Even throughout all of the basic soapiness of the storylines, Melrose Place still had a lot of sadness and heartbreak than one would expect.
- Kimberly's death, especially with her blanking out and collapsing and her mother's reaction. Even through all their faults, when Michael says goodbye, he begins to break down.
- Sydney's "death" also counts. Then there is Craig's reaction, even with his subsequent Wangsting, he was genuinely heartbroken over it and ended up killing himself over his grief.
- The end of Jo, Alison and Amanda's respective baby storylines; Jo is forced to give her son up to protect him from his father's parents, Alison is forced to terminate her pregnancy due to it endangering her health and the latter suffers a miscarriage twice. The second one of hers occurred during a fight between Kyle and Peter due to the former suspecting the latter of cheating with her. She tried to break it up, in the struggle she was knocked through a window and in addition to the miscarriage, it was learned that there was no affair and, most heartbreakingly, the child was Kyle's. This sent him into a downward spiral and the marriage eventually ended from his guilt and other issues. Made even worse how the episode is set to "You Do What You Have To Do" by Sarah McLachlan.
- Amanda's childhood was pretty sad, as seen in the "Holiday on Ice" episode, which has her visiting her past and reliving her single father walking out on her for a business trip on Christmas Eve. She is then seen consoling her childhood self as she's sobbing her heart out and trying to convince the girl that her father does love her/them.
- Adding onto this, her relationship with Jack Parezi was as sad as it was horrifying. When he landed in a coma after a nasty fall, she was recalling the past incidents of abuse, including times where he rammed her face into the bedpost for folding his socks wrong and she needed stitches or how he broke her hand for wearing the wrong dress, the latter which made her cry.
- During the time that she was still working as a prostitute and had become estranged from her family, Sydney soon found herself alone on Christmas with one of her johns, an older, wealthy man. While in his home, she was explaining to him her past, her relationship with her family, how much of the Black Sheep that she that she was and even wistfully hoping to make something of herself someday, which by then had driven her to tears. What's more, even as the client was primarily there for her service, he still provided a sympathetic ear to her and even went as far as to console her.
- After Amanda had realized, to her horror, that her abusive ex, Jack Parezi, had found her after she faked her death due to Brooke's interference, after telling Alison that she was demoted because of Brooke getting her promotion instead and that "old Amanda" was back after initially becoming much friendlier to her in the aftermath of the complex bombing that left her seriously injured, she then went on to say that it was worthless to try and to be nice to people because they'll eventually stab you in the back.
- Even throughout all of the mayhem that she caused at the time, Peter still took a special and genuine interest in Kimberly when she was committed to the mental institution over the protests of the others, especially Michael. We eventually find out why: his own younger, long-deceased sister went through a nearly identical experience while he could only helplessly stand by and see her go through this Hell. This also inspired him to become a doctor in the first place. Also when at one point Kimberly is receiving electroshock therapy, he is seen fighting back tears and then calmly but firmly orders them to stop the treatments.
- One episode in the latter half of season three had Alison making a sales pitch to a potential client, a cookie company owner, where she remarks that a woman is so crazy for the product that she jumps out of her high-rise apartment window and into the truck to have it. Instead of the client being glad or delighted by the idea, he instead glares at her in Stunned Silence and then chews her out for mocking his own mother's suicide when he was a child. A horrified Alison then apologizes to the man and rushes out of the room. As if that wasn't bad enough, the idea was given to her by Amanda and Brooke in an attempt to humiliate her and ruin her career (and who knew of the man's history). In addition to the cruel behavior towards the unsuspecting client, it's pretty sad how much the two women hated her to the point of painting her as some kind of an unprofessional and insensitive monster..
- Alison's whole life was this, but season four, however, amps up the heartbreak: she ends up temporarily blinded by Kimberly's bombing (even as not being an intended target), she's routinely bullied and manipulated by Amanda, Brooke and Billy. Things then look better for her when she falls for and marries Hayley Armstrong, but then he drowns on their honeymoon and he secretly divorces her in between the wedding and his death. Then as a last knife-twisting, a jealous Brooke, angry about her own failing marriage to Billy and their getting close again, trashes her apartment, even ripping up the only picture she had with Hayley.
- Matt saying goodbye to Nikki, the young daughter of his wife Katya, whom he married so she could stay in the United States. When she had to rush home to care for her sick mother in Russia, Nikki and Matt quickly bonded and he and the rest of the Melrose Place residents went out of their way to give her a great Christmas. When he soon got the call during the Christmas party that Nikki was to join her mother, he is naturally heartbroken and even though he promised the little girl not to cry at she left, he did anyway when Nikki came back before getting on the plane to tell him she loves him and will never forget him.
- Michael deciding, out of the blue, to annul his marriage to Kimberly in season three after falling for Amanda. Granted, Kimberly certainly was no angel before or after her car accident the season prior, but seeing her meltdown and desperate pleading and crying after Michael twists the knife over her inability to bear children due to the accident (that he caused, by the way), calling her coming Back from the Dead ridiculous, and claim that he did it all to gain her insurance and that he never loved her was difficult to watch.
