One of this fall's new sitcoms features a character from Utah.
A fictional character, that is.In "The Crew," a Fox comedy about four flight attendants, Kristin Bauer stars as Maggie Reynolds, described in the press materials as a young woman beginning to question "her own ultraconservative Salt Lake City upbringing."
In the show's pilot episode, the character demonstrates her questioning by flashing the neighbors - a scene that may or may not be cut out of the episode before it airs this fall.
While, to many, a character from Salt Lake City who had an ultraconservative upbringing might signify a member of a particular church, the creators/executive producers said that was not the case.
"No, I don't want to," said Jamie Wooten. "We actually didn't. We just thought of it as a conservative place."
Wooten and his partner, Marc Cherry, look upon giving the character a Utah background as a sort of "shorthand" to quickly convey that conservative upbringing.
"What we wanted to do was reflect some of what Marc and I went through back when we were teenagers through the character of Maggie," Wooten said. "And we thought that the only way to get anybody to buy it these days is maybe placing her back history somewhere like Salt Lake City. We thought of lots of places.
"It's not essentially a conservative character, but a character who comes from a conservative place," said Cherry, who added that he grew up in Southern California's very conservative Orange County.
"It's what you experience as you kind of venture out from behind the Orange Curtain, as we like to call it, wherever you come from. The changes and growth," he said. "All of these characters, you're going to find, are escaping, in a manner of speaking, from very dif-ferent backgrounds. . . . For us, Salt Lake City was just an interesting choice that we hadn't seen other TV series do before.
"And, also, you can believe that a young girl growing up there was probably in a group like Up With People or something and had a very staunch, conservative background."
Well, there's no arguing with that logic.
But the choice of Salt Lake City as Maggie's hometown had a more specific reason than just the conservatism on Utah. It also had to do with one of Utah's most recognizable exports - an Osmond.
"We wanted to get Donny Osmond on in a cameo as a passenger on the plane," Wooten said. "This thing where (Maggie) and Paul have this crush on Donny Osmond, and they're fighting over him. Actually, that's how we came up with Salt Lake City. A story dictated it."
Paul, by the way, is a gay flight attendant played by David Burke.
And, as of yet, Osmond hasn't actually agreed to do the episode.
HEATHER IS STAYING: In recent weeks there have been reports in the tabloid press that Heather Locklear was going to leave the hit Fox show "Melrose Place." That her character would suffer a recurrence of cancer and die.
Not true. She has signed a long-term contract to remain on the show, according to Fox Entertainment President John Matoian.
"It's for a full two seasons," he said. "And it is a signed, sealed and delivered deal. So Heather is coming back. And happy to be back. She was never considering not com-ing back."
Matoian said he was at a loss to explain where the reports of Lock-lear's impending departure originated.
"It was all some sort of strange rumor that went around that she was not coming back. But she has signed," he said.
Locklear originally came to the show in the middle of its first season in what was supposed to be a short-term role. But her arrival perked up the plots and the ratings, and she's been the centerpiece of the prime-time soap ever since.
LUKE IS STAYING. SORT OF: There have also been widespread reports that Luke Perry's character, Dylan McKay, is going to be killed soon after "Beverly Hills, 90210" begins its sixth season in the fall.
Another false report. But just how long Perry will stick around the ol' ZIP code is a matter for speculation.
"It is not true that Luke Perry is being killed off early in the season," Matoian said. "Luke has agreed to do 10 episodes minimum. He also has had informal conversations with us about the possibility of continuing (beyond that). He does want to pursue a feature career."
Perry just finished shooting a theatrical movie, his second starring role. (His first, "Six Seconds," was not a box-office success.) So, apparently, if his movie career takes off he won't spend much more time on "90210," but if it doesn't, he might spend a good deal of time there.
If Perry does leave, he'll be the only one of the remaining core cast who does. (Gabrielle Carteris and Mark Damon Espinoza were written out at the end of last season.)
"Every other cast member has signed a long-term agreement," Matoian said. "Every single other cast member is locked for the rest of the show."
LONG SEASONS: Fans of "Melrose" and "90210" have a lot to look forward to next season. Literally.
Fox has ordered a whopping 35 episodes of "Melrose Place" and 32 episodes of "Beverly Hills, 90210" for the 1995-96 season. The normal full-season order for a network series is 22 episodes.
The reason? Prime-time soap operas do tremendously bad ratings in reruns.
The big orders are a bit of unusual strategy, however, because networks normally pay a set fee for two runs of each episode of a series - the first broadcast and a repeat. Two runs from each episode gives the networks a chance to spread their costs out.
But with 32 or 35 episodes in a season, that obviously won't be possible.
"It does have a financial impact," Matoian said. "However, again, the failure of these shows in repeat also has a negative financial impact. . . . So the trade-off is actually better for us."
"MELROSE" DECISION TO COME: You may recall that events in Oklahoma City changed the season-ending cliffhanger on "Melrose Place" in May.
Some weeks before the real bombing, "Melrose" had filmed a bombing that involved most of the major characters. That episode was edited so that it ended with the crazed Kimberly pushing the button - but before any explosion.
According to Matoian, there will indeed be an explosion. But whether it will be seen on TV has yet to be determined.
"The script actually picks up after the bombing has taken place, so there will have been a bombing," he said. "Whether or not we show it is a decision we will make next week."