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Paramount / 1997-1998 / 1146 Minutes / Unrated / Street Date: February 2, 2010
I continue to be mystified by Beverly Hills 90210, and I’m not exactly sure why. My BFF Fotutie and I are totally on the same page with popular music and celebrity gossip, and while I’m a de facto nut about most TV, some things simply pass me by. Fotutie, though, loves her 90210. I told the story in my review of The Sixth Season that once I was over at her place shooting the breeze with her beau (now husband!) Magglio, when suddenly she realized that there were a few episodes of the new 90210 series available to watch online. In mid-conversation, she calmly and professionally excused herself to her guest room, shut the door and watched her TV. She simply had to have it.
And while I completely understand her need to soak up as much as she possibly can when it comes to her beloved TV franchise, I've had to reach out to Fotutie for an appreciation of 90210 because (and I'll be blunt): I simply don’t get it. Perhaps it’s the kind of thing where "you had to be there,” watching weekly episodes or after-school syndication reruns in the mid- to late-90s to truly understand the pinned-jeans beauty of the show, but as an adult watching the show 10+ after its original broadcast, it just looks to me like a bunch of oddly-dressed snobs getting into trouble with each other at school, then later making out in an expensive car.
And even those who swoon at the thought of their perfectly-dressed buddies from their favorite California zip code will probably balk at this Ninth Season collection of episodes. Sure, Tori Spelling is still around as neighborhood ice queen Donna Martin, and we get a handful of glimmers of the Teen Beat sensation that is Dylan McKay (Luke Perry), but we say goodbye in this season to longtime 90210ers Jason Priestley and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen. So it goes without saying that while even this fairweather fan intends to tune in to figure out what happens to Steve (Ian Ziering) and Kelly (Jennie Garth), as the only major continuing cast members of the show, they can't keep the antics consistent on their own.
And come on - a Beverly Hills 90210 without Dylan was hard to stomach, but without neither Brandon (Priestley) nor Brenda (Shannen Doherty - absent since the show's fourth season)? No. I put my hands up in a Clueless-esque 'whatever' gesture.
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