Television has been good to Aaron Spelling.
He lives in a house so huge it can accommodate Winnetka. It has 123 rooms, an ice rink, a bowling alley and a museum housing a prized doll collection. The driveway is longer than most city blocks.
Even by Beverly Hills standards, the Spelling estate is a bit over the top, which helps explain the polite grief he gets from neighbors who consider the structure something of a monstrous eyesore.
But tourists flock to it like the Grand Canyon, so Spelling doesn’t mind. He’s even been known to step out and wave to cruising tourist buses and vans.
“Why in heavens not?” Spelling asks by phone. “Heck, those are the people who put me here.”
Spelling laughs, but he’s hardly kidding. You don’t survive in this business as long as he has and not know who your audience is-or how to reach them. If the longtime producer were to give advice, it would be: Pay attention to the wants of the camera-carrying people who pop out of the little vans.
Not neighbors who gripe. Not critics who moan.
“I say this all the time,” he says. “Give people what they want and they’ll respond in kind.”
Just off the Spelling assembly line, but I’m afraid not greeted by words of a kind nature, is “Models, Inc.,” a one-hour drama airing its fourth episode at 8 p.m. Wednesday on Fox-Ch.32.
Much like other shows from the Spelling warehouse, “Models, Inc.” offers a titillating entertainment formula of ageless pretty people, glitz and romantic plots allergic to emotional depth.
“Models, Inc.” is a spinoff of “Melrose Place,” and so far stands out as its superficial cousin, if that’s possible.
The new series revolves around Models, Inc., a small but apparently powerful modeling agency based in Los Angeles. In the opening episode, Linda Gray pressured a top model, who wanted to quit, to stay with the agency. The woman ended up taking a swan dive off a tall building.
This isn’t to suggest that Models, Inc., is a mob-influenced operation that employs strong-arm tactics. But the message is clear: modeling can be a lucrative-but perilous-business.
Despite a heavy round of backstabbing and bedhopping, the prime-time soap so far has been a self-satisfied snooze, void of the kind of melodrama, sex, sly wickedness and crafty character creation that made “Melrose Place” so addictive.
Viewers are being asked to relate to a group of boring people. David (Brian Gaskill), Models, Inc., vice president, is the owner’s son and a spoiled momma’s boy; Linda (Teresa Hill) is clingy and insecure; Sarah (Cassidy Rae) is sweet, naive and annoying; Teri (Stephanie Romanov) is the resident vamp. The list goes on.
The problem is that the creators have assembled a computer printout cast of characters: you don’t like them; you don’t hate them. You ignore them.
Spelling talks a lot about giving his audience exactly what they want-even need. He claims there’s a place for escapist fare.
“What would TV be like if everything was all harsh and realistic?” Spelling says. “We get enough of that on the evening news, for God’s sake.”
He’s right, of course, but while Spelling has produced some fine dramas (the “Family” series and the AIDS drama, “And The Band Played On”), he’ll forever be linked to such mindless, disposable television as “Charlie’s Angels.”
As for “Models, Inc.,” remember that “Melrose Place” first seemed like the most disposable piece of fluff imaginable. Then storylines became steamier; characters experienced radical overhauls and cast changes were made. (Garcelle Beauvais joins “Models” next week as “a brainy Princeton grad,” the show’s first African-American cast member.)
So who knows. Besides, “Models, Inc.” has made the top 35 among Nielsen shows every week since its premiere.
Spelling, the master of public tastes, can’t imagine what’s more telling than that.
– Soon we’ll see more of the Spelling style as the producer, now 71, tries his hand at first-run syndication. The Spelling Premiere Network could have as many as five series spread among Fox, CBS and NBC this fall.
“Heaven Help Us” is about a young newlywed couple killed in a plane crash. They return to Earth having to earn their wings by helping the still-living.
“Robin’s Hoods” is about a retired district attorney who solves crimes with the help of five young and attractive ex-cons.
Spelling’s “Madman of the People,” starring Dabney Coleman, is on NBC. He’s also retooling “Burke’s Law” for CBS.
