It’s bad news for her, but good news for the audience: Ashlee Simpson-Wentz will be moving away from Melrose Place as of January. Her and the hot chef guy have both been fired so the show can move in “a new direction”, whatever that means. The Sydney mystery will be wrapping up and new characters will be introduced for the back half of the season.

In a statement released to E!, Simpson-Wentz said “playing a creepy, unstable character was something I always wanted to do”; what that sentence says about her mental state, I’ll leave up to you to infer.

So with their weakest link gone and ratings ringer Heather Locklear scheduled to show up in the coming months, does Melrose Place actually stand a chance of making it to a second season? For the sake of the super adorable Michael Rady, I kind of hope so… did I really just say that?