The Men Who Made 2009

At the end of 2008, I made a list of some of the hottest guys that I'd become aware of during those twelve months. I can't quite believe an entire year has gone by since then, but it's time once again to ponder which hunks caught my attention the most this year. These are guys who I became aware of either for the first time in 2009 or who began to appeal to me in a whole new way.

If you've been following my blog at all this year, I don't think there will be many surprises in store for you with this list. So, in no particular order, let's take a look at my top five 'new' hunks of 2009! (Many of the pics are borrowed from Superherofan)

Last year, I opened with an actor from One Life to Live (Mark Lawson, who made this year pretty damn hot, too!) so I guess I should continue that tradition. The first guy who came to my attention in a major way this past year is Scott Evans, the openly gay actor who plays the newly out cop Oliver Fish on the show. I have to say that while the Evans boys are both incredibly hot, I'd pick Scott over his brother Chris any day of the week. Here's a look at why:

Not surprisingly, my second pick is also from One Life to Live and happens to be the other half of Kish. Brett Claywell wasn't even on my radar at this time last year, but he's completely won me over with his portrayal of shades of gray Kyle and his onscreen chemistry with Scott.
Moving away from daytime, there was one guy who really came out of nowhere and made me pay a lot of attention this year. In fact, he got me to do something I'd never have believed I'd do: watch almost an entire season of American Idol! It's odd to think that at this time last year I'd never even heard the name Adam Lambert. Today he's one of my favorite singers and definitely a trailblazer as an openly gay musical artist.
My next pick is someone else associated with music and with the Fox network: Glee's Mark Salling. I already thought Matthew Morrison was incredibly sexy before I ever saw the show but the true surprise out of the cast was Mark, who had me drooling over his bad boy character Puck week after week.
Finally, a guy who I was well aware of before this year, but who I came to appreciate in a new way in 2009: Michael Rady. I first saw him towards the end of last year when he began his run on Greek and while I found him to be completely adorkable on that show and really liked him, it wasn't until this fall, when I saw him on the new Melrose Place, that I came to appreciate just how hot he truly is! The last picture isn't from Melrose, sadly, but from Sleeper Cell, where he played a gay character.
There we have it, the men who made 2009. Bring on the men of 2010!

Not Quite Like Old Times...Yet!

I haven't written all that much in the past few weeks on the new Melrose Place, so I thought I'd do that tonight, since I'm still overwhelmingly behind on Kish and Nuke (two weeks worth still to watch, with a third week starting tomorrow!).

Let's start with the gay character, Caleb. He really hasn't really been on very much so far. We see him in one or maybe two scenes a week, at the office with Ella. Honestly, there isn't much to say about him at this point, other than that Victor Webster is still as smoking hot as he was when I first saw him on Days of Our Lives back in the day.

Maybe in the coming weeks, we'll learn more about Caleb, but right now he's not exactly a leading character on the show. In fact, he's far less of one than Matt Fielding was at the start of the original series.

As for the other characters, the show for me is still primarily about two of them: Ella and Jonah. Not only are they the most watchable and interesting of all the characters, but Katie Cassidy and Michael Rady are so far the only actors on the show who seem to be completely comfortable with their characters in every scene (other than Thomas Calabro, of course, who had the whole run of the original series to get into Michael Mancini's head).

Honestly, the two of them (and some nice eye candy) are what keep me tuning in so far. I'm hoping that we'll be building up to some great campy, over the top moments as the show progresses, moments like those that the original Melrose was famous for. With Heather Locklear returning as Amanda in the near future, things could be looking up. In fact, the only non-Jonah and/or Ella moment that I've really been excited by so far was when David found files on his father's hard drive labeled Jane, Jo, Alison, and Amanda, after the original series characters.

The rest of the cast I can take or leave at the moment, for the most part. David is growing on me a little with each passing week, while Riley seems to be an incredibly dull character. Lauren, meanwhile, is caught up in a story that I feel we've seen plenty of already and should retire forever: the struggling fill in the blank (in this case, med student) who becomes a prostitute to make ends meet.

Didn't we see this story in the first series, in fact? My memory of which character it was is hazy, but I do remember that Kristian Alfonso, who plays Hope Williams Brady on Days of Our Lives, played a Hollywood madame on the original show in that storyline.

The worst of the bunch so far are Auggie and Violet. Colin Egglesfield is an incredibly gorgeous man, but his acting hasn't improved in the slightest since his stint as Erica Kane's suddenly no longer aborted son on All My Children. Still, as long as they have him stripping down as often as possible, I won't complain too much.

As for Ashlee Simpson-Wentz... well, I'm praying that Violet really did murder Syndey and will be exiting the show in a body bag after a standoff with the cops, if that gives you any clue as to my opinion.

The return of original series character Jane Andrews this past week was a mixed bag. I will always welcome any connection with the original show, but Jane spent half her time on the first series as a rather boring doormat and then suddenly went over the top crazy before being written out.

Her return this week gave us a Jane who was bitchy for no real reason, a blackmailer, and completely cold towards someone who may or may not be her only living relative. Jane now owns the apartment building so we'll probably be seeing more of her, but even so, I was sad that they didn't put her in any scenes with her ex husband, Michael, in her return episode.

Most new shows need time (which they rarely get these days) to figure out what's working and what isn't. The first series wrote off a few of the original characters who were proving to be dead weight early on, and if this show gets a chance to continue, I'm sure they will, too.

In the meantime, there are always moments like this (borrowed from Superherofan):
And, yes, even like this:

Thoughts on the New Melrose Place

The new Melrose Place debuted tonight on The CW. I'd been looking forward to it ever since I heard that Thomas Calabro and Laura Leighton would be reprising their roles as Michael and Sydney from the original series.

Early in the summer, I stumbled across a spoiler that Sydney would actually be killed off in the first episode and my excitement was dampened. I still wanted to check out the show, however, especially when they hired the completely sexy and adorable Michael Rady as a regular cast member and then further announced that the hunky Victor Webster would be playing a gay character.

Still, I honestly didn't have high expectations for the show, given my recent dislike of similar fare like Gossip Girl and 90210. Still, those are teen shows and this is a 20 something show. Maybe that would make all the difference?

After spending an hour watching the premiere episode, my feelings are mixed. For the most part, I didn't think it was very well put together. There was just too much going on and most of the interactions between characters felt forced.

Sydney was indeed killed off at the start of the episode, and even though her tenants found her body and later held a poolside memorial service for her, it didn't seem like any of them actually cared at all. They each treated her brutal murder as an afterthought in a busy day, paying a bit of lip service to how shocked they were and then moving on. Even her brief memorial turned into an engagement celebration for two other characters.

I think it would have been a better idea to spend a few episodes establishing Sydney in these characters lives, but the show clearly wanted to start off with a murder mystery, even if they didn't seem to have much room in the episode for what should have been the major event. At the very least, they could have ended the episode with the murder.

I wasn't overly impressed with most of the acting, either, particularly from the male cast members (with the one shining exception of Michael Rady, of course), but they certainly do bring the sexy. I just wish they brought the talent, too.

With that said, there were some good aspects to the episode. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't felt a rush of nostalgia wash over me when we first saw the old apartment complex after so many years! I felt like a kid all over again. That alone made me want to love this show.

Now, I know that I'm biased, given that I was already a fan of Rady's from his role on Greek, but his character, Jonah, was one of only two who really stood out for me tonight as someone I'd be interested in seeing from week to week. Jonah, the adorkable videographer, was sweet and sexy and his story, in which he proposed to his girlfriend of five years and she wanted time to think it over, was the only one I really cared anything about tonight.

The other standout for me was the bitchy publicist Ella (a bisexual character), played by Katie Cassidy. While most of the other roles seemed to have a long way to go before they even begin to feel like full fledged characters, Cassidy really brought something to her role that made Ella seem human and vulnerable beneath her carefully crafted professional persona. There's already something to Ella and to Jonah that is so far lacking in the rest of the younger cast members.

Ella was clearly troubled by Jonah's engagement, but whether that's because she has feelings for him or for his fiancee, Riley, remains to be seen. The best part is, Katie Cassidy (whom I also liked in this summer's murder mystery show Harper's Island) makes me want to tune in again to see which one Ella likes.

Victor Webster's gay character wasn't on tonight, so we'll have to wait to see what develops with him.

It was also good to see Thomas Calabro as Dr. Michael Mancini again. 17 years have passed since the first Melrose Place started and the man still looks damn good! One of the male characters is Michael's son, so hopefully that means we'll be seeing a lot more of the devious doctor than we did of poor Sydney.

Two other cast members from the original series, Josie Bissette (who played Jane) and Daphne Zuniga (who played Jo) are going to be putting in appearances at some point, and I'm looking forward to that, even though neither of their characters were particular favorites of mine.

It's only a matter of time, I'm sure, before Heather Locklear returns as Amanda Woodward. She was smart to avoid returning at the beginning (they'd planned to kick off the show with Amanda's murder, which would have been practically sacrilegious, not to mention a stupid move; Sydney was their second choice), but I'm hoping it won't be long before she graces the complex once again.

Overall, I didn't care much for the first episode, except for the few bright spots I mentioned, but I'll keep watching for awhile, in hopes that it will get better and also to see how the original characters continue to fit in with the new show.

A Gay Character for the New Melrose Place

I wrote a few months back about how much I was anticipating the upcoming revival of the 90's prime time soap Melrose Place, mostly because of the return of Laura Leighton as Sydney Andrews and Thomas Calabro as Michael Mancini.

In the time since then, someone on a message board neglected to spoiler a major plot twist and I accidentally read something regarding the character of Sydney that has made me feel like I'd be enjoying the show less than I'd hoped. If you enjoy knowing plot twists in advance and you haven't heard about this one yet, you can read about it here. Me, I like to be surprised, but the Internet can make that very difficult at times.

I'll still be checking out the show, of course, and I haven't given up hope that it will prove to be as much fun as the original show was.

The new cast includes some attractive guys, including the adorable Michael Rady, whom I loved as Max on Greek, and now comes word that there will indeed be a gay character on the updated version of the show. EW's Michael Ausiello has revealed that the show is casting a character named Caleb, who will be "an extremely masculine gay publicist".

AfterElton has some tongue in cheek suggestions about who to cast in this oh so masculine role (and I am a bit put off that the show chose to emphasize the character as masculine, as if being gay automatically precludes that!), but mostly I'm just hoping that whoever gets the part will have more of a love life to play than poor Matt ever did as the token gay character in the original series.