90210

Rumors of The CW's demise have been slightly exaggerated. While the network is still on shaky ground, they were happy to announce last night that the incredibly hyped and hypnotically mediocre 90210 has been picked up for a full-season order. Despite losing nearly thirty-percent of its record series premiere audience, 90210 has held strong over the last two weeks, especially in the desirable 18-34 demographic.

Also helping 90210's cause: the fact that the show has immediately ingratiated itself into the cultural zeitgeist, with nearly the same gusto that sister program Gossip Girl did last year. We're not even out of September and there have been countless stories and clips on the web and newsstands about the show, ranging from  read more »

We stopped watching the new 90210 after we tried to make it through the first episode and found even we (who happen to have a pretty high threshold for terrible television) couldn’t stomach the god-awfulness of it all. But! Apparently Dylan McKay, that wrinkly-headed dreaminess that was Luke Perry back in the day, is a name still being bandied about, because he’s the father or some such nonsense of Kelly’s (Jennie Garth) four-year-old son. Mr. Perry, who has said in so many words that wild horses couldn’t drag him into that mess, will however be showing up on TV after all, on the September 23rd season opener of Law & Order SVU. According to TV Guide, Mr. Perry will be playing a father accused of abusing his adopted child, and elsewhere Sara Gilbert (Roseanne) also shows up as a rape victim.

More evidence that this fall season of TV is weak: no one is watching anything!

Despite our tremendous affection for HBO's vampire drama True Blood, it tanked in the ratings. We suggested it might be Alan Ball's own personal John From Cincinnati, but it may even be worse: True Blood had fewer than half of John's viewers watch its premiere, or 1.4 million total. Fingers crossed that rebroadcasts and On Demand viewings give it a boost.

How about Fringe? Eh. It did all right, and won its timeslot last night, capturing 9 million viewers on average over its two hour debut.  read more »

We were never the biggest 90210 fans. It always seemed too melodramatic and overly serious; as the years have passed on, it's faded in our memory to blurry fragments from a time when Aaron Spelling ruled the earth--the theme song, the pastels, the awful opening credits and the crush we had on Shannen Doherty (we've always preferred brunettes to blondes-sorry Kelly!) 90210, we barely remember thee!

We actually latched onto The O.C. in a much more visceral way, which probably speaks more to our arrested development than anything else (we were already into our 20s when Josh Schwartz's first hit premiered.  read more »

Monday: Beverly Hills, 90210 Marathon
We regularly tune in to SoapNet—yes, if you didn't know, there is a cable channel devoted to soaps—on weekend mornings for reruns of Beverly Hills, 90210, that life-lesson-teaching teen drama that accompanied us through high school and college. This has us uniquely prepared for the CW remake (see Tuesday), which will pick up the story lines of at least a few of the original cast members. If you need a refresher course, today is your lucky day: SoapNet's got a 24-hour-marathon going on. Try to tune in for the one when Brandon gets drunk and totals his car.  read more »

Thanks to our favorite tv blog, TV Tattle, for alerting us to the Akron Beacon Journal's blog The HeldenFiles Online, where critic Rich Heldenfelds is re-watching the first season of the original Beverly Hills 90210 in anticipation of the new series, which begins in just a few weeks. The writeups are good, but the pictures are priceless. Who can believe we wore so much denim? And also: it's shocking to remember that when the show first aired, Tori Spelling and Brian Austin Green were only 17; Jennie Garth was 18; Shannen Doherty was 18; and Jason Priestly 21. They may have looked old, but most of them were actually teenagers. Except poor Gabrielle Carteris of course, who was 29.

Ah, while 90210 returns to TV this fall, so do the cat fights! Round 1: Tori Spelling vs. Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty's paychecks! Nikki Finke at DeadlineHollywoodDaily is reporting that Ms. Spelling has been whining about the other original stars getting a bigger paycheck in the new series.

Insiders tell me that Tori was hired to reprise her role as fashion boutique owner Donna Martin for just "$10,000-$20,000" per episode. But then Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty were signed for "$35,000-$50,000" a show. When Tori found out her former co-stars were getting paid way more than she was, she got pissed and demanded equal pay. But the network suits have refused. So now my sources tell me that Tori has pulled out of the series, which premieres with a 2-hour special on September 2nd. "She thought she deserved parity, and she's got a point," an insider explained to me.

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Jennie Garth, who played blonde cutie Kelly Taylor on the original 90210, will join the cast of the new spinoff on the CW channel. Ms. Garth will play a guidance counselor to the (probably) much more at-risk new West Beverly High kids, according to the Associated Press. On 90210, Ms. Garth became a diet pill abuser, was trapped in a fire, became involved in a cult, used cocaine, was raped, shot, got amnesia and had a miscarriage, according to her career review. She'll apparently have a lot of advice to give, but she might be a bit rusty since her roles on What I Like About You with Amanda Bynes and Dancing With the Stars have been so squeaky clean.

MONDAY

Everyone deserves a second chance, right? Well, tonight, America has the privilege of witnessing two, as Monday nights turn into a bad episode of We Love the ’90s come to life. Last week, Brian Austin Green made his debut on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for a stay of indeterminate length. Here’s the deal, Brian: We’ll forget how you strained your acting skills fawning over Tori Spelling on 90210 for just long enough to give you the opportunity impress on your new gig [Fox, 9 p.m.]. So far, we’ve learned that he takes a beating well. It’s a marketable skill!

Yo! Yo! Yo! Guess who else is back … Yes, none other than Dan Cortes. The former host of MTV Sports has returned as the host of My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad [NBC, 9 p.m.], a reality series that sets out to prove just that. Mark Burnett, producer, offered him the job after he promised to leave the bandanas at home.  read more »