The ‘Melrose Place’ explosion turns 30 this month. Why its still pop culture gold

In the spring of 1995 I was too old for summer camp yet too young to be (legally) employed at a crappy seasonal job. I knew I would likely be spending those hot months hanging out at my aunt and uncle's pool with my nose buried in horror novels, mostly of the R.L. Stine and Dean Koontz oeuvre. 

At this point in my adolescence, I didn’t fit the mold of the rest of my peers. While they were shooting hoops at the park or riding their bikes throughout the neighborhood, I was absorbing the editorial content and schedules in TV Guide, noting the listings of slasher movies I could record on the family VCR.

And while my classmates obsessed over the teen shenanigans of Beverly Hills, 90210, I found more compelling entertainment in what I thought was more mature fare like David E. Kelley’s Picket Fe...