New “90210″ will succeed?
By on
September 3rd, 2008
Make no mistake about the power of the original “Beverly Hills, 90210″ which ended eight years ago. Beloved by fans - really beloved - the Fox show would still be on the air if hadn’t become too expensive to produce. In fact, last night’s CW spinoff, “90210,” wouldn’t be around at all if the international market hadn’t clamored for it; for some reason, the soap operatics of the fabulously rich in this particular zip code are a big draw in places like Estonia and Thailand.
But that hardly guaranteed insta-success, and when The CW declined to send out review copies, the red flags went up: What sort of disaster have we got on our hands now? But not to worry. “90210″ is a perfectly competent and reasonably seamless revival that understands what made the original tick (and tick and tick), while infused (occasionally suffused) with enough contemporary touchstones to remind new viewers that this isn’t their parents’ (or at least older siblings’) trusty fave. Fellatio, designer drugs, vendetta blogs, text messages - yeah, everything’s up to date in West Beverly Hills High.
In fact, “90210″ had a tricky balancing act here. Bring the original fans back into the tent, without completely turning off the new ones. Of the latter, they hardly know (or care) about the significance of the Peach Pit or Nat’s (Joe E. Tata) befuddlement with the coffee machine. They hardly luxuriated in the rich irony of that reunion with Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) and Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth), or hooted when Brenda said it was time they become friends again; after all, how could they know the last time Jennie and Shannen saw each other on set they were trading roundhouse rights?
“90210″ smartly integrated a batch of new characters with some of the originals, while also folding adults - notable Kansas transplants Harry Wilson (Rob Estes) and his wife Debbie (Lori Loughlin) - into the storyline. The newbies in town, Annie (Shenae Grimes, “Degrassi: The Next Generation”) and her bro, Dixon (Tristan Wilds, “The Wire”) are good too, though suffer none of the culture shock Brenda and Brandon did when they came to town eighteen years ago.
Will “90210″ succeed? The show juggled a lot of storylines last night, maybe too many, but the vibe feels right. “90210″ is not a disaster, and the CW can now officially let out a deep … sigh … of relief.
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