TVSquad

Well, last night was the BIG night on the new Melrose Place, the return of Amanda Woodward (Heather Locklear). Judging from Locklear's entrance, she really did shake up things on the show.

A question for fans of the original: did this make you watch this episode even though you weren't watching the new show? And for fans of the new show who really aren't familiar with the original: are you excited by Locklear being on the show?

Can Heather Locklear save the new Melrose Place? Who knows. But she makes her big return as Amanda next week, and here's the scene. By the way the staff looks at her when she's walking down the hall it's like she rose from the dead or something. Not sure why the other blond in the scene turns around and the first thing she looks at are the Amanda's shoes.

The CW already gave up on its lowest performing newcomer, cancelling The Beautiful Life: TBL. That left an empty spot on the schedule and an opportunity. Certainly not wanting to have another quick failure on their schedule, the network has decided to shift repeats of Melrose Place to Wednesdays at 9pm.

While it's been doing better than TBL did, Melrose Place isn't healthy. Premiering with 2.3 million viewers, it slipped below 1.5 million this past week. That's terrible by anyone's reckoning. But The CW has hope, for this has happened before. Long ago, when the original Melrose Place hit the airwaves, it too didn't set the ratings world on fire. Not until Heather Locklear swooped in and made it a sexy guilty pleasure.

The CW's hoping she can do it again, so they're doing what they can to keep the show on life support until she arrives. Maybe they'll find Wednesdays friendlier. No more NCIS: LA or DWTS. Instead it's Modern Family, Cougar Town, Glee, SVU and Criminal Minds. Well, that doesn't look good either.

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This week we have spoilers for: 24, 30 Rock, Damages, Desperate Housewives, House, Lost, Melrose Place, Private Practice, and Ugly Betty. (SPOILERS FOLLOW!)

The article says that "details are mum on [Heather] Locklear's role," but I'm going to assume she's going to play...Amanda?

US Magazine is reporting that Locklear is indeed going to join the new CW version of Melrose Place after several months of negotiations. Her first episode will air on November 17. US says that Locklear saw the pilot and was surprised at how much she liked it. I'm also guessing that she saw the contract and was surprised at how much she liked that too (though there's nothing wrong with that).

Happy or not that The CW will air a new version of Melrose Place, you must admit that you'll at least watch the premiere out of curiosity, especially if you watched the first show.

Tidbits about the show released these past weeks will have viewers tune in to know how the show will revive Sydney, a very much dead character played by Laura Leighton on the original series.

If that mystery is not enough to get you to tune in on Tuesday, September 8 at 9 p.m., maybe the new spoilers and casting information below will.

Warning! Spoilers coming up!

Scott Baio has a new reality show coming to VH-1 called Scott Baio Is 45...and Single. The only problem is, Scott Baio isn't really single. This story says that the former Happy Days actor is actually in a long-term relationship with former Playboy Playmate Renee Sloan.

Baio has supposedly been dating Sloan for a couple of years, including during the filming of the reality show. Sloan also used to be Pam Anderson's stunt double on Baywatch. Baio dated Anderson too. It all gets kinda tricky. Was Sloane Anderson's stunt double in her private life too?

Several years ago, a friend and I were sitting around watching a Baywatch repeat and amazed at the fact that Scott Baio had dated half the cast, and we called it "Baiowatch." I'm sure we weren't the first to come up with that moniker, and we weren't the last: the ex-Happy Days star is shopping around an autobiography of his love life, and it has the same title!

For the record, Baio dated Pam Anderson, Nicole Eggert, Heather Locklear, Happy Days/Joanie Loves Chachi costar Erin Moran (who he lost his virginity to), Erika Eleniak, Desperate Housewives star Nicollette Sheridan, Beverly D'Angelo, and Denise Richards. Wow.

Oh, and Liza Minnelli wanted his sperm so she could have a kid.

Several publishers have passed on the book, but Baio is still trying.

I never watched Melrose Place. And it wasn't because I was anti-soap opera. I watched every single episode of Knot's Landing, and I've been watching Guiding Light since around 1979 or '80, but Melrose Place never caught my interest. I think I saw just two scenes, both with Marcia Cross. The scene where she took her wig off, revealing a scar, and the scene where the she blew up the complex. Beyond that, even though the show starred Courtney Thorne-Smith (big crush), I didn't see any of the episodes.

But fans can rejoice: the first season of the show will be released on DVD November 7. It will be an 8 DVD set, but no word on what the extras will be.

Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards' ugly divorce is turning into a game of He Said, She Said. Last week, Richards got a temporary restraining order against Sheen. In her filing (posted on The Smoking Gun), Richards said Sheen threatened and pushed her, surfed the internet for child pornography and sought out prostitutes. It was a pretty scathing document, actually. That's probably why Charlie Sheen went on Entertainment Tonight to explain his side of the story. He said that Richards is making up stuff about him as part of her reaction to a failed marriage. He said she is trying "to hurt, to punish, to discredit, to completely torpedo, to undermine my perception as a responsible father... a contributing father, a guy who would give his life for his children." Sheen and Richards have two daughters, Sam, 2, and Lola, 10 months.

By the way, check out who Denise Richards is dating now. It's the soon-to-be ex-husband of her soon-to-be ex-husband's former co-star. Everybody got that? Good.

At the beginning of an article profiling the book The Girl's Guide to Being a Boss (Without Being a Bitch), Hanna Seligson of the New York Daily News asserts that Heather Locklear's iconic Melrose Place character, Amanda Woodward, ushered in a new era of "bitchy" female bosses. The article then goes on to talk about the book and how various women find it difficult to be forceful but nuturing bosses at the same time. But it never goes back to discussing the influence of Locklear's mini-skirt-wearing power-hussy on the American workscape. And it doesn't look like the book discusses it, either, at least judging by the content of the article.

Which makes me wonder: Is this writer just going for an easy intro, or does she really believe female bosses everywhere "suddenly" felt it was OK to become shrill and catty in 1993 because "hey, Heather's doing it!"?

Methinks that any boss, male or female, who wanted to act like a jerk didn't need a television show to make it OK, but that's just me. I mean, I had plenty of asshole bosses before Michael Scott and The Office ever came on the scene... oh wait... scratch that. Never know who might be reading this.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

[via Gawker]

Now that pilot season is wrapping up, it's casting season in L.A., where mega-stars or yet-to-be-discovered actors sign on to all sorts of new shows in hopes that the networks will pick them up for the fall line-up. There are a lot of big names this time around. Check it out:

• Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal) and Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under) will star in the ABC drama pilot Brothers & Sisters, a soap-style drama about adult siblings.
• Heather Locklear is in negotiations for a leading role in the ABC comedy pilot, Women of a Certain Age. Locklear would play a recently widowed woman who starts a new life with her two best friends.
• Ron Livingston (Sex and the City, Office Space) is one of two leads in a FOX drama called Primary, which is about a male and a female hostage negotiator who balance their love lives with their jobs.
• Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos) has agreed to star in CBS' Waterfront, as the charismatic and "ethically-challenged" mayor of Providence, R.I.
• Steven Culp, previously known as Rex Van De Kamp on Desperate Housewives, will appear in the ABC drama, Traveler, about three Yale graduate students who become a national security risk when one of them frames the other two for an art museum bombing.
• Swoosie Kurtz will take on a supporting role in the CBS comedy, Play Nice, which stars Timm Sharp and Sara Rue (Less Than Perfect) as a brother and sister who run a toy company.
• Jonah Lotan, who has been playing Spenser Wolff this season on 24, will take on a role on the FOX thriller, Beyond, which is about the space race.

[Via The Hollywood Reporter]

After eleven years of marriage to Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, Heather Locklear has filed for divorce. Heather and Richie have a beautiful 8-year-old daughter together, Ava Elizabeth. Heather is asking for joint custody of their daughter and she has requested the judge honor the pre-nuptial agreement the two signed before they got married.

This will be Heather's second divorce from a rock star. She split with Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee in 1993 after seven years of marriage. Which long-haired rock star do you think is on her radar this time?