The new “Melrose Place” is losing two of its tenants already. Actors Ashlee Simpson-Wentz and Colin Egglesfield will be leaving the new version of the 90s trash TV favourite just twelve episodes into its first season, despite early publicity having given the impression that Simpson-Wentz in particular was primed to be the series’ primary star.
The show’s producers, however, insist that the exits were planned all along, despite many fans suspecting they are an attempt to shake up a show that is so far spectacularly failing to match its predecessors rating success. “We always knew that this murder mystery would end in episode 12,” insisted Todd Slavking, the soap’s executive producer, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, “and we always knew that that (the) character of Violet (played by Simpson-Wentz) would be instrumental in that as a suspect, and Augie (Egglesfield) as well. And once that murder mystery was solved, she would go on her way. That was the original plan going into the development of the show.”
Slavkin denies that poor ratings have anything to do with the cast culls. “Well, I understand that perspective,” Slavkin admitted, “(but) none of us foresaw the ratings; there’s nothing we can do about that. All we can do is write and produce the best show we know how. It’s fine to speculate, but in the end there was always a plan.” Slavkin notes also that because the actors “knew ahead of time”, their exits were therefore not “a complete shock… They’re total professionals, and they took it like professionals.”
