90210 Take Two
So, technically, I’m part of the Beverly Hills 90210 Generation. The Walsh Twins, Brenda and Brandon, joined the class at West Beverly High when I was still in High School, and our graduations happened at roughly the same time. You could even say we grew up together. Except when the show actually aired, I couldn’t have given two fucks about it. Sure, girls at my school had “I HATE BRENDA!” stickers on their binders, and the guys all tried to look like either Dylan or Brandon. But I was way too pretentious a wannabe hipster to watch some Fox teen soap. Especially one where every episode was ” A Very Special Episode” dealing in some cheesy and preachy way with some important issue, like date rape or suicide or drug abuse. And then usually that subject was dropped by next week’s episode, and everyone would hang out at the Peach Pit like nothing serious had happened the week before. Such TV “Drama” was the staple of mega producer Aaron Spelling, a man whose laundry list of television producing credits includes such iconic shows as Charlie’s Angels, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, TJ Hooker and dozens of other shows known more for their hair styles than their acting or writing. Beverly Hills 90210 was no different.
Of course, there were a few episodes I simply had to watch, for humor’s sake. I remember in one early episode, the 90210 gang go to an underground rave. Or at least, what the forty five year old writers and producers thought a rave was like. Jason Priestly’s Brandon is tricked into taking “Euphoria”, so named because apparently the producers were afraid the illegal manufacturers of Ecstasy might sue or something. As a fledgling club kid, the whole thing was so absurd and hilarious. Even more absurd and hilarious was when the girls camped out in front of a hotel where Color Me Badd was staying, as to be near their pop icons. Except no one ever really liked Color Me Badd that much, not even then. It was just obvious they couldn’t produce Boyz II Men for a guest stint. So on occasion, Beverly Hills 90210 was good for a laugh at it’s expense. But despite only watching a handful of episodes, and then just to mock them, 90210 was so huge and ingrained in the popular culture, that I could name all the main characters without having to think about it. Hell, to this day I can do the same thing, and that’s without Wikipedia. I know, it’s sad.
A side note that I can’t go without saying; I will always be grateful to 90210 for spawning the uber awesome and superior spin off Melrose Place. Although Melrose Place began as equally lame as 90210, but with a slightly older cast, dipping ratings quickly forced Fox to turn Melrose into a tongue in cheek, over the top soap starring Heather Locklear. And when that happened, the show became popular, and I became addicted. While the 90210 gang was busy dealing with peer pressure and frat parties, the denizens of 4616 Melrose Place were busy having cat fights in the swimming pool, running prostitution rings, planting bombs in the apartment complex, getting killed, and occasionally, actually coming back from the dead. Melrose Place was a cheestastic way to kill an hour, while 90210 always forced some moralizing down your throat. I always felt like Melrose knew exactly what it was, while 90210 still had illusions of being quality drama. I might have eventually warmed up to 90210 if Brenda and Kelly tried to kill each other at least once. Is that too much to ask?
Which brings us now to 90210, Version Two, which premiered last week to the biggest ratings yet for a show on the CW network ( Which, I realize, is not saying much) I’m not sure what possessed me to watch the premiere episode, but I never could resist a good train wreck. The episode opens with teen siblings Annie and Dixon, who just like twins Brenda and Brandon, move out to Beverly Hills with their folks from the Mid West somewhere. But wait! There’s a twist! Instead of twins like the Walshes or yore, Annie and her brother Dixon are not even real blood relations, as Dixon was adopted when he was eight. Dixon is even African American, proving just how different from Brenda and Brandon they are. Well, at least superficially. But everything else about this show is the same as the last, right on down to the trite characters and bad writing. We have the spoiled bad girl Naomi ( Anna Lynne McCord ), the “Rebel Outcast” Silver, ( Jessica Stroup ) the popular jock Ethan ( Dustin Milligan ) and assorted other stereotypes filled out by the regular assortment of hot twentysomethings playing teenagers.
Everything about this show screams cliche. It seems this show is stuck in the early 90’s, and no one thought to tell the producers that television has moved on. Teen shows have proven over the last decade that they don’t have to talk down or moralize to their audience. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, and even the first few seasons of Dawson’s Creek and Felicity showed you can write young people as real human beings without having to descend into ABC After School Special territory. 90210 is old school disposable teen entertainment, but I can’t help but wonder if today’s kids will see right through this and just go back to watching Gossip Girl.
In fact, the only people I know who are excited about this show are people my age, more excited about plotlines involving returning original 90210 alumni Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty as Kelly and Brenda. Especially since after being publicly fired from 90210 in it’s fourth season, Shannen Doherty could never be convinced to even guest star on any of the episodes in the following six seasons. I guess Aaron Spelling had to go and die before she’d come back. Ms. Doherty was the Lindsay Lohan of the 90’s, getting into fights at clubs and with fellow cast mates, showing up late for shooting and being a general on set diva. Although I don’t remember if she ever flashed her vag to paparazzi ala Lindsay. But if Perez Hilton had existed in the 90’s, Shannen Dohery would have been all over it. Her presence alone I suppose adds a potential disaster factor that makes this television to Tivo I guess. Jennie Garth’s character of Kelly Taylor is now a guidance counselor at her old high school ( Buffy totally pulled that trick first, by the way) and has a four year old child from a mysterious father who remains unnamed. Is it Dylan? Is it Brandon?? I think they are gonna wait to see which guest star comes cheaper.
In the end, I actually wish this show well, even though I won’t be watching it further. If it keeps the CW afloat as a network, that can only be a good thing. It’s always the smaller baby networks that always take chances on quirkier shows like Buffy and Veronica Mars, when the bigger networks won’t touch them.
OK, I’ll come clean; my real secret hope for the success of 90210 is that if it’s a hit, The CW will follow it up with a Melrose Place Redux. Heather Locklear may be pushing 50, but she still looks hot. Well, at least she does in all those L’Oreal commercials where they use really good filters. I could totally see her being a cougar on the prowl for young men in the old apartment complex, like a better looking Linda Hogan. Don’t laugh….you know you’d watch it.
