Serial Drama

90210: Season 1, Episode 3

We must begin with a retraction. Reader 'Snarkgirl' has alerted us over at Blog Headquarters that our previous post included a time snafu- when discussing the trials and tribulations of the U.S. Postal Service as it relates to delivering the Walsh mail, we put Minnesota two hours behind California instead of two hours ahead. This was an egregious, and Lancer is embarassed that he has let his readership down; as such, he has banned himself from The Green Room for one week and hopes against hope that you all forgive him. Luckily, though, his TV privileges remain intact, so on we go!

90210: Season 1, Episode 2

Greetings, soap lovers! Your old friend Lancer back, with a heartfelt apology for the delay between posts. Your intrepid hero was off on a 2-week search for Andrea Zuckerman's relevance. Finding nothing (but not for lack of trying), he has returned with a renewed sense of optimism, spirit, and joie de vivre (for those who do not speak French, 'joie de vivre' roughly translates to 'James Eckhouse's bald spot'). Anyway, good to be back, and let's get right to it!

The Pilot...comes in for a landing

All good things must come to an end...even the 90210 pilot. Before we get to the final 46 minutes, a quick recap of where we last left our heroes:

Brandon: hot tub with Maryann

Brenda: hip dance club with lawyer Jason

Kelly: arguing with bouncer

DMG!: standing next to Kelly

Steve: depressed and Kelly-less, with a smashed-up car

Young David Silver: unknown

Young Scott Scanlon: dead, or alive, wearing his Lakers hat

Andrea Zuckerman: who's she?

And now, on to the thrilling conclusion!

90210: The Pilot

Hi everybody! This is Lancer, 90210 aficiondado at your service, and ready to relive the glory days of West Beverly. I'm excited to be part of the team at Serial Drama; EBT and PI have set the bar pretty high around here, so if you're expecting their level of humor and wit...go read their posts. As for us, we'll be going through every episode of Season 1: from the pilot to the Spring Dance to the almost-move back to Minnesota for the Walsh Clan- and everything in between. Some episodes we'll do in running diary style (starting at the 0:00 mark on the trusty RealPlayer DVD thingie and working our way up), some we'll do by character, some we'll do by Top 10 Best/Worst Moments; and our editors are demanding at least one entirely from the perspective of James Eckhouse's bald spot. In any event, we'll have some fun, and all comments are welcome. And now, without further ado, let's travel back to that time long ago, wayyyyy back to October 1990, when the girls wore leggings, the boys rolled up their tshirt sleeves, Lancer was in the third grade, and there was a Bush in the White House fighting a war in Iraq...

New Feature Alert!

As you may have noticed, we have no shortage of opinions around here. We truly thought we really had all the hypercritical bases covered, but then a friend proposed doing some recaps of the now-vintage, always awesome early episodes of 90210. And since said friend is male (and therefore unlikely to steal our fashion thunder and also likely to bring a slightly different perspective to those crazy rich kids' exploits) we said sure! So, welcome Lancer, whom you can get to know using the very sophisticated likes/dislikes format that we're fond of around here.

Lancer90210 got his start in life in a place quite different from everyone's favorite zip code. From a young age, he displayed an uncanny ability to get his homework done and stay in on Friday nights. Now firmly entrenched in his mid-20s, in a job men the world over can only dream about, he's young at heart yet maintains an old soul. Like Dylan McKay, he's convinced he's been here before, and when he was, Kelly Taylor was there too.

His likes include hot weather, street hockey, witty banter, long-distance drives, corned beef on rye, public parks, marathons, C. Montgomery Burns, Snapple Peach Iced Tea, white dinner jackets, Sports Illustrated, the library, clicking the refresh button, Bruce Springsteen, the Supreme Court, nostalgia, breakfast, cocker spaniels, the 1960s, weddings, and the other side of the pillow. His dislikes include rain, the alarm clock, automatic transmissions, traffic jams, slow walkers, doing the laundry, missing the previews at the movies, lost chances, cliches, parking tickets, the time it takes to deplane, 'team-building' activities, non-HD channels, standing in line, and swiss cheese.

"Hay Keeps You Warm"

You guys. You guys! Run, don't walk, to watch today's episode of Days of Our Lives.

I mean, yes, it features Clay Aiken being...the way Clay Aiken is. I find him creepy. And really, troublingly, relentlessly cheesy. Like, I am embarrassed by his total lack of self consciousness. He should be self conscious! That crooning is just not right and never will be! And I'm supposed to believe Kayla is a big fan? Kayla has better things to listen to. Like pets being slaughtered.

But overall, it was awesomely awesome. Let me count the ways:

1. Doug and Julie. Heart them! Susan Seaforth-Hayes is awesome on Y&R right now as Lauren's mom and she is so often neglected here, so it was a nice surprise to see them. I had to laugh at her calling herself Claire's great grandmother. I mean, sure, she is, but I wonder how they will explain to Claire that she is also Hope's sister...

2. Alice Horton and all of the ornaments. Especially the sweet moment with Hope and Chelsea. It's hard to believe that the Chelsea of January 2006 is the same character we see now. I love you, Hogan Sheffer!

3. You knew this was coming: Steve's Christmas story. I just--I have no words. I'll let the transcript speak for itself

Okay, so, Mary was this young lady back in the olden days. She was a nice young lady, and the big dude -- God -- wanted Mary to give birth to his child, his son, right here on earth. Now, this was a big deal. So, god did some magic, and all of a sudden, Mary was gonna have a baby. Now, there's this dude named Joseph. He's a carpenter. He steps up and marries her. And they take off to a burgh called Bethlehem 'cause that's where god wanted the baby Jesus to be born. The trouble was, when they got to Bethlehem, they had no place to stay. It was late at night. It was cold. And the baby was coming. So, they met this one dude, and he said, "hey, you guys can stay in my barn." Joseph -- phew! -- He was happy about that. So he took Mary to the barn. He put her down in the hay, got her nice and cozy. Hey, you know what? It's a good thing to remember. Hay keeps you warm. If you're ever stuck in a barn at night, it'll keep you warm. Okay? So, now, word was getting around that the baby Jesus was coming. God sent his head angel out there to start the buzz, spread the word. Everybody was excited. Shepherds were hitching donkey rides. You got these three wise dudes. They're following the north star, hauling camel to get to see the baby Jesus so they can give him all these fancy things, you know, all kinds of presents, the kind of thing you give a king. So...what was the point of all this? You wonder what the point was? Well, I'll tell you. God sent his son to be born on earth to mix it up with us regular folks so that he could spread the word that peace and love is what it's all about. Yeah. God blessed the world with his child, just like you guys blessed your moms' and dads' lives when you were born. Now, I am looking at you guys, at your faces...and I can tell that each one of you is loved, just like I love my daughter... my little sweetness. You know, to most people, Christmas is about presents and toys and candy and cookies and all that stuff. And that's all good. We all like that stuff. But I got a secret for you. The best gift you can get and the best gift you can give is love. Yeah. So, feel the love in your hearts, share it with everybody around you, and we can have Christmas every day. Right?

Nothing, ever, in the world, will top that.

***

So, I have 90210 on right now, and it's a Christmas episode (Donna Martin's Birthday!) featuring Faux Roman as Dylan's dad who is in jail and hilariously, a prison Santa asks Dylan why he's there and then calls him "son", as if Dylan couldn't pass for 34, and it also features Brenda being hated by her parents in a totally outright fashion (I like to think that if I should ever hate one of my children that I will never let them know it) and! Steve Sanders on a spiritual quest for his birth mother. But it just clicked that the actress who plays his mom is the actress who played the heinous Kirsten on The Golden Girls. Worlds colliding! Um, Steve just told his mom that she's his real mom and I might have started crying. Is life worth living knowing that Ian Zeiring, who looks to be wearing a hairpiece, made me cry? It isn't, is it?

Urban Outfitters has a selection of awesome 90210 t-shirts, in case you happen to be interested. I would totally get the Donna Martin Graduates shirt if it didn't feature Tori's...um, Tori-like face on it. Similarly, the Senioritis shirt would be great except for the fact that you just know people would ask, "Who's the old lady on the top? Is that Estelle Getty?" (In the episode on now, Andrea is wearing the highest waisted pair of grandma pants that I have ever seen). So it looks like I might get the logo shirt. Trés cute!

***

Random fact: I heart getting mail. So I am seriously deciding what magazine I should subscribe to next (since, you know, it's a guaranteed piece of mail every week or month) and I considered a soap magazine. But then I took a look at their covers and I started to wonder if I could live with the shame of the mailman seeing this...

Natalia Livingston is a very pretty girl, but they sure went out of their way to fug her up on the cover of ABC Soaps in Depth. She looks like she could be Nikolas's mother, except she's not as pretty and young as Genie Francis. What the hell? I also like how they advertise a GH MURDER, as if it's shocking. There is a casualty on this show practically every episode. Then there's Soap Opera Weekly

"HOPE GIVES BIRTH: AND LEARNS BO IS THE FATHER". Firstly, I want to see how they will rewrite the fact that Bo and Hope hadn't had sex. Can it be worse than the mime reveal when Zach was born? Secondly, I thought Hope was having the baby in captivity after being taken by Patrick. Does Patrick's lair have access to paternity tests? That's so high tech.

Then: "JOHN IS SHOT". Great. We know he's not going to die, so all this will do is give Marlena another reason to gasp and moan and wail and preen in the mirror like a preteen, and gasp some more.

"SAMI SLEEPS WITH EJ". Who wouldn't? Oh, right, murderer. Whatever!

And then my favorite: "FIRED STAR: 'I'M SAD'". As if that's some sort of shocking reaction to have to being fired. Sure, it doesn't compare to the deep thought process of the similarly pink slipped Austin Peck, but what could?

And then Soap Opera Digest.

The Sheila/Phyllis picture cracks me up. SheilaPhyllis so clearly looks like she's just come out of a women's prison. See the subtle difference in their hair? Evil makes your hair lack volume. Keep that in mind should you decide to choose a life of crime.

I am horrified by the picture of Tad Martin. That's the best they could do? Michael E. Knight should sue. He hasn't been looking so puffy lately and yet here he is all Stay Puft on the cover of a national magazine.

I don't even have the energy to comment on the "HIV CRISIS" Patrick and Robin will be going through. Note to GH show runners: you have an incredibly hot actor, a crazy talented actress and chemistry that has the world convinced that they are doing it offscreen. Pleasepleaseplease stop with the depressing stories that cause the characters to say HIV and AIDS every other word. Please. I beg of you.

The single most horrifying thing, though, is the picture of the former DOOL Brady who, I guess, is going to The Bold and the Beautiful. You should only feature a scary man with thick eyebrows atop dead eyes with greasy hair and the world's biggest forehead if you want readers to run screaming.

-Promising Ingenue

9021....Whoa

I think I've mentioned before that I was a seriously deprived child who wasn't allowed to watch Beverly Hills 90210 when it first came on because it was deemed too mature for an elementary schooler. Never mind that this left me severely out of the snacktime loop, when others dished on the Kelly/Brenda/Dylan triangle and I had to be okay with talking about Eureka's Castle with a girl who ate paste and thought the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were real and living in the school parking lot, it was just forbidden.

So thank goodness for SoapNet, where I am catching up on the first season in all of its brilliance. And by brilliance, I mean "complete and utter what-the-fuckness".

One major question is why anyone ever would think a person in his or her right mind would care about the relationship of Mr. and Mrs. Walsh. I mean, their storylines are, quite frankly, less entertaining than televised bowling. In tonight's episode, Cindy nearly had an affair with some dude, but wound up not going through with it which, like, thank you for wasting an hour of my time on this crap and also, what kind of man who had not been locked up in the state penitentiary for twenty years would ever have an illicit affair with Cindy Walsh?

Her frump is like whoa.

She also has an alarming tendency to use crazy eyes to convey emotion.

And I'm supposed to believe that a worldly Beverly Hills photographer would just be dying to homewreck for this woman?

Then there is the fashion. ... ... !!! ... I've been watching with equal parts fascination, disgust and horror. I know the early 90s have commonly been referred to (by me) as the land where good taste went to die, but I had no idea that things were really this bad.

Take Andrea Zuckerman, for instance. Yes, I know Gabrielle Carteris was a sixty year old playing a wrong side of the tracks high schooler, but LORD. They dressed her in outfits that ninety year old women buy from QVC and even the ninety year old women are like, "Does this make me look a little elderly?"

I am of the opinion that one can either have fried hair or a pitiful wardrobe, but you can't have fried hair and a pitiful wardrobe. I just think that pairing crispy hair with an outfit that Doris Roberts would wear on a job interview proves that you are a danger to yourself and others.

And then there is Kelly. For a Queen Bee, Miss Taylor certainly veers towards the demented side of fashion. What would Regina George say?

Did she just pull whatever was closest out of her closet and throw it on? The saddest thing is that it's one of her less offensive outfits.

That breaks, like, thirty eight laws that I can think of off the top of my head. You have Brenda's red mom pants and shapeless white shirt embroidered with a knockoff Laura Ashley pattern. Then there's Donna Martingraduates with her, what, Sea World souvenir t-shirt, flowered skirt and jaunty vest accessorized with pins? She's like Claudia Kishi come to life, except she's not Japanese and is completely unwilling to gorge on junk food. I don't even know what to say about Kelly's "outfit". It would be one thing if West Beverly were a school for the blind, but Kelly is a popular princess with the gift of sight, so it makes her polka dot bicycle shorts (!) over bright blue leggings (!!), purple mock neck shirt (!!!) and pink jacket borrowed from Blanche Deveraux all the more perplexing.

It's not just the girls, though. The other day, I was watching the episode where Brandon takes a stand against people who exploit immigrants by quitting his job as a busboy (Fight the power, Walsh!), and I noticed that Dylan's outfit was a little...odd. And I asked myself, out loud, because I'm a dork, "Dude, is he wearing overalls? No, he can't be. Because that would be..."

"...oh my god. He's wearing overalls."

"AND ONE OF THE OVERALL STRAPS IS UNDONE! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE WORLD?!" This outfit was truly a cry for help. If only someone had noticed and performed an intervention, perhaps he never would have turned to the bottle. Think about that.

-Promising Ingénue

Donna Martin Nauseates

On SoapNet, they repeatedly air a commercial for Beverly Hills 90210 during pretty much every commercial break that talks about the many hairstyles of Donna Martin. It goes something like

Her high school hair was long and blonde. Her sorority hair was short and platinum. As a career woman, she's painting the town red

Nowhere in the commercial do they state that Tori Spelling got horrifically ugly with each hairstyle. Unless they thought it was patently obvious and didn't need to be mentioned.

When 90210 first premiered, I figured that Donna would be my favorite character. I wasn't allowed to watch the show because it was "too racy for a seven year old" (what Puritans I lived with! I also wasn't allowed to listen to New Kids on the Block), so I got all of my scoop from Teen Bob magazines borrowed from friends and I found out that Tori Spelling had my birthday and was exactly ten years older than me. Awesome! She also seemed normal looking from the pictures in the magazines which featured trick photography or her face obscured by Blossom hats, big hair and/or sunglasses, like so:

But as I matured, I grew more aware of the lies Hollywood was selling me, like how Tori didn't get the part of Donna handed to her, despite being the producer's daughter; no, she auditioned under a stage name and got the role! How fortuitous! I don't think "Bitch, please" was in the vernacular at the time, but I know I thought whatever the mid-1990s version of that phrase was.

Ms. Spelling is naturally curly-haired, and before every household in America had a flat-iron, straightening curly hair was tricky, which is why the long, blonde high school hair looks like it hurts. But when she cut it, it didn't get any better and emphasized her...um, unique facial features:

(Before you're all like "But that's a bad angle and expression!", please keep reading and understand that that's one of the more flattering ones)

Apparently, Donna was given a trip to a salon for her gradution present, because she went to college with a short, peroxide 'do

The salon also covers extensive elective surgery from the looks of it, because her entire face is different. The nose is, dare I say, Michael Jackson like, and her cheekbones are frightening.

I also encourage you not to look at the enormous cavern in between her breasts because once you do, you will not be able to stop. Honestly, what is that? Did she have her implants done in a back alley somewhere?

She also began to drop massive amounts of weight, which led to her being a 105 pound nag. Honestly, she nagged everybody, ever, about everything and NOT ONE of them--not the allegedly badass Valerie, not perma bitchfaced Clare, not even Steve (yes, the same Steve who started balding in the second season)--ever said "Why should I listen to you anyway? You're just a virgin who can't go out in public lest children run screaming in the other direction".

Hilariously, it is at this point in fug that Donna was swept off her feet by the hot fireman Cliff, now playing Lucky on General Hospital, who saved her when she and a deer fell down a hill during a fire. That sentence is no more ridiculous than the idea that someone who looks like Cliff would like Donna on a physical level

♥ ?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I'd have an easier time believing him, and a far easier time respecting him, if it had turned out that he was trying to get his freak on with the deer.

She then dyed her hair red and it looked sort of awful short. She went through a period of time when she would scrunch it, and it was so awful that no pictures of it exist; the internet was kind enough to sacrifice all physical evidence of it so that we can keep our sight.

Brian Austin Green hates himself so much in that photo, and I am sure that he needed workers comp to deal with injuries sustained while hugging Tori's rock hard implants.

I have no words to describe that. Whatever that may be. I just...no. As the show ended, David and Donna got married and she actually was able to pass for a human being. Coincidence? I don't think so.

The saddest thing is that none of the above photos even come close to rivalling the horror of Tori Spelling's current look, which works well with her evil skank personality.

-Promising Ingénue