I am – Hercules!!


The first of this year's "autumn" broadcast debuts turns out to be that of “Melrose Place,” a predictable and predictably cliché-riddled retread of the dreadful old Fox soap, this time from latter-day “Smallville” showrunners Darren Swimmer and Todd Slavkin.

Laura Leighton and Thomas Calabro return from the old series, augmented by newbies Stephanie Jacobsen (“The Sarah Connor Chronicles”), Katie Cassidy (“Harper’s Island”) and Jessica Simpson’s sister Ashlee (yes, the one caught lip-synching on SNL a few seasons back).

The “Melrose” franchise remains one of the emptiest and least diverting in TV history, and this time around I can tell my DVR to steer clear of its address.

Newsweek says:

… Ten years after it left the air, the salacious soap will return to it's proper place: right after the the yawn-worthy remake of Beverly Hills, 90210. Since they're back-to-back, it's unfortunate that the network's second go at Melrose Place falls similarly flat. … We got ahold of the first three episodes of the new series, and the new Melrose Place is more boring than one of the Ashlee Simpson-Wentz's blank stares …

USA Today says:

… The rebuilt pool-centered complex looks lovely, but nothing else in this pale imitation (* 1/2 out of four) keeps up, just as no one in the cast, new or old, can compete with Cross or the so-far-missing Heather Locklear. What you'll find instead is your typical CW collection of pretty, hard-bodied young things, most of whom can't act their way out of a Birkin bag. To be fair, it's hard to put a lot of life into characters who are mere types — the conniving, career-driven press agent (Katie Cassidy); the lunk-headed, good-guy filmmaker (Michael Rady); the bad-boy bitter rich kid (Shaun Sipos) — and not particularly interesting types, at that. At the very least, you have to feel some sympathy for poor Stephanie Jacobsen, whose character can't decide from scene to scene whether to find prostitution demeaning (which would seem to be the more logical choice) or to embrace it like some new-era Happy Hooker. …

Entertainment Weekly says:

… For this version to work, all the subplots and characters have to keep moving with precision, and the first episode, directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth), does a skillful job of that. But a nighttime soap is a marathon affair, and one that morphs as various characters take off with fans while others fade into the L.A. stucco. So it remains to be seen whether the new Melrose will become as giddily addictive as its predecessor — but it's off to a promisingly dizzy start. …

The New York Times says:

… The current version is slicker-looking than the old; the lighting is sultrier, and the stunned reaction shots are fewer. Much of the acting is marginally improved since the days when Andrew Shue, playing the doltish writer Billy Campbell, approached each scene as if the script demanded that he look like a 6-year-old told that he wasn’t getting a puppy for his birthday. No one appearing on “Melrose Place” 2.0 is nearly that dreadful, and the one-liners that remind us that we are not watching the television of a historic golden age retain the zesty camp of the series’s first iteration. “If it wasn’t for me,” Sydney Andrews tells the young protégé she has schooled in her lunatic brand of venality, “you’d still be wearing Juicy sweatsuits, French tips and a bad dye job.” …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… If only it were possible to care, even the least little bit, who did what and why and what will happen next. But as of the end of Episode 2, it just isn't. Like action figure collectibles, each character is so carefully encased in his or her protective wrapping of clever plot possibilities -- Auggie's a recovering alcoholic! David steals things! Lauren may have to become a high-price call girl to pay for med school! -- that it's virtually impossible to connect with them emotionally. … Nothing is said that hasn't been said, nothing is done that hasn't been done and as the group of friends who share little save a shoe size and an address gather poolside, even the sunlight looks fake, as if the complex were in a dome, a captive ecosystem on another planet where scientists are attempting an experiment in social regeneration. An experiment that one suspects is about to go terribly wrong.

The Chicago Tribune says:

Empty calories. That's what the remake of "Melrose Place" is -- it's the TV equivalent of snack food that doesn't really fill you up. … The problem is, very few of these actors -- or characters -- are memorable. … in a fall season that's about to get very crowded indeed, this remake will have to work harder than this to keep my attention.

The Washington Post says:

… In the show's second incarnation, premiering Tuesday night, a new gang of yoga-bodied 20-somethings resides at Melrose, but the show remains just as logical. Which is to say, things happen Because. Crazypants Sydney, who died at the end of the original's Season 5, is now alive again Because. Star medical student Lauren becomes a call girl to pay her tuition Because. (Because there are no Stafford loans in Melrose Place?) Ostensibly straight Ella makes out with a hot girl Because. The show stars Ashlee Simpson Because. …

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

… in a word, awful … It's all soapy nonsense with emotional entanglements underscored by catchy and moving pop songs. …

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

… better than either the 1992 first episode of "Melrose Place" or last year's "90210" reboot. … Executive producers Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer ("Smallville") tie the show's tangle of plots and relationships together with an agile skill that makes this new "Melrose Place" more appealing than the show's concept suggests should be possible.

The Boston Herald says:

… CW can slap as much paint as it wants on the exterior of the Los Angeles apartment complex housing randy 20-somethings, but this is one property that should have stayed in foreclosure. … The producers here aren’t even trying. They studied the wrong blueprints for this remake. They’re building the foundation of a home on paint fumes.

The Boston Globe says:

… just a mess of gossipy plotlines about adultery, murder, and secrets. If it has a moral compass, the arrow is stuck pointing down, to hell. …

Variety says:

… probably better than it ought to be. That’s not saying the premiere is particularly good, only that it has assembled a highly attractive cast and rapidly thrust it into tawdry situations, including a convenient murder mystery to get the ball rolling. Success will ultimately depend on ecology — that is, the level of demand for recycled trash. …

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… you'd have to be floating face-down in a pool to avoid getting instantly hooked on the intrigue (or lose yourself in the ample music-video moments). It's all brand new and shiny but comfortably familiar and keenly calculated. The pleasures abound within the walls of the new "MP," but be warned: You'll want to take a shower afterward. …

9 p.m. Tuesday. The CW.

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