As I was sitting around, unemployed, today---working on #8 and #9 on my To Do List---I came across the most miraculous discovery. Contrary to every prior conviction I once had, I found out that daytime tv does not suck. Because daytime tv runs classic Beverly Hills 90210 reruns!
Yes, the Soapnet channel runs 90210 reruns in threes. Yes! THREE episodes BACK-TO-BACK!
Today I got to relive:
- Andrea Zuckerman dating the summer school drama teacher. First off, in TV land, it's cool to enroll in summer school while the rest of your friends are off cavorting and frying their dermis at the local beach club. No one in Beverly Hills is flunking or forced to sign up. They love school and can't get enough of it. As proof, not only Andrea, (that's ON-drea, lest you forget. Only Dylan McKay can, and does, get away with calling her AN-drea) but also Brenda, Donna and David Silver (before he was "cool") register to take drama class from the Elvis-lookalike who played Tracy Turnblad's beau in the first (and better) Hairspray movie. Now this was a tricky situation, you see, because Brenda is also hot for teacher. (Although she's still dating Dylan at the time. But hey, he's in Hawaii, visiting his mom.) She takes on tutoring Andrea because Brenda's supposedly the better actor (blech!) They end up "running into" teacher at the Peach Pit and take him on a whirlwind tour of L.A. Try as Brenda might, Andrea is the one who ends up winning him over with her clever comments about the Plasticine Period and scores herself a coffee date. (Should have majored in prehistoric science this summer instead, Bren.) It's only fair. Andrea was the only student who's actual age was greater than the combined average of the faculty. (Must have been rough being the only junior with crow's feet.) All in all, Brenda ends up slapping Andrea in their soap operatic class scene (where Andrea proves to be the superior actress anyhow), teacher ends up having a secret girlfriend back home, Brenda confesses her cheating lust to Dylan and everyone makes up in the end.
- The Yosemite trip. That's all I need to say. You remember this one. Rainstorm, botched beer run, Brenda follows Dylan like his shadow, Donna gets her period, David finally gets to tag along with the gang, Brandon falls off a cliff (which was indirectly Brenda's fault, of course) and Dylan grunts and saves his life. This was also the episode where I was reminded that Dylan's character had his own electric guitar solo in the score. Any time you heard, "Naaaarrrrr-nar-na-NARRR-narrrrrrr" you knew there was heavy brooding ahead.
- Enter Emily Valentine. So what if Emily takes birth control pills, Brenda. You had no right to tell Brandon about it! Because, you're going to feel really stupid in about 45 minutes when you find out she's still a virgin. Oh yeah, and no one thought you were tough when you started that cat fight with her at your family's barbeque. Cat fight meaning, saying snotty comments about Emily with her right there in the room and then telling Dylan to, "Stay out of it! This is between me and Emily." (To which Emily looks as if she's thinking, "Oh. Is there something going on between us? I was just trying to hang out here with my five boyfriends.") The worst thing the show ever did was to make Emily's character go bat-poop crazy in later episodes. Was is so hard to have one female character on the show that was slightly edgy and not a mall rat? P.S. This is also the episode that makes it very clear that "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak is the official make-out song of West Beverly. As it should be.
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