Starting tonight, Heather Locklear reprises her role as the iconic bad girl on CW’s remake of Melrose Place (9 ET/PT). And as a PR firm partner, she’s ready to school junior publicist Ella Simms (Katie Cassidy) on the rules of the road.

Though both actresses say they’re not real-life vixens (they prefer slippers to stilettos), give them a short skirt and throw in a couple of ice-cold lines, and the pair embodies the femme fatale. Here Locklear and Cassidy reveal their rules of workplace etiquette, vixen-style.

Skirts should always be at least 6 inches above the knee. For heels, the higher, the better.

You’ll almost never see Cassidy’s or Locklear’s characters wearing something that isn’t expensive or sexy.

“I think she wears things that are very sophisticated, yet empowering. And these high, high heels. It’s much more intimidating that way,” Cassidy says.

But, Locklear warns, she has to be careful.

“The problem is when you go up the stairs, it’s like, ‘OK, who’s wearing short dresses and big honking platforms?’ If I fall, I’ll look stupid,” she says, with a laugh. “But Amanda is confident. She knows how to walk.”

Make sure to sweep everything off the desk before throwing a man on it.

Woodward and Simms vamp it up. With Locklear’s return, the series will be packed with more cutthroat, ruthless shenanigans.

“Heather is going to shake things up a bit,” Cassidy says. “You definitely see a different side of Ella when she’s around Amanda, which is going to be fun. It’s so pleasant to watch her. She’s so good and she’s so funny and so charming, and there’s so much charisma about her when she’s on screen.”

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

So what will happen when you get two strong female characters dressed to the nines and out for themselves on the same show? Stay tuned, Locklear teases.

“I have read some stuff that people want to see Katie and I fight,” she says, laughing.

“People like to see women fight. Like in the pool. A good catfight. We may get into a pool or two.”

Never underestimate the power of blackmail.

Cassidy, who is the daughter of actor and singer David Cassidy and model Sherry Benedon, has been living on the outskirts of Hollywood and says she’s encountered a few not-so-nice people. That background is where she draws inspiration for her own naughty character, a sexually adventurous, tough-as-nails career girl.

“There’s a way Ella goes about things that I most certainly do in my personal life. She’s very driven, and I think of myself as a very driven person,” Cassidy says. “She won’t take no for an answer. But I would never do some of the things that she does!”

Always carry a purse-size makeup mirror. It’s easier to see who’s trying to stab you in the back.

So is Woodward where Locklear hoped her character would be in 2009?

The jury is still out, says Locklear.

“I was hoping Amanda would be like myself: much more relaxed. I was like, ‘Oh my God, did she learn anything?’ No, she didn’t,” she says with a giggle. “It’s not the same writers, so they’ve written her a little different. Hopefully we’ll find a medium ground to her. I don’t want her to be bitter.”

Source: USA Today

Also, don’t forget to watch the second episode of Melrose Place tonight on the CW!

“For the most part, this cast has no connection to the other one,” Laura Leighton, who’s reprising her role as the scandalous Sydney Andrews, admits in the fall TV preview issue of Entertainment Weekly. “They never miss any opportunity to tell me that they weren’t even old enough to watch the original show. Katie [Cassidy, sitting above] turned to me the other day and said, ‘So were you, like, on the old one?’ I have to keep my sense of humor intact because it’s been a series of humiliations, really.”

Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, who turns 25 in October, admits she was too young to catch it the first time around, too. “I never really watched shows like this until I was pregnant,” says the singer-actress. “But they’re so much fun — they’re part of American culture.”

Source: NY Daily News

Katie Cassidy, Melrose Place
David Cassidy’s daughter will ditch Harper’s Island and her brunette locks for sun-kissed California blonde on Melrose Place. The actress, Supernatural’s original Ruby, plays Ella Simms, a ruthless publicist who’s looking to be MP 2.0’s Amanda Woodward.

The show airs at 9PM, right after 90210 – check your local listings!

And be sure to return again tomorrow for screencaptures of the pilot!

When the CW’s 2009-2010 season debuts next week, there will be no comedies on the agenda, no grown-up outsiders on Sundays, and no grubby guys anywhere. From the returning “Gossip Girl” and “America’s Next Top Model” to the debuts of “The Beautiful Life, “The Vampire Diaries” and the “Melrose Place” remake, the network’s prime-time schedule is all pretty young people all the time.

Since the UPN and WB networks merged to form the CW in 2006, the CW has targeted women 18 to 34. But the demographic success of “Gossip Girl,” “One Tree Hill” and “90210” has made the network as focused as a fashionista at the Barneys warehouse sale.

Unlike years past, when the female-centric network still made room for the urban comedies “Everybody Hates Chris” and “The Game,” the slacker demon-hunters of “Reaper,” and the bulging warriors of “WWE Smackdown,” this season’s schedule is the CW’s most slimmed-down and glammed-up yet.

So what’s up with the CW and its hunks and models? The same thing that’s up with CBS and its procedurals and laugh-track sitcoms. And ABC and its upscale soaps and serials. And Bravo and its Lifestyles of the Rich and/or Crazy reality shows.

It took a while for everything to gel, but with “Gossip Girl,” “Top Model” and “90210,” the CW has found the programming formula that suits its chosen demographic. Unlike the floundering NBC, which has yet to find its post Must-See-TV identity, the CW knows who it is now. And it is picking its TV shows accordingly.

Last season, the CW was the No. 1 network for women 18 to 34 on Monday nights, so it’s no surprise that the evening will once again belong to the Upper East Side adventures of “Gossip Girl” and the steamy dramatics of “One Tree Hill.” This year, the shows are flipping time slots, with “One Tree Hill” airing at 8 p.m. and “Gossip Girl” moving to 9 p.m.

On Tuesdays, “90210” returns for a second rich-kid season, followed by the new remake of the classic ’90s soaper “Melrose Place.”

The updated “Melrose Place” takes the slot previously occupied by “Reaper” (which had the nerve to focus on scruffy guys and a middle-aged Satan) and “Privileged,” a warmhearted “Gilmore Girls”-style dramedy that the network dropped after one ratings-challenged season.

Wednesdays bring the 13th installment of the mighty “America’s Next Top Model” reality show, which leads into “The Beautiful Life,” a new drama set in the glittery world of New York supermodels.

Thursday is hunky thriller night, beginning with the debut of “The Vampire Diaries” (hot guys who are vampires!) followed by the fifth season of “Supernatural” (hot guys who kill vampires!)

After the CW dropped the popular but demographically incorrect “WWE Smackdown” in 2008, the network moved the struggling sitcoms “Everybody Hates Chris” and “The Game” to Friday nights. They didn’t flourish there, either, so the CW canceled both shows and turned Fridays over to the dependable “Smallville” (relocated from Thursdays) and a re-airing of “Top Model.”

(Fans of “Everybody Hates Chris” will be happy to know that Nick at Night begins airing reruns on Monday.)

And after last year’s disastrous experiment with outsourcing Sunday programming to oddball dramas produced by an independent production company, the CW gave Sunday nights to its local affiliates. Beginning Sept. 27, San Diego’s XETV/Channel 6 will air the viral-video show “Smash Cuts” at 8 p.m., followed by the locally produced “All Access Karaoke” at 9 p.m.

Like its fellow networks, the CW continued to lose viewers to cable and other entertainment mediums. According to TV Week, the CW saw an 18 percent drop in its total audience in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with 2007.

The news isn’t all bad, however, because the network’s narrow-casting has pumped up its ratings where they matter most. The CW reports that Monday through Friday ratings for women 18 to 34 were up by 26 percent last season. Ratings for all adults in that demographic increased by 13 percent.

Even the 6-year-old “One Tree Hill” and the chronically underappreciated “Supernatural” (both holdovers from the WB network) saw their 18-to-34 ratings increase last year.

With its lockstep parade of youth-brigade shows, the CW’s new fall lineup would look awfully familiar even if it didn’t feature two remakes. But as much as I miss 2007’s endearing “Aliens in America” and the shaggy “Reaper,” it’s hard to blame the network for trading shows its viewers had no interest in watching for shows that could have them watching, texting and downloading from iTunes.

Pretty is as pretty does, and if these new shows do the trick, this underdog network could have a pretty great year.

Source: Sign on San Diego