Welcome to the Melrose Place Update! How many issues of some other television commentary would it take to match the informing power of one Melrose Place Update? Two? Three? Maybe even four issues? Guess again! It would take over six issues of some other commentary to equal the deep-cleaning information you receive in one issue of the Melrose Place Update. The Melrose Place Update: Now at a new, lower price!
I must apologise for the lack of Updates over the past few weeks; I've just transitioned to a program manager position in charge of Microsoft's Schedule+ application and could not steal enough time away from my other duties to complete the Update. (Dr. Ferreud usually steps in during the "busy" periods, however he was out of town recently.) Rest assured that the Update team has a complete set of notes for each of the "missing" episodes and we will fill in the cracks as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience and your many letters checking up on us; it's great to know someone on the other end actually reads this!
"Commuter -- one who spends his lifeThrough a generous stroke of Fate, I live about a mile from my office at Microsoft. It's a winding road to work, but in the early morning you can see the fog still curled up around the lake's edge, hoping to catch a few more minutes of sleep before the sun beckons it awake. Around one corner, I can just catch a glimpse of the Interstate, jammed full of grey cars and greyer people lurching their way to work. I'm very fortunate, really. I rarely see another car on my morning commute.
In riding to and from his wife;
A man who shaves and takes a train,
And then rides back to shave again."
- E. B. White. "The Commuter."
"flextime: a system of assigning hours for work that permits employees to choose, within specified limits, the hours that they will be at their place of employment. By allowing employees to stagger hours or by changing from five eight- hour days to four-ten hour days, traffic and commuting problems are eased, parents can adjust work schedules to school schedules, and expensive office equipment, such as computers, can be used more efficiently." - Definition from "The Concise Columbia Encyclopaedia." Columbia University Press. 1991.
Three hundred years ago, time conformed to man; infinity lay beyond the horizon, beyond the next hill. It is only recently that people were forced to design their lives around their environment. Suddenly, we had been beyond the horizon and seen every hill. The only way to stay new was to keep changing the environment. On "Beavis and Butthead" the other evening, Butthead remarked that the Pyramids were "built by these old dudes a long time ago". "Ya," agreed Beavis, "like the 1950s or something." Heh, heh. Time is cool. Speed kicks ass.
It is impossible to escape the plethora of time-management gizmos and schemes available today. Authors hawk "get organised quick" books, all promising to release hidden powers once the reader gets on top of his time and regains control in an out-of-control world. I pass hundreds of people in the halls at work, each clutching their personal organiser like some mantra to stem the tide. Each ignores the fact that time is too wily for whatever variation of Maxwell's daemon we send after it.
To the post-Boomer generations, speed is king. I listen to my father talk about the "old days on the farm with 15-cent ice cream cones" and I might as well be listening to an alien; nothing in my background relates to his cultural origin. My farm was a cookie-cutter house in Suburbia and who is going to stand around licking an ice cream cone when the arcade down the street just got "Mach One"?
"For tribal man space was the uncontrollable mystery. For technological man it is time that occupies the same role."Old people glare at the post-Boomer generations, muttering through hairy, wrinkled lips about how the youth of today have no purpose or discipline, how it's all bang, bang, bang and sex and noise with no respect for the past or the passed. Madison Avenue spends billions to seduce us, hitching their ride on a carousel of cultural bandwagons, all the while unaware that they cast dry media peas at a generation living behind rock-stolid, stony ears. They sold us all right, just ask the kid murdered this year in Seattle because someone wanted his Nikes.
- Marshall McLuhan. "The Mechanical Bride: Magic that Changes Mood". 1951.
In a bizarre way, the commuter car-pool reflects our modern age, an age of faceless uniformity trying to survive in an environment ill-prepared for it. The entire infrastructure of life cannot handle the modern demands; to survive you need to blend in with the woodwork. In public school you hang low, trying to be seen without a scene. Later, you join everyone else with the plastic, spill-proof mug of coffee and detached stare. Boring, but you can drive in the car-pool lane. It's faster there and maybe if you get to work sooner, you'll get that promotion everyone is clawing for. Seen without a scene.
"The school system, custodian of print culture, has no place for the rugged individual. It is, indeed, the homogenising hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing."Admittedly, I feel lost at times. The electric speed-up can be incredible. Behind my desk a recycle box is packed with papers, information that was cutting-edge two weeks ago now lies on the cutting-room floor. I offer it as penance to the recycling god, entreating the deity to calm my conscience, to ease my pangs of orchestrated guilt over another reality I cannot control.
- Marshall McLuhan. "The Gutenberg Galaxy: Cervantes Confronted Typographic Man in the Figure of Don Quixote", 1962.
Sometimes I curse Microsoft and the industry for this speed, for driving each week just a bit faster than the previous. But it is a roller coaster and the brief glimpse of frozen time I grab at the crest makes each plummeting descent titillating. After all, I could be stuck on the "information superhighway", just trying to get here.
"Name me, if you can, a better feeling than the one you get when you've half a bottle of Chivas in the bag with a gram of coke up your nose and a teenage lovely pulling off her tube top in the next seat over while you're doing a hundred miles an hour in a suburban side street."I say all this because I tune the Electric Eye each week toward a distant land filled with preposterous scenarios, incomprehensible characters and speed. Glorious speed.
- P. J. O' Rourke, U.S. journalist. "Republican Party Reptile: How to Drive Fast On Drugs While Getting Your Wing Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink", 1987.
For one hour a week, I dive into a cultural wasteland, but detail means little at a hundred miles an hour. Melrose Place is fast. It is a televised video game and I do not need to think about reacting, only flow with it. Dr. Michael Mancini might be behind the wheel as Sydney whips off this week's demi-cup extravaganza from the Victoria's Secret catalogue. Billy might ponder his life and lot but it doesn't matter when next week promises a completely different scenario. You have to live in the future when the present has already passed.
Realistic? No. Informative? No. Yet realism is an antiquated concept in a society lacking any true reality. Informative means nothing when information is moot before you learn it. Fast? Oh yes, Melrose Place is fast. It's an hour of rush-rush- rush in a rush-hour world.
I almost made it to work this morning without event, but the temptation proved too great and I set off for a quick race around the lake. The early morning sun was out and I had the top down on the Thing. It was one of those days that made all the hours of engine repairs, ungodly expense and skinned knuckles worthwhile. I wasn't terribly surprised to see her sitting in the passenger seat, the wind billowing her Medusan curls as she laughed. I was glad to see her again. It had been so long and I had so many questions, but she answered them with one look. I'm not sure exactly where we went, but we got there really fast.
Ex cathedra.
- ian
Alison stumbled home to the parental units with Billy in tow as Melrose Place introduced us to Parker family bliss. Two happy-go-lucky parents, a beautiful home in the suburbs, a nice green lawn, the ex-boyfriend and a basement from hell...
Alison's mom calls to summon the sweet daughter back home to Wisconsin for her daddy's 50th birthday party. Sigh. Trouble is, and of course you know there has to be trouble at Melrose Place: Alison forgot to tell her parents about Billy and the engagement. Ooops! Even worse, after a small land war with Billy over the "if you loved me you would have told them" issue, the hapless lovebirds arrive at "home" in time to meet Alison's Old Flame. Down Billy, he's a guest too!
The Parker family turns out to be a little heavy on the Cleaver image, as Ma Parker struggles vainly on in her co- dependent haze and Pop Parker twitches through each scene like a mailman/madman. The birthday party heads from sham to shambles when Adam, the lost love of Alison's heart, takes the podium to embarrass himself with the worst vocal acrobatics since Elvis thought he should sing "In The Ghetto". Billy, He-Man of the World decides Enough Is Enough, and wrests the microphone away from Adam to announce the engagement. Cut to audience exchanging Don Knotts Looks of Shock and Horror.
Pop Parker plays genial host with a gritty edge of tension while Ma runs around, frantically trying to patch up the misunderstanding. Life seems back on track until Billy heads downstairs looking for some canned goods in the basement. Once down there, Billy stumbles across a toy train set. He turns it on, and Alison, sitting upstairs, goes nuts with "oh my god!" wide-eyed fear. Billy then brings an old doll he finds upstairs where Alison freaks out again, pronounces the toy "dirty" and throws it in the trash. Later, safely back at Melrose Place, Alison has a transparent nightmare, obviously directed by David Lynch, involving the doll, the train and a dancing midget. Well, they didn't show the midget, but I could sense his presence. That Alison; she's filled with secrets...
Jo, angst-ridden over Lucifer's Seed gaining strength and the higher-likelihood of legal protection each day in her womb, discovers Handsome Man himself, cleverly disguised as a self-infatuated fathead named Gregory Davis. Greg hits up, down and all around Jo, leaving her breathless (or was that morning sickness?) over him. But wait! Trouble is, and of course you know there has to be trouble at Melrose Place: Jo forgot to tell Greg about The Father-less Foetus. Ooops! Quick Greg, to the Bat-out-of-Hell-mobile!
Meanwhile, Jane putts home one afternoon to discover the nursing home attendants found her Grandmother floating belly-up in her bowl. Of course Jane was Grandma's favourite, and figures to reap a tidy sum from Grand-ma-ma's extensive Social Security holdings and junk bond investment profits from the Eighties. Alas, faster than you can hum the chorus to "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" the Andrews Sisters are bickering over who was the favourite grand-daughter and, most-importantly, who gets the cash. Has anyone seen Richard Dawson recently?
Jane wants to use the money to start her own design firm. Kay Beacon, Jane's boss, treats her bad (no doubt giving her that ungodly haircut and those equally-demonic clothes she has now) and Jane wants out. With the $100,000, Jane can easily take on the Chanel's and Karan's of the world, at least in the Spelling Universe. (This is, of course, the same universe where girls who look like horses can be popular.) Jane also wisely enlists Amanda's assistance in her financial planning... Oh dear.
But wait! You guessed it, there's trouble brewing in them thar hills and it starts with M which rhymes with Them and that stands for Michael and Sydney. Seems Grandma had lead pipes in her house as a little girl and forgot to change her will to just list Jane after the divorce. Ooops! Michael, eager to cash in one final stab at Jane, sets his eyes on the money. Sydney, desperate for a sign of affection from the oaf, pledges her help and the Demonic Duo head for Chicago to stake their claim. The escapade culminates in a "Reading O' The Will" fight scene shot on a set nightmarishly close to the same one "Saturday Night Live" auctioned Ringo Starr off in, several years ago. I wonder if Jane will call Robbie the Wonder Lawyer for help?
Oh, and Matt had one scene where Michael punches him for telling Jane about the blood-alcohol doctoring. Matt, however, in a shocking display of studliness, belts Mikey back in the stomach, and leaves him lying on the pool deck, down for the count. Heck, if I was Matt, I'd put up with one line a week if they'd let me punch Michael!
[Dr. Ferreud is also on a brief hiatus enjoying a whirlwind tour of Asia where he hosted a short documentary on Western media bias for NHK, held a book-signing in Rangoon, and most recently appeared with Zsa Zsa Gabor and George Hamilton as a celebrity judge for the Miss Southeast Asia beauty contest. Dr. Ferreud managed to pause long enough from his exhausting duties to uplink this report to the Melrose Place Update satellite network...]
Good morning, although for you it is yesterday from where I sit. I am enjoying a wonderfully relaxing morning on the deck of my kapal, drifting on a glassy sea just off the coast of Indonesia. My recent stint as a judge for the Miss Southeast Asia pageant was unfortunately an empty experience filled with endless meetings and luncheons with scantily-clad models. Were it not for the opportunity to research my next paper ("The Beauty Pageant in Asian Popular Media: A Western Opiate for an Eastern Angst") I fear I would have gone mad with the vacuous tedium of making small talk with equally-small minds.
One contestant however, a Miss Koo Tjing, caught my eye. The media brief described her as a "statuesque beauty with a perfect figure highlighted by piercing emerald eyes" however that could cover 75-80% of the show participants. No, what caught my eye was her eloquent performance during the talent competition. While other contestants performed dreary renditions of "I will always love you" on the gamelan, Miss Tjing delivered a stunning two-minute treatise on the effect of psychosexual imagery in Western media on contemporary Indonesian political culture. I was stunned by her eloquent delivery which was brilliant albeit slightly marred by an unfortunate reliance on Jungian interpretation.
Despite my valiant efforts at the voting terminal, Miss Tjing was the first runner-up in the competition, behind a young lady whose gamelan abilities were abominable, though much was said of her talents during the swimsuit competition. Determined not to let this paltry loss destroy a budding media analyst, I sent an urgent telegram to Miss Tjing's villa and rejoiced when she graciously accepted my offer to join me on the rest of my trip. Miss Tjing has proven to be a formidable adversary in several deliberations on media imagery.
But enough of my pilgrimage along the Asian peninsula, there was an astounding dream sequence in this week's episode which demands scrupulous examination.
The sequence I refer to comes at the end of the show as Alison frets during her sleep and dreams of being in her house, in the dark. She sees an open door, descending to her basement. Billy's voice, muffled from the depths, cries out "Alison! Come down here please!". The voice is followed by flashing images of a model train on a track, a swinging bare light bulb and a doll whose eyes drip blood. More images cascade by, alternating between the train and the light bulb, until the light bulb explodes and scene fades to black.
Miss Tjing and I debated this scene all last night, until the distant cries of goats being crushed in the jaws of Komodo dragons beckoned us to bed. Miss Tjing saw the flagrantly obvious possibility that the dream purports some element of childhood molestation in Alison's past, however, this explanation is too easy. The truth, I have found, is often colder and more ominous than a simple, cursory examination would suggest.
The key to this dream lies in several sequences before the dream. The facts are:
- Alison tried to keep Billy away from her parents and exhibits great fear / nervousness around her parents. She even tells Billy that "they meddle in everything."
- Alison's father just turned 50, although he looks remarkably young and Alison is at least 25.
- Alison freaks out when she hears Billy operating the model train set in the basement, and cries "Oh Billy, it's filthy!" when Billy brings a girl's doll upstairs.
- Adam warns Billy that Alison's parents are different, that you can "know them, but not really know them."
- Alison's house, the decorations and parents are too "nice", too "perfect". One would almost think her family was cut from the cloth of Lost America, machined to a glossy shine with no imperfection. Cold, however, in their complete lack of emotion.
Based on these points and details from the dream sequence, I can only conclude that Alison's parents are aliens from another planet sent to Earth to establish a beachhead for a future invasion. Her dream is a manifestation of her repressed memories from discovering this fact, and her internalised fears that Billy has either discovered the secret, or was somehow translated to become one of Them.
The open door, of course, symbolises Alison's reopening of the past. Just before this scene, we saw the Melrose Place pool, which we realise represents Life as does all water; in this case, it is Alison's life. Beyond the door it is black and mysterious for Alison cannot completely remember the past.
The depths of her basement cull archetypal memories, indeed fears, of the depths. It is from the depths that demons crawl, and with them come the gates of hell. Alison knows not what lies in the depths, it is masked behind her scream. The descent down the stairs is a complex Judeo-Christian titbit of imagery where Alison associates Luciferean representation with her parent's action; a parallel to their fall from grace and descent to Earth with evil intent to subjugate humanity.
The train is an instrument of expansion much as it brought settlers across America to the West and drove the last spike in the coffin of America's indigenous peoples. Notice that the train images show it passing over a river bridge, indicating Alison's parents bridging between the two worlds, crossing a virtual Rubicon through which flow the waters of their Life. We see the past, events which can no longer be controlled; as they say, it's all water under the bridge...
The light is Realisation, the moment when Alison discovers her parents communicating with the Home World from their basement. Its swinging image juxtaposed on the other scenes indicates her growing memory and understanding. Again, we see a powerful Euro-Christian influence for the light is memory, it is evil and Lucifer, (Latin for "light-bearer"), stalks Alison's thoughts; he taunts and torments her as she lies in the damning arms of Sleep. Light as communication, as information, is used within a distinctly McLuhanesque framework to denote her parent's feverish attempts to contact their leader at Alison's moment of discovery. I can almost see them frantically adjusting dials and voltages as they turn to gaze at the wide-eyed horror of their adopted child.
The dark-haired doll is Alison, a Dark Alison once she realises her remote roots. "It's dirty" she cries, internally aware that her soul is stained by a bitter secret, yet unable to express it for fear that she is the only survivor. What if her parents are "normal" and she is the outcast? What if Billy and Adam and all the rest are Them? Alison is probably human despite the chipmunk cheeks, adopted by her parents to provide another piece in her "perfect" cover. The tears of blood represent her Soul, torn between the Truth and her Confusion. They are the innocent tears of childhood, of a young girl who realised a horrific nightmare from which there was no awaking. Tears of unending agony that flow unabated from her understanding eyes.
In the end, the light of Realisation and Communication explodes as Alison destroys the transmission device. The light is gone, plunging her back into darkness, fear and the unknown; crucified for eternity by cross parents trapped on a world they despise. Their plan detected, the communication medium destroyed, her parents resort to mind control to cover her discovery, while they try to re-establish contact with their Home World. Bitter, they live out their remaining years, ever vigilant for any form of contact. Preposterous, you say? Bah!
This week we split up the Stats section into our usual statistics and a new section "Stock Shot Stats" where we monitor the excessive use of stock footage. Anyone who is fed up with the boring D&D Advertising Complex transition shot knows what we mean...
1) Jane and her mother walked out of the courtroom and turned left. Trouble is, when Sydney and Michael leave the courtroom, the camera follows and you see that there is just a blank wall to the left. The Wacky Couple turn to the right and walk to the elevators in this redressed hospital set. No word yet on whether Jane and her mother made it safely out of the building...
2) This one is simple: Alison outdoors on a yard swing, in shirtsleeve and surrounded by green grass. Hmmm. Los Angeles in March or Wisconsin in March? Which do you think the director wants us to believe it really is? Pooh, pooh!
"Would you like to have dinner?" "With you?!?!" - Greg tosses a simple question to Jo who promptly drives it down his throat.
"You are in over your head." - Amanda, the brilliant counterfeiter who eluded Federal Agents for years, squints her furtive eyes at Frank and Joe, seconds before barking orders to her swarthy and surly henchmen.
"I said three coolers; there's only two!" - Amanda complains to Jake as Yogi Bear snickers quietly from a nearby tree...
"I have a million things to do, and I can't be late." - Alison takes off.
"This isn't like you." - Kay finds Jane's hairstyle next to Moe's in a "Marx Brothers: Separated at Birth?" book.
"It was awful." - Jane ruefully considers changing hair salons; no more Stupor Cuts for this lady...
"The funeral will be tomorrow." - Jane laments the untimely and unfortunate death of her hair stylist. That his car brakes failed is bad enough, but just before his commute home on the Hollywood Freeway...
"She tried to reach out to you." "Well, I guess her arms weren't long enough to reach past you, Jane." - Exchange between Jane and Sydney where the girls bicker about Grandma's regrettably poor choice of long- distance carriers.
"I don't want to outshine my father." - Alison clues Billy in that her father is really Lucifer.
"Sydney never did anything wrong." - Jane to Alison who spews her cup of coffee all over the floor.
"I can't win with you, can I?" - Jake discovers Amanda's bet and is traumatised by the discovery...
"He comes into the world God knows how, walks on the water, gets out of his grave and goes up off the Hill of Howth. What drivel is this?" - Stephen Daedalus, speaking in "Stephen Hero" written by James Joyce, ch. 21, 1944.
"I didn't actually walk on water." - Alison breaks the news to Billy that she is not god...
"I'm sorry." - Billy to Alison.
"Oh mom, I'm sorry."
Alison to her mother.
"He's [Billy's] right; I should have told you [about the engagement]." - Alison admits defeat while Billy hides under the house from her wrath. Billy's ancestors weren't horses, they were skunks. At least it fits with chipmunks...
"I came to apologise." - Adam walks up to the Parker house and takes a number.
"I'm sorry." "It's the phrase of the weekend." - Exchange between Alison and Billy. Hell, throw in casual sex and no morals and presto! You have the weekly story of Melrose Place...
"I told you $3200 a month." - Kay becomes a hooker, but needs to iron out a few wrinkles first...
"I'd love to have another drink; would you like something stronger than a club soda?" - Gregory tries Sleazy Seduction Line #85...
"...Ya, I'll take a 7&7." - and Mr. Parker falls for it.
(c) 1994 Ian Ferrell. The Melrose Place Update is published weekly and distributed via electronic mail and the Graces of Internet. Each article contains a summary of that week's Melrose Place episode with analysis and commentary.
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