![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Featuring
Amanda, according to Tv Tropes, is the "real main character". I wouldn't go that far, this is an ensemble show, there is no central main character. Much of the first season cast is gone by the time you hit Season Six and Alison,the person who seemed the most like she might be the main character, is pretty much gone by the end. But Amanda's definitely a stealthily sympathetic protagonist.
The press in the 90s was like "Ooh Amanda the man eating scheming femme fatale! What naughty things will she do NEXT?"
The actual show was more like "Amanda, the lonely, emotionally guarded woman with one desire, to be a successful business person. This has required her to fight her way to the top against glass ceilings and sexist old men without compromising too much of her integrity (which she has more of than anyone gives her credit for). Amanda, who can't relate to most other women because she's spent so much time playing the boy game that she doesn't know how to play the girl game and because other women regard her as an instant threat. Who isn't possessive and doesn't understand why everyone else is. Amanda, who has been through more pain than she'd ever let on. Amanda, who does her job right the first time and expects other people to hold themselves to the same high standards she does. Amanda, who is surprisingly generous but always ends up regretting it." Almost none of the schemes she ended up embroiled in just randomly happened, most of the time she was, or felt, threatened first.
If I had to write a headline summarizing Amanda's character arc it'd be
City's top ad exec's life destroyed by incompetent employees, mentally unstable tenants.
Or, alternately, Amanda Woodward: Team Mom to Bunch of Ungrateful Brats.
I mean, seriously, the interaction between Amanda and Alison has repeated undertones of a stilted, unhappy mother -daughter relationship. Whenever Amanda has to reprimand Alison, or ask her to do something she doesn't want to do (simply because it's Amanda asking, I think) you can almost hear the "okay, whatever MOM" in Alison's voice. Yeah, there's a tiny bit of professional rivalry at times, and sometimes romantic rivalry too, but at heart Amanda just frigging wants Alison to show up for work and do her job and act like an adult. I don't even think that's subtext, I think she actually tells her that outright.
The Alison Goes to Rehab arc made this particularly clear when Amanda came to see her at the rehab center. This is usually a role for the parents. Neither of their mothers were there for them as children. Amanda's mother walked out on the family, while Alison's mother stood by silently and let her father molest her. Most of the characters have either A) parents who failed them or B) parents who live thousands of miles away. Amanda is basically the only "adultier adult" around sometimes.
Tv Tropes says that ratings were "tepid". And yes, the first half of the first season was pretty dull in comparison to the rest of the series, and it was definitely starting to show a bit of fatigue toward the end. However, the first season got a 32 episode order, which is amazing for a freshman season that's getting "tepid" ratings. The average US tv show season lasts about 22 episodes. Shows that the networks thinks are risky usually get a 13 episode order for the first season. I'd assumed Season 7 would have a shortened number of episodes but no, it has more, there are 35. And people were talking about this show so.much. that I knew an awful lot about it, I knew the names of many of the main cast and lots of trivia about their lives, despite being too young to watch it for half its run. I guess they still weren't high enough to generate interest in the revival series.
Yes, at least to me it does begin to seem dated toward the end. For example, even in 1999, only a couple of these well paid, sophisticated urbanites in one of North America's most fashionable places are owners of cell phones and those cell phone owners are hardly ever seen using them. Meanwhile, Clueless is taking place only a scant few miles away and all the characters are voracious cell phone users. Not like today, but there was a plot on the tv version in which the teen characters use of their cell phones during class was such a menace that the teachers tried to ban them. Maybe it's because Melrose Place didn't have any teenagers on it, the youngest regular character was a recent college graduate. They never changed the "random people on the street" shots in the opening credits to reflect that no self respecting young person was wearing mom jeans with a bodysuit by the end of the 90s
This show is so much funnier than anyone let on. It's a drama and boy is there a lot of drama but there is also some seriously amusing stuff, on purpose, mostly concentrated around the plots involving Sydney, Michael, Kimberly, Meghan and Peter and later Lexi. Like I mentioned before that I found Michael to be a jerk early on, but then instead of just writing him as an awful person and refusing to acknowledge it, they just TOOK THAT AND RAN WITH IT. They just went full bore, pedal to the metal over the top This Man Is So Horrible It Becomes Hilarious. OMG the whole Peter and Michael as a match made in Hell of constantly scheming frenemies who are bound up in such a convoluted situation of blackmail and backstabbing that just.keeps.getting.worse. You know the term "Heterosexual Life Partners"? Usually used in reference to men who are so close that they'd be a couple if one of them was a woman or if they were gay. Well, that's what they are, but more like a married couple who would dearly love to get divorced but can't and sometimes doesn't want to because even though they often have the urge to punch each other there's also stuff they need from each other. Basically, the relationship between Michael and Peter is exactly like their relationships with their various wives and girlfriends. For example, Michael is totally the Sydney to Peter's um...Michael. They deserve each other.
The saxophone and screeching guitar make everything seem more exciting and/or menacing. Which has the potential to be used to hilarious effect in other productions and I'm sure it has been.
Every time one of these characters goes on a boat trip, someone on board dies or at least someone on board tries to kill them. These people have the worst luck with boats.
Poor Matt Fielding. The show broke amazing ground just by having an openly gay main character in 1992, who wasn't being used as a ratings stunt or as a Very Special Episode About Tolerance or as a cautionary tale. He was just a normal, healthy, average dude who happened to also like having sex with men. He was the consistently best person on the show without turning into some sort of sainted martyr. But Standards and Practices at the time would not allow him to kiss another man on the lips or be seen in bed with one. He was clearly sexually active he went on dates and had live in boyfriends, the show was just not allowed to do anything that a casual viewer just flipping through channels would interpret as anything other than two very close friends.
So Matt's headline would be Sweet, kind, selfless, handsome, physically fit young gay man with a great white collar job leads sad, sexless existence despite living in the middle of West Hollywood..
Then he got killed offscreen in a car crash because the show ran out of things to do with him. This is all especially annoying because Melrose Place was a steamy adult soap opera, most of the focus was on "how much gratuitous sexual contact can we get away with?" it wasn't Law and Order or something, where focus on the character's home lives was rare and on their sex lives, even rarer.
The building is unsafe.There has been (up to this point, which is Season 6) one death on the property. They've had multiple break ins, domestic disturbances, and assaults taking place on the property (the residents are constantly getting drunk or flying into fits of rage and destroying their apartments), as well as at least two stalkers and a mad bomber(who blew up half the complex). Two of the tenants have served time in mental hospitals and one of them was a prostitute who allowed a violent cult member to live with her and get access to the other apartments. The cult member then broke into the apartments and stole valuable camera equipment. A rapist, an international drug trafficker and an escaped convict have all been allowed free access to the building. At least four of the people who've lived in the building at various points have been accused of murder. The woman who owns the place is the daughter of a felon and the ex wife of an extremely violent mobster. Despite the fact that the building has two security gates, people who shouldn't be there somehow keep getting in. In the pilot, Alison is accosted by a strange man on the street, lets him follow her through both security gates and into her apartment. We're lucky it was Billy, who, in addition to being the love of her life, is probably one of the most stable and sane and trustworthy characters. But when she let him in so easily, I immediately thought "well, some day that lack of security is going to come back and bite these people". And it did.
And as that lady from the adoption agency pointed out, the pool isn't properly fenced in.
Amanda, according to Tv Tropes, is the "real main character". I wouldn't go that far, this is an ensemble show, there is no central main character. Much of the first season cast is gone by the time you hit Season Six and Alison,the person who seemed the most like she might be the main character, is pretty much gone by the end. But Amanda's definitely a stealthily sympathetic protagonist.
The press in the 90s was like "Ooh Amanda the man eating scheming femme fatale! What naughty things will she do NEXT?"
The actual show was more like "Amanda, the lonely, emotionally guarded woman with one desire, to be a successful business person. This has required her to fight her way to the top against glass ceilings and sexist old men without compromising too much of her integrity (which she has more of than anyone gives her credit for). Amanda, who can't relate to most other women because she's spent so much time playing the boy game that she doesn't know how to play the girl game and because other women regard her as an instant threat. Who isn't possessive and doesn't understand why everyone else is. Amanda, who has been through more pain than she'd ever let on. Amanda, who does her job right the first time and expects other people to hold themselves to the same high standards she does. Amanda, who is surprisingly generous but always ends up regretting it." Almost none of the schemes she ended up embroiled in just randomly happened, most of the time she was, or felt, threatened first.
If I had to write a headline summarizing Amanda's character arc it'd be
City's top ad exec's life destroyed by incompetent employees, mentally unstable tenants.
Or, alternately, Amanda Woodward: Team Mom to Bunch of Ungrateful Brats.
I mean, seriously, the interaction between Amanda and Alison has repeated undertones of a stilted, unhappy mother -daughter relationship. Whenever Amanda has to reprimand Alison, or ask her to do something she doesn't want to do (simply because it's Amanda asking, I think) you can almost hear the "okay, whatever MOM" in Alison's voice. Yeah, there's a tiny bit of professional rivalry at times, and sometimes romantic rivalry too, but at heart Amanda just frigging wants Alison to show up for work and do her job and act like an adult. I don't even think that's subtext, I think she actually tells her that outright.
The Alison Goes to Rehab arc made this particularly clear when Amanda came to see her at the rehab center. This is usually a role for the parents. Neither of their mothers were there for them as children. Amanda's mother walked out on the family, while Alison's mother stood by silently and let her father molest her. Most of the characters have either A) parents who failed them or B) parents who live thousands of miles away. Amanda is basically the only "adultier adult" around sometimes.
Tv Tropes says that ratings were "tepid". And yes, the first half of the first season was pretty dull in comparison to the rest of the series, and it was definitely starting to show a bit of fatigue toward the end. However, the first season got a 32 episode order, which is amazing for a freshman season that's getting "tepid" ratings. The average US tv show season lasts about 22 episodes. Shows that the networks thinks are risky usually get a 13 episode order for the first season. I'd assumed Season 7 would have a shortened number of episodes but no, it has more, there are 35. And people were talking about this show so.much. that I knew an awful lot about it, I knew the names of many of the main cast and lots of trivia about their lives, despite being too young to watch it for half its run. I guess they still weren't high enough to generate interest in the revival series.
Yes, at least to me it does begin to seem dated toward the end. For example, even in 1999, only a couple of these well paid, sophisticated urbanites in one of North America's most fashionable places are owners of cell phones and those cell phone owners are hardly ever seen using them. Meanwhile, Clueless is taking place only a scant few miles away and all the characters are voracious cell phone users. Not like today, but there was a plot on the tv version in which the teen characters use of their cell phones during class was such a menace that the teachers tried to ban them. Maybe it's because Melrose Place didn't have any teenagers on it, the youngest regular character was a recent college graduate. They never changed the "random people on the street" shots in the opening credits to reflect that no self respecting young person was wearing mom jeans with a bodysuit by the end of the 90s
This show is so much funnier than anyone let on. It's a drama and boy is there a lot of drama but there is also some seriously amusing stuff, on purpose, mostly concentrated around the plots involving Sydney, Michael, Kimberly, Meghan and Peter and later Lexi. Like I mentioned before that I found Michael to be a jerk early on, but then instead of just writing him as an awful person and refusing to acknowledge it, they just TOOK THAT AND RAN WITH IT. They just went full bore, pedal to the metal over the top This Man Is So Horrible It Becomes Hilarious. OMG the whole Peter and Michael as a match made in Hell of constantly scheming frenemies who are bound up in such a convoluted situation of blackmail and backstabbing that just.keeps.getting.worse. You know the term "Heterosexual Life Partners"? Usually used in reference to men who are so close that they'd be a couple if one of them was a woman or if they were gay. Well, that's what they are, but more like a married couple who would dearly love to get divorced but can't and sometimes doesn't want to because even though they often have the urge to punch each other there's also stuff they need from each other. Basically, the relationship between Michael and Peter is exactly like their relationships with their various wives and girlfriends. For example, Michael is totally the Sydney to Peter's um...Michael. They deserve each other.
The saxophone and screeching guitar make everything seem more exciting and/or menacing. Which has the potential to be used to hilarious effect in other productions and I'm sure it has been.
Every time one of these characters goes on a boat trip, someone on board dies or at least someone on board tries to kill them. These people have the worst luck with boats.
Poor Matt Fielding. The show broke amazing ground just by having an openly gay main character in 1992, who wasn't being used as a ratings stunt or as a Very Special Episode About Tolerance or as a cautionary tale. He was just a normal, healthy, average dude who happened to also like having sex with men. He was the consistently best person on the show without turning into some sort of sainted martyr. But Standards and Practices at the time would not allow him to kiss another man on the lips or be seen in bed with one. He was clearly sexually active he went on dates and had live in boyfriends, the show was just not allowed to do anything that a casual viewer just flipping through channels would interpret as anything other than two very close friends.
So Matt's headline would be Sweet, kind, selfless, handsome, physically fit young gay man with a great white collar job leads sad, sexless existence despite living in the middle of West Hollywood..
Then he got killed offscreen in a car crash because the show ran out of things to do with him. This is all especially annoying because Melrose Place was a steamy adult soap opera, most of the focus was on "how much gratuitous sexual contact can we get away with?" it wasn't Law and Order or something, where focus on the character's home lives was rare and on their sex lives, even rarer.
The building is unsafe.There has been (up to this point, which is Season 6) one death on the property. They've had multiple break ins, domestic disturbances, and assaults taking place on the property (the residents are constantly getting drunk or flying into fits of rage and destroying their apartments), as well as at least two stalkers and a mad bomber(who blew up half the complex). Two of the tenants have served time in mental hospitals and one of them was a prostitute who allowed a violent cult member to live with her and get access to the other apartments. The cult member then broke into the apartments and stole valuable camera equipment. A rapist, an international drug trafficker and an escaped convict have all been allowed free access to the building. At least four of the people who've lived in the building at various points have been accused of murder. The woman who owns the place is the daughter of a felon and the ex wife of an extremely violent mobster. Despite the fact that the building has two security gates, people who shouldn't be there somehow keep getting in. In the pilot, Alison is accosted by a strange man on the street, lets him follow her through both security gates and into her apartment. We're lucky it was Billy, who, in addition to being the love of her life, is probably one of the most stable and sane and trustworthy characters. But when she let him in so easily, I immediately thought "well, some day that lack of security is going to come back and bite these people". And it did.
And as that lady from the adoption agency pointed out, the pool isn't properly fenced in.
no subject
Also this show is why I will always adore Marcia Cross.
no subject
(I was going to reply to these comments right away but my computer decided to download updates and I'm about to leave to go to the supermarket)
Marcia Cross was fantastic on MP. Kimberly seemed so normal and then she came back and took that show in her teeth and shook it.
no subject
(no problem at all!)
She really was. I still remember the shock of her taking the wig off. The rest, too.
I was always fond of Sydney as well.