5 Reasons I still love "Beverly Hills, 90210"

I love "Beverly Hills, 90210." The show first aired in 1989 and ran until 2000, and I was with it almost the entire way. I didn't watch the last two or three seasons because by then, the show had become a parody of itself. I am not surprised, since many shows that run that long do end up becoming so dreb. Still, the first five to six years of the show were what I was all about when I was young. I owe my life to Soap Network for running reruns of this show for the last six years. I even know how to time it by now - a series takes about four months to run by showing two episodes per weekday, so I can usually figure out when the end comes and they start running the first season again. And yes, the DVR gets set.

Personally, I love how I can remember certain episodes and where I was when those episodes first aired. I was in Hawaii on vacation when Steve left on Christmas to find his birth mother. I was laughing in French class in high school with my friend Kim, delerious from not enough sleep, chanting "Donna Martin graduates!" I watched the prom episode when I was still a sophomore, hoping my prom in two years would be so beautiful. (Real story for another day.) I was the right demographic for this series, and it mattered to me. I did not have the lifestyle to keep up with the Kellys or Brendas, but I enjoyed living vicariously through them.

I still enjoy the reruns on Soapnet, though today much of the show is so dated. Understandable, since Brian Austin Green would never be able to keep up with today's musicians. Here are 5 reasons I still consider 90210 one of my favorite guilty pleasures.

1. The show was always relevant. The show was hailed for doing what no other show was doing at the time, which was representing real teens with real teen issues. Brenda was dealing with her first love, losing her virginity, thinking she was pregnant, and having her best friend and her first love fall for each other. Brandon was constantly trying to live up to his father's high expectations. Kelly was fighting a reputation and an absentee father. Donna had dyslexia. David's mother was schizophrenic. Andrea had to live a lie to be able to attend the best school around. There were episodes about condoms, gang violence, teacher/student intimate relationships, parents dictating who you can date, steroids, drugs and alcoholism, shoplifting, running away from home, and on and on. If it mattered to teenagers, 90210 covered it. And it gave it its due, instead of just glossing over it and tying it up with a nice little bow by the end of the show.

2. Steve's adoption was never forgotten. TV is notorious for having a character nearly killed one week, then acting as if nothing happened the next week. Donna was attacked in her apartment from behind by a would-be rapist. Most women would not be able to take people sneaking up on her from behind ever again. A character's history often gets forgotten as a show progresses. Steve's adoption, the very core of who he was, was around for the entire series. He first revealed it at the spring dance, then went to look for his mother later that year. His conflict with his father came to a head when he found out his adopted father really was his birth father. Then when he and Janet had their baby, he vowed to the baby never to make her feel like she would not know her father. It was his most vulnerable character trait, and the show kept it going the entire time. Nicely done.

3. Senior year. This was one of the best seasons of the show. Many felt as though the show should have ended after this season to avoid the many inevitable shark jumps, and I would have been fine with it. So many episodes this season dealt with the end of life as they knew it, and the understanding they would soon face with the world that would either embrace them, or chew them up and spit them out. Andrea developed another crush on a teacher, this time Gil Meyers (the first was with her summer drama teacher, played by Michael St. Gerard, who was Link Larkin in the original movie "Hairspray"). Steve tried to break into the school to change his grades when he realized his slacker grades would get him nowhere near his dream college. Brenda and Dylan broke up when they came to terms with the fact that their infidelity over the summer while Brenda was in Paris meant they had grown apart. Brenda and Brandon had to fight for the only out-of-state tuition their parents could afford. Brandon got a new girlfriend, Nikki, a cute girl who still could not hold a candle to Emily Valentine. The school board snuck legislation past the students that pissed them off - no drinking or being caught drunk at prom, or no graduation. If only Donna had taken them seriously. Looking back, the writing in this season was pretty good.



4. Senior activities. This could be lumped with the previous category, but the final five episodes of the season were why I loved the show so much. Starting with the prom, the beautiful moments where they learned to love the ones they were with, since they weren't all with the ones they loved. Donna got bombed on champagne and nearly puked all over her stunning gown. She got busted, nearly didn't graduate, and heralded one of my favorite chants to come from TV. As anything pertaining to Aaron Spelling's child would be, Donna escaped unscathed, leading to senior breakfast, the wills, and the skit show. The retrospective flashbacks were fun to see, if just for the evolution of Brandon's hair. Then graduation day arrived, a day I defy you to not cry in. To top it off, they all attempt breaking and entering protected land, and deface the Hollywood sign as their legacy. Come on, that's what they did! But I loved it, so I can forgive them. These last couple of weeks were the right way to wrap a season that spoke more than others about the excitement of completing high school, an event that can only happen once, and it should be special.

5. The first year of college. I know I am going through a streak, but this is where I thought the writing on the show was at its peak. A year later, it would start to spiral. In real life, this was the time when Shannen Doherty's personal antics were casting a dark cloud over the production. There were a lot of audience members who graduated at the same time as the cast, and some who would not graduate for another couple of years. This season was inspiring for those who may not have been sure what to do post high school. It showed how exciting college can be - huge new campus, tons of parties, activities, people, social events, Greek life, classes, and opportunities. Most of them dove right in to college life by attending parties, pledging fraternities and sororities, or trying for a spot on the school's paper. It was true to college in one major respect: you are a tiny fish in a huge ocean, and no one cares about you or your success. David learned this the hard way when he almost lost his first semester of college from getting hooked on speed. While those of us who have gone through college can now poke holes in the 90210 version of college freshman year, it was a good way to get kids excited about college.


Clearly, I do not have too many opinions beyond the high school and early college episodes. As I said above, the writing took a tumble. Donna became a holier-than-thou whore who wore belly shirts to convents and got her ass beaten by Ray. Valerie tried to fill Brenda's void and did well, but how do you manage to get through life with these people when they clearly cannot stand being around you, and vice versa? Andrea's growth in life was major by having a baby in real life and on the show, but her judgmental nature finally got the best of me, and I found myself looking forward to the day she would leave the show. Another new character, Claire, was just as judgmental and a bitch to Steve, and I often wondered what about her I am supposed to be interested in. I was so sad when Dylan's wife died (or, was killed by a hit issued by her mobster father, meant for Dylan, who supposedly killed his father too). Kelly became a New York model, despite being too short and stout, then got caught in a fire with a lesbian who was in love with her. Then she joined a cult. See the absurdity start to sink in? It starts to look like they are trying to find anything they haven't really done yet and try to jam it into episodes as two-fers. Eventually Dylan left, and by then I did too. Then when I heard Brandon left, and they still did two or three more seasons, I wondered why. Three original cast members were still there, and they were hanging on by whatever fibers of rope were left. The show ran its course before the end came, and it was not relevant, serious, or interesting anymore.

In the meantime, I have the prime of the series to remind me of why this show was once enjoyable. It has been sixteen long years since the gang graduated from high school, and I have lived those sixteen years with a lot of reflection and education. Maybe it's the hindsight that makes the series seem as good now as it was then, but the place it takes me to makes it worth my DVR space when it airs.