Pop Vultures

Here at Pop Vultures, we talk an awful lot about Joss Whedon, the BBC, Friday Night Lights and other thoroughly respectable fare. And yet, if we were to build an altar to the greatest man in all of television, we’d hang some hair straighteners and short skirts around the mirror and begin praying to Aaron Spelling, that god of televisual cheese. And so today we are thrilled to begin a weekly “Spelling Saturday” series, in which we recap some of the greatest television shows ever created in their entirely. First up: the teen soap to which all teen soaps owe a debt of gratitude, Beverly Hills 90210. Follow the jump for all the tears, drama and questionable clothing choices (seriously, Lycra bike shorts were worn as a deliberate fashion statement — how can you not love this show?).

Beverly Hills 90210
The Pilot — S01, E00, “The Class of Beverly Hill” (otherwise known as the pilot)

A typical, large Californian house: crickets chirp, and the sun is shining. Inside we see a room full of boxes, and a bed, where a young man with an egregious mullet is lying: Brandon Walsh. A plastic dinosaur alarm clock attached to the wall starts intoning “wake up, wake up”, and Brandon Walsh – for it is he – grabs his remote control and switches on his stereo for barrage of loud early ‘90s rock. Brandon struggles up onto his elbow, and helpfully exposits: “first day of school – strange city – new house, no friends – I’m psyched!”

In another room in the same house, a teenage girl – Brenda Walsh, Brandon’s twin sister – is tipping clothes out of boxes onto the floor and holding various terrible outfits in front of her in the mirror, looking perplexed. She flings clothes on the floor and announces that she has nothing to wear.

In the kitchen, Jim Walsh, possibly the most wooden actor to ever make it to prime-time, attempts to look concerned as he listens to the traffic report on the radi, before announcing it’s gridlock and that he has to run. Cindy Walsh, uber-mom, wanders the hallways in her pyjamas and is accosted by Brenda who entreats her to let her go shopping today and leave school for tomorrow, because first impressions are so important – and frankly, if the peach pinafore Brenda is wearing is any indication of the rest of her wardrobe, she may well have a point. Cindy assures her that she makes a wonderful first impression, but Brenda retorts that while everyone there looks like they stepped out of a music video, while she doesn’t even have the right hair.

Brandon enters the kitchen, complaining that Brenda’s already spent an hour in front of the mirror, and now she’s changing again. He asks where the toaster is, whereupon Cindy hurls a box of kitchen appliances onto the floor. Well, moving can be stressful. He decides to skip breakfast.

Brenda and Brandon leave the house to the opening power chords of the Beverly Hills 90210 theme tune, get into their ugly brown car and drive to school; I’m glad to see that Brenda’s eschewed the hideous pinafore in favour of a pedestrian jeans and t-shirt combo. An obligatory opening titles montage with establishing shots of Beverley Hills, including such ludicrous imagery as a woman in a little black dress, shopping bags and a surfboard walking down Rodeo Drive, valet parking of Ferraris and Mercedes outside West Beverly High, and a couple of bodyguards and a pair of Middle Eastern sheiks walking across campus. Students chat on colossal cell phones.

A blonde, ovine boy screeches into the parking lot in his Corvette: Steve Sanders. His vanity plates read I8A 4RE (“I ate a Ferrari”). Awesome.

To the sounds of a bizarre high school radio DJ spouting incomprehensible early 90s slang, Brenda and Brandon walk across campus. Brenda tells Brandon that she thinks they’re going to need a raise in their allowance, and Brandon agrees.

We see a facelifted blonde girl – Kelly Taylor – in her convertible, honking her horn. A young boy with a weaselly face and hair like a thatched roof – David Silver – walks across the parking lot, as the radio welcomes incoming freshmen. He removes his shades and looks around like a kid in a candy shop as Kelly drives past. “I love this place!” he exclaims.

Members of staff, never to be seen on the show again, arrive in battered vans and cars and race into the school, including the fat bearded chemistry teacher, Mr Ridley, who looks most unhappy to be there.

Kelly pulls up beside Steve, who is shocked that she got her license. He asks where she was all summer; he tried calling her. When she looks away awkwardly, he peers closer and announces that she got a nose job. She confirms that she did, and he tells her it looks good, adding that they took about a foot off. “Now I know why I broke up with you,” Kelly says, though I would have thought that the fact that Steve looks like a sheep was reason enough. Steve is miffed, and points out he taught her how to work a clutch. Kelly retorts that she drives an automatic, and drives off. “Figures,” he says, whatever that means. Is there some connection between being a bitch and driving an automatic? I don’t understand.

A dorky-looking freshman boy in a Lakers cap – Scott – walks across the parking lot and is nearly run over by Kelly; as he jumps back, he bumps into a car and sets off the alarm. A bus pulls up, and a mousy looking girl with glasses, who looks like she’s in her mid-30s, but is evidently supposed to be a student – Andrea – gets off, looking daunted. And then there is this awesomely bizarre and inexplicable shot of four people doing random slow-mo New Kids On The Block dancing in sync, which I may have to upload to YouTube, so amazing is it.