Can lightning strike twice at 'Melrose Place'?

Melrose Place" is one of those good shows that not much of anybody is watching.

Now, we'll have to define "good" before we go any further with this. "Melrose Place" (Tuesdays, 8 p.m., CW/Ch. 30) isn't the kind of show that you're going to see on PBS or the Discovery Channel; it won't be winning any Emmys for outstanding drama.

Or for anything else.

But it is good, trashy fun. Which is what a soap opera is supposed to be.

The new "Melrose Place" is a sequel to the original, which ran from 1992-99 on Fox. And, judging the new one against the old one, this version is off to a much stronger start.

The original "Melrose" was remarkably dull when it premiered. It was about a group of nice young people who lived in an apartment building off Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.

And shows about nice young people are, well, dull. Without conflict, you've got, well, not much.

The new "Melrose Place" learned from the mistakes of the original. The sequel started with a murder, and the new residents of that refurbished apartment complex are not such nice young people.

Hey, one of them is (probably) a murderer!

Publicist Ella Simms (Katie Cassidy) is a deliciously bad girl, and bad boy/thief David Breck (Shaun Sipos) has his moments.

What's most surprising about the revival is how well it has handled the integration of several original characters. It made sense to have Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton) as the landlady/murder victim; the show even provided a believable-in-a-soap-opera-world explanation for how Sydney could have died in the original series and yet be alive — briefly — in the new show.

It makes sense to have Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro) back as a semi-regular — he's David's father. And return appearances by Josie Bissett (as Jane Andrews Mancini) and Daphne Zuniga (as Jo Reynolds) were seamless parts of the plot.

So why is "Melrose Place" doing so poorly in the ratings?

It's not like there haven't been missteps. And not just the horrid plot line in which Lauren Yung (Stephanie Jacobsen) is paying for medical school by working as a high-priced prostitute.

Gag!

Casting Ashlee Simpson-Wentz as wacko Violet Foster has proved a huge mistake. If for no other reason than the simple fact that Simpson-Wentz can't act — and she's unintentionally hilarious when she tries.

The biggest problem might just be that it's hard to get noticed when you're on The CW and you don't have any vampires in your show.

So what better way than to try to do what the original "Melrose Place" did — turn to Heather Locklear for help.