Do you have BH90210 fever? Are you starting to hear that so-’90s “DUH-NA-NA-NA, DUH NA-NA-NA” TV theme emanating from strange courier parcels?
Just in case some of us tried to put it out of our minds, Fox just mailed out BH90210 metal licence plates to to critics, suitable for 407 cruising. The series premieres on Fox and Global next Wednesday, Aug. 7 at 9 pm ET/PT.
Take it to the bank — the new BH90210 will be a huge hit. Especially the first new episode. What it is is a high school reunion, and everybody wants to see how these kids are holding up. The entire series should be brought to you by Restylane.
BH90210 reunites seven Beverly Hills, 90210 regulars, including Canada’s Jason Priestley (Private Eyes). The cast members, however, are not playing their old characters from the high school drama. They’re playing heightened versions of themselves. Think Episodes meets, well, 90210.
Apparently, two of the leads — Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth, above — were in on the creation of this series. Back in the day, Spelling’s late father Aaron knew a thing or two about spinning TV hits.
One of the radio hosts at AM900 CHML, Scott Radley, asked me to weight in on BH90210 and the current TV trend to go back to the past to try and spin the future. The Brady Bunch offspring, now sixty-ish, are next on the nostalgia train with a new home reno reality series premiering in September.
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Radley says he and his wife were in the San Fernando Valley a few months ago and drove by the actual house used in exterior scenes on The Brady Bunch, noting it is supposedly the second-most visited house in America next to the White House. It could very well be. Years ago somebody built a full scale replica of The Simpsons’ house. Hey, I’d visit Pee-wee’s Playhouse if somebody would build one.
Me and Scott talk about why some reboots work better than others. Murphy Brown, for example, was DOA last fall. CBC’s Street Legal barely hit the streets. Even NBC is yanking their re-launch of Will & Grace before the next presidential election. If you’ve got 16 minutes you can listen to the whole scintillating radio blather here.
1 Comment
I for one did enjoy the Street Legal reboot. As for 90210, that was the rare 90s teen drama I never really got into. I may have been too young when it debuted 1990 but then again, I was very much into other teen shows that were hovering in the early 90s like Degrassi High and Saved by the Bell. I remember the show came on after Party of Five, a favourite of mine and so I did watch 90210 for a couple seasons but that’s just because I got the tv on Wednesday evenings and nothing else decent was on.
I am against reboots when they just have the same characters and premise as the original with recast characters. The new reboots of shows like Charmed and Roswell, earn my chagrin, for instance because in my heart it’s like unimagining the original characters. I do like it though when shows come but with different characters, either as a sequel or spinoff. The new Party of Five for instance, has a really interesting premise and its telling a different story with different characters. And I think Street Legal did a decent job although with the reboot but if the decision was between the renewal of Street Legal and Diggstown, I think CBC did make the better decision renewing the latter which was a bit better because it felt fresher and more original.