Sexpot Sells Grosse Pointe

When Grosse Pointe ingenue Lindsay Sloane sees starlets modeling tube tops and thongs in horndog monthlies like Maxim, she thinks that "it's not even a step up from Playboy," she tells TV Guide Online. Yet in the current issue of Stuff, there she is, wearing a blouse that's so sheer, she could catch pneumonia in Maui. What gives?

"I'll do anything to save our show," she explains, "and that's an audience that wouldn't know about it except if you do the men's magazines and they see you in revealing clothes."

Unfortunately, Sloane's desperate action is called for — these are desperate times for the stage-door Beverly Hills, 90210 parody that casts her in (essentially) the Tori Spelling role. Though critics reacted to the sitcom as orgasmically as Stuff subscribers do to the glossy's layouts, audiences avoided even the series's February season finale as if it was Shannen Doherty before she's had her morning latt&#233.

"The whole show doesn't revolve around making a TV show, but that might've been why we were losing some viewers — it was too confusing," Sloane theorizes. "Now it's like the characters happen to be on a TV show... like on Melrose Place, they just happened to live in the same apartment complex."

In the end, whether Tuesday's announcement of the WB's fall line-up lets down Sloane, she won't regret using her pompoms to cheerlead for Grosse Pointe. She'd do it again — and more. "I wish you could talk to Nielsen [ratings] box owners directly," she sighs. "'Please, watch us! Even if you don't, just turn on the box and leave the room!'"