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See what you missed in the premiere even if you watched it. There will some sly little gifts in there. 

So I watched the new 90210 with much excitement. I LOVED the original. My initial thought was that new version was a overstuffed and boring. But that is to be expected since they were trying to introduce an entire cast and story lines at once. I watched it a second time. It is still slow but hey they are trying to be edgy like The OC and Gossip Girl.

Apparently the rest of America, liked 90210, the premiere of the CW’s 90210 was the highest-rated scripted in the network’s two-year history.(according to Nielson) But it was running against a bunch of reruns.

The first two episodes of 90210 were written by Darren Starr who with Aaron Spelling created the original Beverly Hills 90210 and went on to produce Sex in the City and Rob Thomas who was mastermind behind Veronica Mars.  They are gone after these episodes. 

90210 opens with the Wilson family moving from Kansas to Beverly Hills. At least there is a better explanation for the house. It belongs to dad Harry’s mother. Harry, the dad is played Rob Estes who is married to Debbie played by former Full house regular Lori Loughlin. They have two kids Annie (Shanae Grimes from Degrassi High) and their adopted son Dixon, (Tristan Wilds from The Wire) the token black guy. Aren’t there rich black families living in Beverly Hill? They had to bus one in? (OK mini van one in.)

So they move in to the beautiful home owned by Harry’s mom Tabitha who is a drunk who talks about her wild past. Great cameo from Linda Gray, Sue Ellen from Dallas.

There are some other blasts from the past. There is Hannah Zuckerman-Sanchez who is the daughter of former Beverly Hill Blaze editor Andrea.(Note: She should look at least a little bit Hispanic but no she is copy of annoying mother who wanted to be call AN-drea.) Erin Silver is a regular character. She is the half sister of Kelly Taylor and David Silver. She tries too hard to be the bitter outsiders with her popular blog that makes fun of people but it is mostly to torture Naomi who used to be her friend but betrayed her.  And Nate is here still running the Peach Pit complaining about the fancy espresso machine. Come on. It is 2008 and he has still not figured out the machine. I doubt it is new.

The major bitch of the show is Naomi who is basically playing a tamer version of her character Eden Lord from Nip/Tuck. She is good at playing the hurt little girl though and the offended one when she finds out her mother doesn’t thinks she is as smart as her sister Jen.

I thought the most ridiculous part was when Naomi’s mother tells Harry that they have a son together in the entrance of the club where Princess Naomi is having her “Not so sweet 16 party”. Really? Is that the place you have that conversation. I thought it would be awesome if the son was Ethan, Naomi’s cheating boyfriend and Annie’s first kiss. But I did the math and it doesn’t work.

Another thing I did not get. Lacrosse? Seriously who but private school kids play that? Who in world of public high schools in LA do they play? (Palisade Park which trashes the BH school as prank) And the important question is who plays lacrosse in Wichita, Kansas?  I am sorry but the Midwest is all about football and basketball.

There is some girl who wants to be an actress. Has the lead in the school play. Tells everyone she is auditioning for a movie. When her English teacher (who is also the lacrosse coach. I think they only have the one teacher there.) asks what useless things she would buy with the money. She quips, “I will pay the mortgage on the house because my mom can’t”. She ends up buying drugs with money that she steals from Naomi’s purse which she has stolen and walks out on her audition.

There is a stupid storyline about Ethan cheating on Naomi and Naomi cheating on Ethan to be even. He ends things and she with tears in her eyes asks “Are you breaking up with me?”. And he answers with “I am breaking up with us”. So Dylanesque. (Oh, and he surfs like Dylan too.)

Jenni Garth is back as Kelly Taylor, Beverly Hill High’s guidance counselor. I don’t know about you but my counselors never worn necklines that low. Shannen Doherty enters in as Brenda who apparently going to direct the school’s musical, Spring Awaking. I am not sure that Spring Awaking would actually be done in a high school but the song they sing sounded cool. Kelly has a 4 year old son named Sam. They haven’t told us who’s the daddy is. (Dylan? Brandon? Does it depend who’s career needs the bump the most?)

There was a great line. The editor Navid Shirazi (Oh look, they are really diverse!) of the school paper dad makes porn. So naturally he has access to pigs that tear up Palisade Parks field. When Dixon asks if they stay and watch while they film. Navid says his dad has two rules: no porn before 21 and never eat together.

For those of you with a list of the “great” problems of the week that 90210 covered, we covered drugs, cheating, stealing and plagiarism in this one. Here is to hoping that next episode picks up a little bit. It has Kelly’s mom from the original. Does that mean we will see David and Andrea soon? 

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