Initial Impressions of the MELROSE PLACE Premiere
The CW is awfully fond of rebooting television shows of the past. Last year they resurrected Beverly Hills, 90210, calling it simply 90210. I quit the show after a few episodes (I had reached my quota of trashy teen-targeted television shows for the season), but my husband hung on. He was a die hard Beverly Hills 90210 fan in the 1990s and he didn’t want the dream to die.
As a die hard fan of the original Melrose Place I had similar motivations for putting the new version in my DVR queue. Deep down I knew this show was going to suck, but I was drawn to it like a stupid moth to a stupider flame.
Did the first episode suck? Well, I suppose that depends on what you were expecting. I was expecting a beautiful young cast (check!), soapy storylines (check!), clunky dialogue (check!), cameos from Laura Leighton and Thomas Calabro (check! check!) and girl on girl action in a convertible (wait, what?). Yes, the show did exactly what I expected it to do. But, there were a few moments that had me screaming at my TV (I was pleased to see that Defamer also had a post devoted to Melrose Place‘s implausible plotting):
1. Lauren
I found Lauren’s (Stephanie Jacobsen) storyline to be very confusing. First, people address her as “doctor” but she is still in medical school. I asked a doctor friend of mine about this and she assured me that had she been addressed as “doctor” while still a medical student, she would have corrected the mistake. Next, I found it odd that Lauren’s suitor kept attributing his mother’s speedy recovery to Lauren and her wonderful doctoring skills. As my doctor friend informed me, while medical students do have their own patients “they are also the patients of your attending and resident. You never make your own decisions or write your own orders.” So either the show’s writers have no understanding of how the medical profession works or they want us to believe that Lauren is an egomaniac who takes all the credit for the recovery of a shared patient and allows herself to be addressed as “Dr. Yung” when she is not yet a doctor. This is a lot like when Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestly) had all that pull as student government president at California University or when Gossip Girl‘s Dan Humphries (Penn Badgley) got his short story published in The New Yorker (The New Yorker for crying out loud!), that is, it’s the common TV trope of giving the show’s young protagonists way more power and pull than they would have in the real world.
2. Jonah
a. The 5 year anniversary video Jonah (Micheal Rady, of the short-lived Swingers) made for Riley (Jessica Lucas) was a sweet idea. But who filmed all that footage of Jonah and Riley kissing in a swimming pool, having pillow fights, and romping on the beach? The camera was clearly not on a tripod since it often moved to follow the couple’s actions. So do Jonah and Riley normally bring a camera man into the bedroom while they engage in clichéd cute couple behavior? Because she seemed awfully surprised to see that video.
b. So let me get this straight Jonah: you are a struggling filmmaker living in Los Angeles and an A list director offers you $100,000 to write a script based on your “award winning” student film. But you reject that offer because you know that said director is just trying to ensure that you don’t put the footage of him making out with his daughter’s BFF on the internets? Jonah, is that because you are a true “artist”? Because, as Ella (Katie Cassidy) gushes, you have a “point of view”? Ella, did you see Jonah’s anniversary video? Jonah, you are a douchebag.
3. David
For the first 5 minutes of David’s (Shaun Sipos) conversation with his father, Michael (Thomas Calabro), I was thinking that he was the son of Michael’s ex-wife, Jane (Josie Bissett). Yes, that would mean that David had an affair with his aunt Sidney (Laura Leighton). Then I realized he was probably Kimberly’s (Marcia Cross) son with Michael and felt MUCH better [note: since publishing this post the second Melrose Place episode has aired and it turns out David’s mother is neither Jane nor Kimberly. Michael Mancini was quite the man-whore!] . But this little misunderstanding proves that the writers need to do a better job of reminding us about the various plotlines of the old Melrose Place if they are going to reference them in the new Melrose Place.
4. Ella
I have seen Amanda Woodward (Heather Locklear) and you, madame, are no Amanda Woodward.
Will you watch Melrose Place again? I will, but only to watch Ashlee Simpson-Wentz butcher her lines.
judgmental observer 
November 20, 2009 at 5:36 pm
it`s great, i`d love it