Buzz Drainpipe’s “Melrose Apocalypse: A Love Letter from the Cursed Jacuzzi” Originally published in TV Trenchrot Monthly, October 2000

 

“It began with a pool. A communal baptismal font for the horny and deranged. And by the end? That pool was a haunted crater of broken wigs, bloody engagement rings, and at least three fake deaths. Welcome to the Melrose Apocalypse.”

ACT I: THE TIGHT JEANS & TIGHTER MORALS ERA Season 1 was like watching a catalog model cry softly into a Diet Coke. It wanted to be real: a Generation X drama about rent, breakups, and not getting your script optioned. Jake had a motorcycle. Billy had no job. Jane sewed skirts. I was asleep.

Then Amanda Woodward showed up in shoulder pads and kitten heels. The temperature dropped 20 degrees and the dialogue got deliciously evil. She wasn't a villain — she was HR in hell. Suddenly the show smoked a Virginia Slim and snarled, "Let’s burn it all down."

ACT II: THE LOBOTOMY WALTZ

Then came Kimberly Shaw, our tragic, operatic angel of vengeance with a skull crack scar that gleamed like the blade of a guillotine. She blew up the apartment complex. Literally. With dynamite. Because, of course.

Melrose had entered its Grand Guignol phase — a fugue of hallucinations, coma weddings, sex cult doctors, and dinner parties ending in arson. Plotlines died and came back wrong. This was the era of what scholars call “Narrative Nihilism with Highlights.”

ACT III: CROSSES, WIGS, AND POISON PUNCH

By Season 5, the show was a haunted carousel: spinning, gasping, groaning under the weight of its own lust and guilt. New characters arrived with murderous pasts, cursed diaries, and weird Tennessee accents that meant they were crazy. Betsy. Eve. Rory. If you had a name, you had a secret — and probably a gun.

Amanda owned a condo, a fashion company, and the soul of the show. She was Lady Macbeth by way of a Cosmo cover shoot.

And Michael Mancini? That sleazy little goblin kept surviving — the trickster god of Melrose. Doctor, liar, scumbag, legend. If he wasn't cheating, he was scheming. He was the cockroach of love triangles.

ACT IV: THE FALL (OR: EVERYBODY DIED & THEN Got Hired Somewhere Else)

Season 7 was a screaming coda. Half the cast was in jail, rehab, or the morgue — sometimes all three, depending on the episode. People walked into elevators and disappeared. People came back from the dead wearing new faces and accents. The writers were actively trying to kill the show and themselves.

Finale? Everyone leaves. Except the pool. The pool stays. Staring. Silent. Waiting for the reboot.

CODA: MELROSE PLACE WAS NEVER “GOOD” — IT WAS GLORIOUSLY DERANGED. It was opera in pleather. It was Greek tragedy performed by gym trainers. It was Passolini’s Salo by way of FOX in a 9 PM slot after Cops.

It taught me love is a lie, but stilettos are forever.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I’m going to drink chardonnay in the bath and scream “Michael, you BASTARD!” into the mirror until I feel clean again.

🌀 Buzz Drainpipe, Resident TV necromancer and poolside prophet Trenchrot Monthly: “The Zine for When TV Was Trash and That Was Good”