The Good

One can always use more Melrose Place on DVD.

The Bad

Extras seem a little thrown together here.

Melrose Place: The Complete Second Season was bigger and better in every way than the first one. From what I gather this show wasn't doing too hot in it's first season and the introduction of Heather Locklear changed all that. Featuring a lot of soap opera-like plots, gorgeous women, good looking guys and the kind of outrageous behavior that people only wish really happened all the time in Los Angeles. Featuring 31 episodes this 8 disc set certainly isn't lacking anything in the content department.

One of the biggest focal points of this season is the three way love tryst between Michael (Thomas Calbro), Jane (Josie Bissett) and Kimberly (Marcia Cross). However this certainly isn't the only thing going on. With characters like Amanda (Locklear), Billy (Andrew Shue), Allison (Courtney Thorne-Smith) and Jo (Daphne Zuniga), this show isn't wanting in the drama department at all. However, in the early 1990s when these episodes aired, my eye couldn't help but be drawn to the Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton) character. Whether she was simply letting her schemes brew ("No Bed Of Roses"), watching them come to fruition ("Duet For One") or merely having fun being a witch with a "B" (Swept Away"), there was something amazingly devious and lovable about this character all at the same time.

There's a lot going on in Melrose Place: The Complete Second Season, thank goodness we have it on DVD to be able to keep it contained as we screen it.

Features

Audio Commentaries

Executive Producer Darren Star does commentary tracks for the episodes "Collision Course" and "The Bitch Is Back." I listened to the track for "Collision Course." It was great getting to hear from the man behind these shows because he really had a unique outlook. It seems like he felt if he could take a bunch of somewhat similar characters, he could shine a magnifying glass on them to show just how interesting and difficult they all were. Of course by doing this, we also saw how the characters played off of one another, driving themselves to distraction in the process. While Star doesn't really offer any "how to" advice on putting a show like this together, he seems to be simply enjoying the chaos that he has created.

Melrose Place - Meet The Neighbors

Melrose Place - The Best Of The Worst Parts 1 and 2

Why is this on here? I mean, its not like we don't have the DVDs and all the shows are contained herein. Why do we need to have a retrospective look back at this show in this way? If anything, it seems like it would actually ruin the experience of getting to relive some of the show's finest moments as you're watching the episodes. I might be wrong however... I didn't look at these clips until after I had looked at the episodes. Maybe I would have been even more excited had I done that first? Decide for yourself...

Complex Relationships

I was actually surprised by how long the the segments in this section were. There are three of them and they broken up like so:

Melrose Place - Complex Relationships - Billy And Alison

Melrose Place - Complex Relationships - Amanda, Jake, Jo And Reed

Melrose Place - Complex Relationships - Michael, Jane, Kimberly, Sydney, and Matt

The longest one is Melrose Place - Complex Relationships - Michael, Jane, Kimberly, Sydney, and Matt, and it is actually the only one I really had time to watch. Essentially, we see how all of the relationships are intertwined, but there really isn't anything that amazing about any of these featurettes. Its not like they present some amazing critiques on relationships. If anything, they simply seem to be enjoying the fact that such a complex web was spun. None of these characters really learned anything anyway, right?

Video

1.33:1. I was a little bit worried about how these episodes might look considering Paramount's track record with some "older" shows. Melrose Place is only from the 1990s but you never know what can happen as these shows sit in the studio vaults, awaiting their eventual compression on DVD. Truthfully, I was pretty impressed. While I think they might have over compressed the episodes in certain parts, I didn't notice the effects of pixilation that can sometimes occur. I found that this show seemed to handle the greens, whites, reds and blues really well. It did a decent job with the blacks but it seems like a lot of DVDs haven't mastered how to compress those yet.

Audio

Dolby Digital 2.0. The audio here was solid as well. In fact, I don't think I have ever watched a Paramount DVD that wasn't okay in this department. What is surprising is how you oftentimes have to lower your set because of how well these Paramount releases are leveled. I didn't hear any audio pops and while I found the music to be somewhat melodramatic in parts (more-so than it really needed to be), overall everything played fine on my one speaker TV.

Package

While dated in how the characters look, I can't help but stare at the front of this slipcase cover and think that this show looks like The O.C.. There is a preponderance of aqua blue that seems to surround all the characters. The back portion of the slipcase features some images from the show, a description of what Melrose Place: The Complete Second Season is about, a Special Features listing and system specs. All of the discs are stored in a bunch of slim cases, all of which offer up more artwork, episode descriptions, and the locations of the special features.

Final Word

In the 1990s when I was watching this show, I took it pretty seriously. I wasn't glued to my TV and it didn't rule my life, but I cared about it. I didn't watch Melrose Place nearly as much as its TV counterpart Beverly Hills 90210. However, I did see it a lot and I remember that I had never seen so many good looking people in one place on TV. Also, these storylines, which are basically softer versions of the stuff we see in soft core porn movies, are nothing short of incredible. Looking back now, I am almost amazed that a show like this was allowed to play on TV in the primetime slot that it did! Don't misunderstand, I really enjoy this show and it does hold up, but its just insane that America got so into people acting that way.

In the world before 9/11, before grotesque, police procedurals, and shows with 8 million characters ruled the TV airwaves, we experienced our own emotional jihad with Melrose Place.

Melrose Place was released .