Melrose Place Season 4 (9-DVD)

Creator Darren Star and executive producer Aaron Spelling followed up on the massive success of their 1990s teen drama BEVERLY HILLS 90210 with a spinoff series that went on to match its parent show's popularity (and made its Monday night timeslot an evening of must-see TV). A grownup, racier version of 90210, MELROSE PLACE harked back to the days of classic nighttime soaps like DYNASTY and DALLAS while adding a decidedly younger, hipper edge with amped-up levels of sex, betrayal, murder, and a multiple personality or two. The backstabbing action centered on a group of fashionable, affluent 20-somethings living in a stylish apartment complex on the L.A. strip of the title: vulnerable ad exec Alison Parker (Courtney Thorne-Smith); her roommate/love interest, Billy Campbell (Andrew Shue); conniving doctor Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro); his sweetly innocent wife, Jane (Josie Bissett); her trashy stripper sister, Sydney (Laura Leighton); nice guy Jake Hanson (Grant Show); openly gay Matt Fielding (Doug Savant); tough New York transplant Jo Reynolds (Daphne Zuniga); the utterly psychotic Kimberly Shaw (Marcia Cross); manipulative rich girl Brooke Armstrong (Kristin Davis); and, of course, villainous vixen Amanda Woodward (Heather Locklear). Starting off with a bang, this season opens with the explosion of the apartment complex, and wallows in the fallout for another year of red-hot treachery. The ultimate guilty pleasure, MELROSE PLACE's fourth season is presented here in its entirety.