Melrose Place

This one is stylish, smartly produced and has a very appealing cast.

Terrific fun, and much classier than the old show, but still with plenty of cheese.

Yes, there’s much that’s awful here, as there always was--some laughably bad acting, portentous flashbacks telegraphed so obviously you expect the screen to do one of those wiggly dissolves, writing that won’t cause Matthew Weiner (or his kids) any sleepless nights--and yet there’s an enjoyably lurid energy to this place that makes it only about 1,000 times more instantly watchable than last season’s dreary redo of 90210.

Over all, the show has a little something, but it doesn’t have outstanding curb appeal, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a foreclosure notice in the window sooner rather than later.

Trouble is, very few of the show's other cast members make much of an impression, aside from Cassidy and Stephanie Jacobsen, whose medical-student plot is lifted straight from the Soap 101 handbook.

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.

A revivified and completely uncalled-for update of the original series