New '90210' has big shoes to fill
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By MELISSA OLSON
For the Herald
Friday, September 5, 2008 6:06 PM CDT
Until Tuesday night, I had never in my life seen an episode of “Beverly Hills, 90210.”
When the show first aired in 1990, I was 7 years old — too young by far to be watching a teen soap. By the time the show ended, I was a much more appropriate 17, but even then I had my aversions to both starting anything in the middle and Tori Spelling. Besides — who needed a decade-old soap when I already had “Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”
But now, more than 10 years after its demise, it appears that people are still thinking about “Beverly Hills, 90210” — so much so, in fact, that they’ve made a new version of the program (called, simply, “90210”), updated to modern times and featuring both hot young actors and a couple of familiar faces from the original series.
I have no idea how many people will end up watching the new show — but if buzz, that intangible measure of our attention, is any indicator, it’s already succeeded beyond the CW’s wildest dreams. “90210” is probably the most talked-about new program this fall, and in a year when TV giants JJ Abrams and Joss Whedon are both premiering new material, that’s saying something.
So, as a non-disciple of the original “Beverly Hills,” I couldn’t help but try to figure out why on earth anyone still cares this much about a teen melodrama from the ‘90s.
I did a little research, and I’ve come up with a theory: “Beverly Hills, 90210” struck a chord when it did for the same reason anything else does: it provided us with something we’d never seen before.
Oh, there had been soap operas, and there had been teen-driven shows. There had also been plenty of after-school specials addressing such big-ticket issues as teen pregnancy, drug abuse and sexually transmitted diseases.
But nobody before “Beverly Hills, 90210” had come up with the unique formula of combining all three — and airing it at night. As a result, people got addicted, in a way that no one had ever really seen before.
It was scandalous, engrossing, and it prompted not only two spin-offs — the successful “Melrose Place” and the not-successful “Models, Inc” — but it laid a groundwork that cleared the way for the next 20 years of teen programming.
Without the old “90210,” there would have been no “Dawson’s Creek,” no “Felicity,” no “O.C.” and maybe even no WB.
It didn’t matter that later shows would vastly improve upon the original model, and it didn’t even matter that the old “90210” was riddled with problems: cast members were always coming and going, the show’s tone varied wildly, and the writing was never the greatest.
All that mattered, really, was that “Beverly Hills, 90210” opened a door — and television changed because of it.
But where does that leave us now? Eighteen years after the original premiered, the new “90210” seems…well, awfully familiar, and I don’t mean because of the zip code.
Watching the show on Tuesday, I was entertained, I suppose, but here’s the thing: there just wasn’t anything I haven’t seen before, and I don’t mean from the original soap opera. If you take away the nostalgia factor, the new “90210” is no different than “The O.C.” or, especially, “Gossip Girl.”
There’s the same cheating relationships, the same high school archetypes, the same scandals (ooh, someone’s taking drugs to relieve the pressure!).
In fact, compared to the other teen shows on television now, this new “90210” seems a bit…well…tame. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen done before and better. Unlike in 1990, teens are big business these days — they have their own movies, their own idols, and even their own network. Having that same network, the CW, try to mimic the teen show that started it all is just kind of sad, really.
Without that edginess, that sense of providing something unique and revolutionary, the new show is exposed for what it is: a copycat. The original “90210” may have opened the door for shows like “Gossip Girl” and “The O.C.,” but the new “90210” just kind of parrots them.
The show got a lot of buzz off it’s famous zipcode, but it’s only real hope for keeping it is to try not to be lazy. If the new “90210” can find a way to distinguish itself from similar, better written teen shows, it may have a chance to live up to its predecessor’s reputation.
Otherwise, though, it’s going to go the way of Brenda and Brandon.
A Chippewa Falls native, Melissa Olson graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in film. She works in Madison for the television program Discover Wisconsin. Visit her online at www.melissaolson.net.
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