Beverly Hills 90210
Webpages concerning "Beverly Hills 90210"
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Wikipedia-Article "Beverly Hills 90210"
| Beverly Hills 90210 | |
 This Beverly Hills 90210 logo was seen from 1991 to 1994. |
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| Format | Teen drama/Soap opera |
| Run time | 44 minutes (60 including commercials) |
| Creator(s) | Darren Star |
| Starring | Jason Priestley Shannen Doherty Jennie Garth Ian Ziering Gabrielle Carteris Luke Perry Brian Austin Green Tori Spelling Carol Potter James Eckhouse Douglas Emerson Mark Damon Espinoza Tiffani-Amber Thiessen Joe E. Tata Jamie Walters Kathleen Robertson Vincent Young Hilary Swank Lindsay Price Daniel Cosgrove Vanessa Marcil |
| Country | USA |
| Network | FOX |
| Original run | October 4, 1990 – May 17, 2000 |
| No. of episodes | 296 |
Beverly Hills 90210 was a popular primetime television soap opera that aired from October 1990 to May 2000 on the Fox Network. The show followed the lives of a group of teenagers living in the posh, star-studded Southern California community of Beverly Hills and attending the fictitious West Beverly High School. The show was created by producers Aaron Spelling and Darren Star. The "90210" in the title refers to one of the suburb's postal codes (or ZIP Code).
The original central characters were twins Brandon (played by Jason Priestley) and Brenda Walsh (played by Shannen Doherty), who moved with their parents, Jim and Cindy, from the Twin Cities to Beverly Hills.
Although the first season had low ratings, Fox stuck by the show partially out of desperation due to the lack of original programming available for the network at the time. The show became a ratings juggernaut for the network during the summer of 1991, when Fox aired a special "summer season" of the show during the mostly rerun filled summer hiatus. It was due to this that the show gained a large portion of its loyal fanbase and became one of Fox's top shows when it began its 1991-1992 season that fall. Viewership increased dramatically and the cast members, particularly Priestley and Luke Perry, became instant teen idols, while the series would make actresses Shannen Doherty and Tori Spelling household names.
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Melrose Place Connection
The infamous Melrose Place was initially a spinoff from the show, as actor Grant Show (who played Jake on Melrose Place) appeared for a mutli-episode run as Luke Perry's boyhood idol/mentor. In later seasons, the success of Melrose Place's development into an ultra-sensationalistic soap opera influenced the direction of its predecessors, which also headed off into the same direction. However, the initial failure of Melrose Place during its first season created a ban on future 90210 spin-offs, resulting in plans to split 90210 into two new shows (one focusing on the main cast and another focusing on a new group of high school students) upon the graduation of the main cast from high school to be aborted.
Departures and Decline
Shannen Doherty
The show's later years were rocked by controversy and constant casting changes: most notably when Shannen Doherty left the show under a cloud of controversy over her diva-like behavior. She was replaced with former Saved by the Bell star Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, whose bad girl character Val was a subject to much controversy. Fans of the show remain sharply divided amongst those who consider the departure of Shannen Doherty as the moment the show "jumped the shark" (those who disagree have the argument that story lines for Brenda were becoming limited, with the writers making her an animal activist shortly before her departure), and those who liked Tiffani-Amber Thiessen's character Val, pointing out the fact that Val was an "outsider" character who would regularly point out the self-absorbed nature of the other characters and take glee in exposing their hypocrisy.
Luke Perry
While Shannen Doherty's departure divided the show's fandom, Luke Perry's much publicized departure created the exact opposite reaction: that of mockery and unintentional laughter from both the media and fans of the show. Luke Perry was given a melodramatic and much mocked send-off where his character Dylan marries Antonia, the daughter of the mob boss who ordered his father's death (played by actress Rebecca Gayheart). Before the marriage, it was implied that Dylan had planned on getting vengeance through Antonia, but found himself unable to kill the oblivious (and quite innocent) woman, instead falling in love with her. However, her father, uncomfortable with the marriage, orders Dylan murdered. Tragically, the hired hitman accidentally kills his boss's daughter instead and Dylan leaves town in a huff as a result, after his father-in-law reluctantly agrees to a truce in the wake of his daughter's death.
Perry's departure was widely mocked and derided by both television critics and fans of the show. Many felt the storyline was too contrived to be believable for the character and over-the-top to be taken seriously and was pointed by many fans as another viable moment in the show's history in which the show "jumped the shark".
Parodies
Star's later series Grosse Pointe (television) satirized the production of a high-school soap opera, set in Los Angeles. The show-within-a-show was clearly a 90210-style show.
Another aspect of the show that was the subject of mass parody was the fact that many of the show's cast members were in their mid-to-late 20s and not teenagers. In particular, Luke Perry and Gabrielle Carteris were singled out for most of the criticism regarding being too old to play teenage characters on the show.
Cast
- Jason Priestley as Brandon Walsh (1990-1998)
- Shannen Doherty as Brenda Walsh (1990-1994)
- Jennie Garth as Kelly Taylor
- Ian Ziering as Steve Sanders
- Gabrielle Carteris as Andrea Zuckerman Vasquez (1990-1995)
- Luke Perry as Dylan McKay (1990-1995, 1998-2000)
- Brian Austin Green as David Silver
- Tori Spelling as Donna Martin Silver
- James Eckhouse as Jim Walsh (1990-1995)
- Carol Potter as Cindy Walsh (1990-1995)
- Douglas Emerson as Scott Scanlon (1990-1991)
- Joe E. Tata as Nat Bussichio
- Mark Damon Espinoza as Jesse Vasquez (1993-1995)
- Kathleen Robertson as Clare Arnold (1994-1997)
- Tiffani-Amber Thiessen as Valerie Malone (1994-1998)
- Jamie Walters as Ray Pruit (1994-1995)
- Vincent Young as Noah Hunter (1997-2000)
- Hilary Swank as Carly Reynolds (1997-1998)
- Lindsay Price as Janet Sosna (1998-2000)
- Daniel Cosgrove as Matt Durning (1998-2000)
- Vanessa Marcil as Gina Kincaid (1998-2000)
Trivia
- As a result of the show, 90210 is the most familiar ZIP code for people who live outside the United States. It is often used to try US-only services like Google Local.
- In Sweden the names Dylan and Brandon suddenly became popular in 1992 through 1994. Both names provide a far-fetched pronunciation for the average Swede and were as good as completely unknown before the show started airing in the country.
- Beverly Hills High School is actually located at ZIP code 90212.
- In its initial broadcast in the Philippines in 1991, the local TV network ABS-CBN mistakenly pronounced the series' title as "Beverly Hills NINETY-TWO-TEN" (instead of "Nine-O-Two-One-O"). To this day, many Filipinos recall the series as "Ninety-two-ten", even though the error was corrected. Almost the same thing also happened with the german version ("Neunzig-zweihundert-zehn", or translated back into english 'Ninety-twohundred-ten').
- Tentative titles for the show included Class of Beverly Hills and Potomac 20854, with Star's actual high school, Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Maryland—a school with similar demographics to Beverly Hills High—as an inspiration.
- During the show's earliest seasons, Scott Scanlon's younger sister was played by Nicholle Tom who later joined the cast of The Nanny.