MELROSE PLACE CHARACTER GUIDE BY SOMEONE WHO HAS ONLY BEEN WATCHING FOR A FEW WEEKS
PART 1: JANE AND SYDNEY

Jane Mancini is a skinny blonde with a huge wall of teeth and an unflattering bowl cut. She is a fashion designer with a struggling business (Mancini Designs!) but I have never seen any actual Mancini designs – given that Jane has terrible dress sense (lots of tight legging oriented outfits and severe tops) I doubt they are up to much. Jane just wants to design her ugly clothes in peace but is constantly thwarted by her evil sexy ex-husband Dr Michael, who owns 50% of the business and spends most of his spare time hanging round the office, taunting her.

Jane’s sister Sydney is a sultry red head with some kind of racy past (ie = slut), though you wouldn’t necessarily guess it from looking at her matronly hair helmet and tapered distressed jeans. She seems to drive men wild whenever she shows up, so what to do I know? So far, Sydney has been sent to a mental institute for a crime she didn’t commit, pleaded guilty to escape the attentions of a creepy orderly, attempted to seduce Dr Michael to cure him of amnesia and started knocking boots with lunky James Dean facsimile Jake.

Jane has recently taken up with a smarmy Australian bloke and indeed, they are engaged to be married. Jane hasn’t noticed that he is a wrong’un even though he can only get it up after winning cash at Vegas and spends most of his time hugging Jane whilst gazing hornily over his shoulder at Sydney. Sydney keeps trying to tell Jane that Smarmy is stalking her but Jane keeps saying “God Sydney, you’re such a bitch, why do you keep trying to ruin my happiness??” Jake and Sydney have been throwing drinks over Smarmy and pushing him into swimming pools for weeks and she still hasn’t guessed that there is something wrong. Smarmy recently abducted Sydney and went on the lam (in a stretch limo!) with $500k of Mancini Designs cash. Jane thinks that Smarmy and Sydney are in cahoots, because she is too stupid to live.

MELROSE PLACE CHARACTER GUIDE BY SOMEONE WHO HAS ONLY BEEN WATCHING FOR A FEW WEEKS
PART 2: ALISON AND BILLY

Alison is an annoying bint played by her out of Ally MacBeal who wasn’t Ally Macbeal, or Lucy Lui, or that other blonde who is in musicals, etc. Oh, you know who I mean. She seems to have gone to the same acting school as Letitia Dean off EE as she expresses many emotions using the same Special Move –rolling her eyes to the right and grinding her jaw a bit.

Alison is an advertising executive at D&D Advertising (Dungeons & Dragons? Drunk & Disorderly? Desperate & Delusional?) where she works on many top projects such as for “Escapade” Magazine (I would totally read a magazine called “Escapade”) and the “Glamorous Gowns” campaign. I don’t think the writers put too much effort into thinking up a name for that last one. The reason I hate Alison is that whenever she gets any dialogue it always ends up with her moaning incessantly about how everyone has let her down and she needs them blah blah blah. God! Just shut up! Alison’s boss is uber-bitch Amanda (aka Heather Locklear!!!) who hates her for some reason and is determined to make her life a misery. Good.

Alison recently split up with love of her life Billy – an unattractive wooden faced lunk with a nasty mullet, who wears a smart shirt and tie to work with his shirt tucked into his uber-tight jeans. Noooo! Fashion crime in progress! Billy could not express emotion if his life depended on it and basically seems smug and unpleasant. A good match for Alison then. All his plots revolve seem to revolve around him doing things that make Alison cross. They still work together at D&D, he lives in the flat upstairs and has started going out with Alison’s best friend from college (Susan). For some reason Alison is having trouble “moving on” and for weeks, any conversation at work would turn into a rehash of their failed relationship. Not awkward at all.

Now Alison has started hitting the bottle and is busy with a downward spiral of booze shame. The best bit was when they were all at an important work do – treacherous college friend Susan was catering and Alison had a few drinks and started telling Billy that Susan was a nasty slut and that everyone at school used to call her “Round Heeled Susan” because she was so easy – wtf?? Did Alison go to college in a Damon Runyan novel or something? When Susan found out here was a proper catfight and they threw drinks and food all over each other etc. Classic. Now Alison is dating a really creepy looking video director with horrid hair, but has still had time to hospitalise a boy with her drunk driving and get sacked from her job for being a flaky lush. Ha ha. Alison, your tears are so sweet!