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D2 TW Arirom RepuMic MiHsdev Miy 24, IW Vfetoe party pool Foxfrolly draiinimg tine 6I By Jay Webb Dallas Morning News Brooke drowned in it; Sydney was thrown in wearing her sister's wedding dress; and Kimberly seduced the pool boy who cleaned it But nothing lasts forever, not even the ripples of the Melrose Place swimming pool. "The minute I walked on the set and saw that they'd built a real pool in here, I had the feeling we'd be around for a while," Grant Show, who played Jake Hanson for five seasons on Mel i ploring the social circles of kids fresh out of college trying to find their place in the world. The first-season plots were agonizingly dull: Billy (Andrew Shue) doesn't want to work in his dad's furniture store; Sandy (Amy Lo-cane) doesn't feel comfortable taking her shirt off for a role in a horror movie; Michael (Thomas Ca-labro) works too much at the hospital. Everybody pitched in to solve the problem, and each episode ended with a pool party. Snooze.

The show hadn't found its legs yet on the Fox network, which was barely crawling in 1992 at the height of Generation-X whining about lousy jobs in a recessive economy. Gen-X wanted escapism. Fox wanted ratings. And somebody had pay for that pool. That somebody was a long-legged blonde who owed Aaron Spelling a favor: Heather Locklear.

She had already won America's heart with her roles on Dynasty and T.J. Hooker, but it was as advertising executive Amanda Woodward that she exposed her darker roots. Locklear's initial visit to Melrose Place was supposed to be a four-episode guest stint, but audiences loved her and the guest-star status became permanent. Even in this final season, co-producer Locklear is still billed as "special guest star" at the end of the opening credits after the other actors have gone by alphabetically. Saving the best for last, Spelling i fl fc Doug HyurVFbx Broadcasting Co.

'Sydney (Laura Leighton) is thrown into the pool wearing her sister's wedding dress on Melrose Place, which ends its seven-season run tonight. won't let anyone forget about his "special" star who saved his show, though she had some help from a feisty pair of redheads. If Melrose Place was to go gonzo, it needed more bad guys fast So it was finally explained why Michael spent too much time at the hospital: Redhead No. 1 was Dr. Kimberly Shaw (Marcia Cross), who inspired the first of many Mel-rosian divorces before dying in a car crash.

She would return from the dead but not before Michael was seduced and blackmailed by Redhead No. 2, his own sister-in-law, Sydney (Laura Leighton), who would go on to be a stripper, prostitute, cult member and extortionist extraordinaire. Melrose mania ensued as bars began having Aeraye-watching parties and girls asked their hairstylists for the Jane (Josie Bissett) look. The zany plots worked every conceivable personality and societal flaw. Tragic Alison had a drinking problem; unlucky Mart's (Doug Savant) boyfriend had AIDS; workaholic Jane's boyfriend ran off to Las Vegas with all her money; stubborn Billy's wife, Brooke (Kristin Davis), drowned in the pool; brooding Jo (Daphne Zuniga) killed her boyfriend, then found out she was pregnant with his child; dumb but lovable Jake's motorcycle shop burned down; kooky Sydney was arrested for prostitution; and psycho Kimberly blew up the apartment complex.

To further the ratings explosion, So he does. Dance. "If the music moves me," he said. "The overt sort of message of Ally McBeal, week in and week out, is 'listen to your The more Improbable premises of Ally McBeal1 Imake the show all the more engaging rose Place, told Rolling Stone in 1994. "Forget about actors, man; pools aren't cheap." But tonight, the residents of 4616 Melrose Place re-' on tv 'Melrose Place' 7 tonight on Channel 10 (KSAZ).

ceive their eviction notice after seven seasons of bed-hopping, blackmail, cat fights, crashed weddings, drugged drinks, miniskirts, multiple personalities and an explosion at the end of the third season that blinded poor Alison (Courtney Thorne-Smith). For the top-secret series finale, two endings have been filmed: something about a wedding or a funeral. Does it matter when the marriages never last more than half a season and Kimberly didn't even stay dead for that long? Melrose Place began harmlessly enough in the summer of 1992 as an Aaron Spelling-produced drama ex- question. "I'm shocked that people even have to ask me that," said Kelley, in a recent telephone interview. "I don't have much time to dance." In addition to writing Ally McBeal, Kelly writes most of The Practice and has agreed to spend more time overseeing Chicago 'Hope, which he created, next season.

Meanwhile, another of his ere- ations, Snoops, will launch on ABC's fall schedule. And he's committed to doing a half-hour version of Ally McBeal supposedly cobbled from outtakes of the big show for Fox on Tuesdays. (If you doubt he can do it, don't forget the lovely posthumous tribute episode he assembled for Phil Leeds who played dentition-, devotee Judge Happy Boyle out of unused snippets from this sea-, son's opener.) David E. Kelley won't spend much time water-skiing this summer, You must get asked that a lot, I said. About dancing.

"As a matter of fact, we had the I 1 UIJ'TIII ASK FOR RATE CODE PHDR McBeal, even complaining about Ally McBeal, such a completely interactive experience. By the time you've voiced your objection to that ridiculously short skirt or silly special effects or whiny protagonist who needs a man so bad that she has singlehandedly set back feminism to pre-June Cleaver days, Kelley has already scripted his re-, ply. It'll come out of a character's mouth some Monday night, and you'll be pithily rebuked, know it or not, and that will be that. Gripe about the unlikely legal cases or grossly exaggerated characters, and one lawyer will remind another, "They're not real." Fret over the too-slim title star's shrinking silhouette, and one Kelley sylph will suggest to another, "Maybe you could eat a cookie." Complain about the unreality of that bar they all go to, and your favorite character will remind you that of, course, it's not real life, was never meant to be and shouldn't be judged as if it is. While dancing.

To that band. -Does David Kelley dance? Silly Cann BaerFox Broadcasting Co. Rosie O'Donnell (left) plays a marriage counselor on Ally McBeal. Her troubled clients are Billy (Gil Bellows) and Georgia (Courtney Thorne-Smith). Spelling recruited a slew of campy guest stars, including Linda Gray, Loni Anderson, Priscilla Presley, Tracy Lords and Valerie Harper.

Melrose started to drag during the fifth season with too many actors and guest stars eating up the plots. That season saw a mass exodus of the original characters and some of its audience. Wayward viewers were lost if they bothered to tune back in: They could recognize Amanda and Michael but mostly wondered who these characters were and since when did Alyssa Milano join the cast. With Alison gone, Amanda was rewritten as the new heroine of the show along with Megan (Kelly Rutherford), the ex-hooker with a heart of gold. But now the show needs a sense of closure after stirring up such a mess over the years.

Should Amanda or Michael die as punishment for their crimes over the years? Or should Amanda marry her apparent soulmate, Peter (Jack Wagner)? They were married once before, after he had tried to kill her by taking out her appendix. Whatever the ending, it's only right that Melrose Place ends before the year 2000 and claims its place as a quintessential prime-time soap opera of the 1990s, just as Dallas and in the '80s. Any longer would just be another day at the pool because the party ended about two seasons ago. subliminal one is 'listen to your Dave Walker can be reached at (602) 444-8625 or at clave.walkerpni.com via e-mail. JTAR.

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3 38! 15 ELECTION H. 10 45, 1 :16, 4O0. 640, 1000 tRWlKIFS 9:50.12 20.2 50.5:30,6 00.10 25 BLACK MASK, 9 50.1205,3:06.5 25.10 30 A MKWUMMER MGHTS DREAM 'yL iS III ltHi I IMPROBABLE, from Page Dl 1 i Such as Peter MacNicol's per- formance as John Cage. The of seeing a heavily camouflaged Bruce Willis showing up in one episode as a therapist or the similar shock of seeing Rosie O'Donnell appear as a deeply un- sympathetic marriage counselor. Both, of course, sitting in for the completely crazy Tracey Ullman, who regularly proposes theme songs as therapy.

Lucy Liu as Ling. Greg Germann as Fish. Or the way Kelley makes music such a storytelling tool. The way Cage lights up when he and only he hears Barry White. Or how he lights up as do we at home when Barry White really does walk into the bar, singing along with that impossibly cool band.

The fact that i the band playing for the swing con- test just happens to be Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Or the fact that a TV series has a house band at all. Or the fearless, self-referential in jokes that make watching Ally Frenh Homemade 99 Italian 1 It. Imported Romano Cheese-. Ik Melius Olive Para ace Oil tf55 Imported from Italy gal.

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Minimum 25 yean of age. Some restriction! apply. Renter pay for gas used. Ally McBeal wrap party Saturday night, and I did he said. "And people were -r ra going to use the word startled instead of dismayed.

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