There’s a killer on the loose in Melrose Place! Beware! The ’90s hit soap is back, this time on the CW, which seems to be mining the previous decade for new programming (or is it reprogramming?). While I wait for some exec at the CW to remake Fox’s series, Wolf, I’m stuck with the new Melrose Place, an update of the sex and sleaze-filled show that gave us Josie Bissett, Courtney Thorne Smith and that dude who’s Elizabeth Shue’s brother.  A new group of twentysomethings have moved into the place, but there’s still the same intrigue and drama we’ve come to expect. As is custom in fantasyland, every neighbor knows one another and they form a tight knot family, for now. Soon enough I’m sure the characters will be swapping beds and blackmailing one another. We can only hope.

You know, I was once twenty and living in the Los Angeles area and I wonder where these apartment complexes exist that twentysomethings get along so wonderfully that they meet up in the courtyard when someone dies or someone gets engaged. Then again, I lived on Moorpark Place, so maybe the vibe is different in Hollywood than in the Valley. Still, this is the land of make believe, so the fantasy of a group of people becoming family in a Melrose apartment complex is passed off as reality.

The new version of Melrose Place, which the CW airs on Tuesday nights (and online at their infinitely confusing website), is just as sleazy, corny and full of sex as the original. I watched the pilot thinking I’d be getting a healthy does of mindless, guilty entertainment — and, for the most part, I got what I expected. (more…)