Commentary : TV SO BAD, IT’S GOOD

Can anyone tell me what’s been happening on “Grace Under Fire”?

I haven’t been watching.

I’m actually a little embarrassed about it because I did, after all, call the ABC sitcom one of the best new shows of the season--something I still firmly believe, based on the, uh, two episodes I’ve seen so far.

And, I must confess, the reason I haven’t been tuning in to a show a lot of other people are watching (it’s one of the the highest rated new shows of the season) is, well...

I’ve been watching junk.

Fox Broadcasting’s “Melrose Place” to be specific.

Scoff if you like, but “Melrose Place” is a special kind of television show.

It’s junk.

But it’s well-made junk.

Sure, when the show made its debut last year amid a torrent of twentysomething dramas from Spelling Television (remember “The Heights”?) “Melrose Place” was little more than run-of-the-mill trash, a quick-and-dirty soap-opera spinoff of “Beverly Hills, 90210.”

But this year, “Melrose Place” has sunk so low, become so cheesy, so indiscriminate in its character development, plot lines and, most of all, on-air sexual couplings, it’s gained not only my loyalty and love, but my respect.

It isn’t easy being bad, you know. Not as bad as “Melrose Place” gets, anyhow.

It’s an art form, really one in which viewers set their sights as low as possible in the hopes that the show will stoop even lower. A dirty but badly kept little secret--a television affair of, well, certainly not the heart ...

In case you’ve been otherwise engaged in intellectual pursuits, however, let me tell you what you’ve been missing.

“Melrose Place” is a fictional little apartment complex in Los Angeles (somewhere off trendy Melrose Avenue), where a collection of young, beautiful and sexually hyperactive characters live, love, give in to temptation, fall into life’s obvious traps and generally massage their fragile egos.

I can still recall how two of the show’s stars--Grant Show and Courtney Thorne-Smith assured me during a visit to the set last year that this show wasn’t going to be just about sex and good-looking people, how it was going to address some issues.

I also remember being slightly disappointed by the news.

This season, the sleaze content on “Melrose Place” has reached epic proportions and I couldn’t be happier about it.

“Melrose Place” may not be a “Dynasty” yet, but it does have “Dynasty” producer Aaron Spelling working behind the scenes. He’s boss to creator/executive producer Darren Star. And more important, “Melrose Place” now has Heather Locklear--who played “Dynasty” tramp Sammy Jo--in a similar starring role.

Locklear, a.k.a. Amanda Woodward, moved into “Melrose Place” near the end of last season as a love interest meant to temporarily threaten Alison for the love of Billy Campbell (jock-hunk Andrew Shue) and, with luck, spice up the show.

Amanda worked quickly, both on screen and in the ratings, and has since moved on to an affair with Jake as well as taking over control of the apartment building.

But that wasn’t the only change.

The producers sent two feeble cast members--Vanessa Williams and Amy Locane--packing, broke up the happy home of Jane and Michael Mancini (Josie Bissett and Thomas Calabro), married off the show’s lone gay character, Matt Fielding (Doug Savant), to an immigrant with child looking for residency, and brought on several new faces and bodies for viewers to ogle.

Everything and everybody on the show has become so ridiculous, so out of control, so out-of-whack from one week to the next, I find myself laughing out loud and talking to the screen-a sure sign I’m hooked.

Most of all, it’s so nice to see a show so desperate to get my attention, so willing to do absolutely anything to win me over.

So I guess the only thing left to say is, “Take me, ‘Melrose Place,’ I’m yours.”