from the series by the season final, with Taylor, who gives birth to Michael's child and agrees to share mothering duties with the returning Jane. But Taylor reconsiders and goes back to Boston, keeping the baby for herself.
After Coop's failed murder attempt on Lexi's life, diverted with Megan's aid, he leaves to take up a job offer with a man who previously tried to con Megan into sex, knowing of her past as a prostitute. The show is renewed for a seventh season, which would also be its last.
Season Seven (1998-99)
New characters were hurriedly drafted into the series for its final season, including Kyle's younger brother Ryan McBride (John Haymes Newton), who is revealed to have a young daughter living at a convent in New York following the death of her mother. Also new is Eve Cleary (Rena Sofer), an old school friend of Amanda's. Both characters had difficulty gaining a following during this period of cast instability. Overall, the series seemed unable to handle the high number of cast changes in such a short time, and its popularity never recovered. Amanda and Michael remained leading characters through to the end of the series.
As the seventh and final season began, the residents learned that Matt, who had moved away a year earlier for career advancement provided by Michael, died in a car accident on his way to a reunion dinner at Kyle's restaurant. The residents also learned that Matt had kept a journal of all the secrets they shared with him and each of them schemed to get their hands on it. This was the driving force behind the stories for this season. One of the most notable stories was that of the hidden relationship between Amanda and Eve Cleary Burns. They were high school cheerleaders together until an ugly encounter ended up in the death of Eve's boyfriend which resulted in Eve spending 15 years in prison. Kyle eventually learns about their secret past and grudgingly agrees to keep the truth from Peter, Eve's new husband.
Billy marries Sam although he is having an affair with Jennifer and the pair move in together despite her seeing Jeff. Samanntha and Jeff get together and attempt to break up Billy and Sam by pretending as if Alison sent a fax. Jennifer is heartbroken because she is worried that he still has feelings for her. Early in the season Jennifer and Billy reconcile after Jane convinces Michael to help them resolve their issues, and they move to Rome together.
Amanda and Kyle enjoy wedded bliss and even try to get pregnant, but things come crashing down when Peter gives Kyle the wrong test results that indicate he cannot father a baby. They reunite after Kyle goes through rehab. Amanda agrees to sell the building in order to pay for their dream home, but eventually their marriage comes to an end.
Josie Bissett returned to the series as Jane in 1998 in a move to halt the series' downward spiral, and story lines centered on the rekindling of her relationship with Michael. It is revealed she slept with a current client of Amanda's the day before her wedding to Michael, leading to his distrust of her now as they decide to marry again. They exchange wedding vows again, only to end up estranged and on the road to an ugly divorce within hours. The two reunited at Christmas, but it didn't last.
Megan and Ryan begin a relationship which led to them getting married in the season final. Lexi underwent a transformation from a rich, spoilt daddy's girl to a scheming super-bitch who succeeded in purchasing the Melrose Place building from Amanda and started a new agency, Sterling-Conway, which drove Amanda out of business. Eventually, the show paired the long-suffering Jane with Kyle (the actors were real-life spouses) and returned to the coupling of Amanda and Peter, in spite of the fact that Peter was still married to Eve. Lexi also became sexually involved with Michael, but they broke up by the season's end.
By early 1999, FOX decided that the ratings erosion as well as the extremely high production costs meant the show had to be cancelled. In the final episode, Amanda and Peter faced mounting scrutiny as he was investigated for stealing money from the hospital and she was faced with the revelation that Eve didn't kill her boyfriend 15 years ago, Amanda actually did. They decided to flee the country and fans were shocked when their hide-out exploded, killing them both. Eve, who had been showing signs of going crazy, finally cracked at their memorial service throwing Peter's ashes on Lexi. Eve then found herself back in jail. Michael became Wilshire Hospital's chief-of-staff. Kyle and Jane find out they are having a baby girl, and an anonymous envelope shows up with Amanda's locket inside. Amanda and Peter are then wed on a tropical beach, and rejoice in their success at faking their own deaths and paying Michael $1 million to cover it up. In the closing shot Amanda and Peter walk together on the beach to the song, "Closing Time."
Cast
Main Crew
Ratings
GALA Committee
A group of artists and Melrose Place producers formed the GALA Committee, headed by artist Mel Chin, in order to bring artworks out of galleries and into nighttime television. GALA artists designed artworks that were used as props by Melrose Place characters in the fourth and fifth seasons, often with hidden political messages:
- When Alison is pregnant, her quilt is decorated with the molecular structure of RU-486.
- A bag of Chinese take-out food is emblazoned with two opposing ideograms translated from Chinese as "Human Rights" and "Turmoil"; both terms were used by the Chinese government to justify a restriction on student protesters of June 4, 1989.
- Bottles behind the counter at Shooters bar are decorated with ads and documents chronicling the history of alcohol.
- As Alison quits D&D Advertising, a framed ad in the background features a bombed-out building. The damage to the structure is in the shape of a liquor bottle, and the words "Total Proof" appear on the poster.
Chin compared the works to viruses, symbiotic and invisible. The project was called "In the Name of the Place", as part of the "Uncommon Sense" art show at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, California in 1997. A portion of the Fifth Season was filmed at the Geffen Contemporary where the project was displayed. The artwork was also shown at the 1997 Kwangju Biennale in Kwangju, Korea and at Grand Arts in Kansas City, Missouri in 1998. Sotheby's Auction house auctioned almost fifty of these artworks for charity.
DVD releases
CBS Home Entertainment is releasing Melrose Place on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. To date they have released seasons 1-4. Season 5, Volume 1 was released on February 10, 2009.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Region 1 | Region 2 (Swedish Edition) | Region 2 (UK Edition) | Region 4 | Additional features |
|---|
| The First Season | 32 | November 7, 2006 | November 13, 2006 | November 13, 2006 | November 1, 2006 | Season 1 episode recaps, Mini Featurettes, Cast Interviews | | The Second Season | 31 | May 1, 2007 | April 1, 2007 | March 13, 2007 | May 3, 2007 | Audio Commentary by Series Creator Darren Star, Melrose Place: Meet The Neighbours, Melrose Place: Complex Relationships, Melrose Place: The Best of the Worst | | The Third Season | 32 | November 13, 2007 | December 2, 2007 | May 18, 2009 | April 9, 2008 | Melrose Place: According to Jake, Melrose Place: Seven Minutes In Hell, Everything You Need To Know About Melrose Place Season 3 | | The Fourth Season | 34 | April 15, 2008 | March 11, 2008 | TBA | April 2, 2009 | Cast Interviews, Season 5 Trailer (not in all versions) | | The Fifth Season (Volume One) | 19 | February 10, 2009 | October, 2009 | TBA | TBA | Season 5 Volume 2 Trailer (not in all versions) | |
Related shows
Beverly Hills, 90210
Melrose Place is a spin-off of the '90s teen drama Beverly Hills, 90210. The character of Jake Hanson was introduced in the second season of the former series, and became involved in a relationship with Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) with led to a string of cross-over appearances as she followed Jake to Los Angeles. Accompanying Kelly were Steve Sanders (Ian Zeiring), Donna Martin (Tori Spelling), and David Silver (Brian Austin Green). The story line was resolved within early episodes of Melrose Place, with Jake and Kelly going their separate ways.
Models Inc.
In early 1994, former Dallas star Linda Gray guest starred as Amanda's mother, Hillary Michaels. Hillary ran a modeling agency, and viewers were invited to follow Hillary to her own series, Models Inc., which lasted one season.
90210
90210 is the 2008 spin-off of Beverly Hills, 90210 which premiered on The CW on September 2, 2008. Like all shows within the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise, the series takes place within the same continuity as Melrose Place, although Rob Estes plays a different role.
Untitled Melrose Place Spinoff
- see Untitled Melrose Place Spinoff
External links
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