So what did you think of Amanda’s return this past Tuesday night on MELROSE PLACE?

See, what I think is the turn off for so many people who tune is, that the characters are so moral. Riley and Jonah are TOO nice especially for a 9pm show. Or are we just jaded here in the 21^st century in a way that we weren’t back in the 90s?

But even then – the first season, when it was just a mild drama about people living in an apartment complex didn’t so well. It wasn’t until Michael turned nasty, Amanda arrived and people like super crazy Kimberly Shaw showed up that the show really took off.

Notice I didn’t mention Billy or Alison in my list of memorable characters. Although I like the actors who played those roles, they were not characters that one tends to remember as part of this show. Still, you do need some ‘normal’ characters for the more eccentric to play off of.

With Amanda’s return there is a possibility of real mischief, which is, I think what people want to see. Highlights for me this season have been Jane calling the cops on crazy Violet (good move, but what happened to her? She just vanished!) and Ella and David getting the goods on Jane (score and win). These are the types of back stabbing moments that makes the show great.

Oh yes and Auggie shirtless. He doesn’t have to do much. He can suddenly come in to a lot of money and just lounge around the pool. In fact, I’d say, simply keep a perpetual box in the lower left hand corner of the screen of him tanning all the time. Like on the old Sunday morning shows where they’d have a sign language interpreter in a separate little box on the screen, so too should Melrose Place have Auggie being shirtless all the time.

Speaking of Auggie, it’s one of the Law of Soaps that if everyone thinks he’s guilty, he’s not. And since Michael Mancini is a legacy character and I doubt that he’s going anywhere soon, I’d say that it’s Violet who murdered Syd and is framing both Auggie and Michael.

Anyway, Amanda proved that she’s completely in control of Ella’s every move (“you’re not entirely useless”) by testing her to see what she’s made of. I’m dearly hoping that they don’t make Amanda Ella’s mom. They dropped a big anvil when talking about Ella’s adoptive parents (adoption on soaps is like a gun, it’s not mentioned unless it’s going to go off) but I’m hoping this is misdirection. Speaking of Ella, her “I want to be you” made me wonder if that was Ella talking or Kassidy. It certainly sounded like something an actress would say but I felt that it was a line beneath both.

Low point in the show: Jonah’s bow tie. What, now he’s Jimmy Olsen?

It was super sweet the way David wooed HookerLauren but I couldn’t help thinking that when she said that he had a different definition of the word “delivery”, that her definition has been delivering herself in 30 minutes or less for the past few months – so yeah, David probably does have a different definition!

And now for the snark – what was up with those Lisa Rinna lips on Heather? And her forehead didn’t move the entire show… and anything that makes one’s eyes look like Joan Rivers cannot be a good thing. I’m just saying.

On the other hand, although we lost the hot super butch gay guy, we did add a super bitch – and I think we made out like a bandit on the deal. Let’s just hope it’s enough to save the show!!

(Photo above from the next episode – on December 1st! Amanda and Michael, together again!)