Anyone watch 90210 last night? Apparently, it WAS the most buzzed about show of this season, and that's not just because our promos said it was. The general consensus around work is...we didn't completely hate it! Of course, going into the show thinking it's going to blow probably helped ease expectations.
I've never seen an episode of the original 90210, so I have nothing to compare it to. I'm pretty sure everyone is remembering something far better than it actually was, though. This generation lives and breathes nostalgia so we stay loyal to originals no matter how much they sucked. Like, Saved by the Bell? If they tried to remake that people would be murdered. There would be riots. But have you watched any SBTB episodes recently? I think you'd be surprised at how cheesy you think it is (although, you'll still be in love.)
So the show starts with a happy family moving from Kansas to Beverly Hills. The children, Annie and adopted brother Dixon, are convinced this is going to succccckkkk. At this point, I'm with them. Except...what kid is sad about leaving Kansas and moving to CALIFORNIA? Yeah. Not this kid, that's for sure, if my parents ever told me we were about to move to BH I'd be like, awesome, my bags are ready.
The kids have a crazy drunk grandma and their dad is the school principle, so that's two story lines right off the bat. Annie knows a boy already, Ethan, from spending her summers at Grandmas. She sees Ethan in the school parking lot, and this is when the show really starts, because then she sees a girl come up from his lap. Later, she meets Naomi, Ethan's girlfriend...who is not the girl in the car. Naomi is supposedly the Beverly Hills High "it" girl, who has more money than brains and more hair than sense, she's dating the captain of the lacrosse team and takes to Annie immediately for some reason. We're introduced to Adrianna or something like that, who buys pills and steals Naomi's purse to pay for them. She's also the lead in the school play, "Spring Awakening". Way to go on reality points there, CW. That show was banned from Germany, but it's all good in High School? Whatever, it provided a great musical number and I'm a fan of the music from the show so I'll let it slide. And we're introduced to Silver, the brooding little sister of Kelly Taylor, who is now a guidance counselor or something like that. I love me some Jennie Garth so I'm glad to see her back on the show. Silver has a very "Gossip Girl-esque" little blog except it's mostly her doing snarky video blogs making fun of people at school. We later find out why she has an evil vendetta against Naomi.
Lots of stuff can happen in 2 hours, more than I can recap, but it basically goes, Naomi has a killer sweet 16, finds out Ethan cheated so she sets out to punish him. Dixon makes the lacrosse team, gets kicked off, gets back on, sets pigs free at the other teams school, gets kicked off again, gets back on again (no kidding). Annie meets a boy, flies to San Fransico for dinner, gets grounded, sneaks into Naomi's party, makes the school play, quits being friends with Naomi, starts being friends with Silver (despite the cow blog?) and gets in trouble for cheating. That Adrianna girl or whatever her name is steals money for pills, skips an audition, and lies a lot. And has terrible bangs, yech. I can't remember anything else that happens, my head is full. Oh yeah, then Shannen Dorehty shows up and man...she has not aged well. Looks a little crack whoreish. Oh and then the principal finds out he has a kid with another woman. Of course.
Anyway, the show has a surprising pull to it. The dialogue is by no means clever enough to be on the level of Gilmore Girls. It was pretty flat and expected, but something does kind of draw you in. The characters are likeable and dang, they are SO SKINNY. Does no one at this school eat? I expect this show to start eating disorders. I'm not sure any of these kids will become super stars like their Gossip Girl sister stars have - they're likeable, but they're also kind of flat at this moment. It's no Gossip Girl West, but I can see 90210 being my guilty pleasure this season. I do have a thing for beaches and palm trees.
