The executive producers said that Ashlee Simpson and Colin Egglesfield knew the plan since the beginning of the season and took the news like professionals.
- Oct 23, 2009
AceShowbiz - With the good news comes the bad news. Ashlee Simpson and Colin Egglesfield will be let go from "Melrose Place" after a January episode, something which is announced right after the show received a five additional episodes order. In an interview with EW, exec producers Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer explained the exit and revealed that it had been their plan all along.
One thing that contributes in the characters cut is the "Who murdered Sydney?" storyline. The killer will be revealed in a December episode and after that, there's not much left for Simpson's Violet and Egglesfield's Augie. "Well, we always knew that this murder mystery would end in episode 12. And we always knew that character of Violet would be instrumental in that as a suspect, and Augie 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 explained.
Slavkin denied though that letting go the two characters is due to the struggling rating. "Well, I understand that perspective," he said. "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."
Rest assured, the return of Heather Locklear as Amanda Woodward will be their focus this time around. "A long time," Slavkin said about how long she'll be on the show. "She's in every episode moving forward. She's a major focus [of the show]. She has a hidden agenda that will become not so hidden as the episodes move along. She's not just the boss of Ella."
In fact The CW has started airing the TV spot that promotes the comeback.
