"Beverly Hills 90210" signs off, Las Vegas Sun, May 17, 2000

It’s return-to-sender time for that familiar zip code as ‘90210’ departs the airwaves Lisa Ferguson Wednesday, May 17, 2000 | 9:49 a.m. For the past decade I've spent one night each week in Beverly Hills, Calif. I have some friends there, you see -- known them since we were all in high school in the early '90s. They hang out at this sprawling Spanish-style home. (Their parents handed over the keys to the place when they moved to Hong Kong a few years ago. How's that for a charmed life?) Beverly Hills brats? Let's just say my stunningly gorgeous pals have never wanted for much: They all drive fancy cars, have killer wardrobes and never seemed too concerned about showing up for their fabulous jobs. They're good enough people, but not without their crosses to bear. Almost all of them have battled some form of substance abuse at one time or another. And they've all been involved in terribly destructive relationships, usually as a result of partnering up with other members of the group. So for the last 10 years we've spent an hour together each week lusting after their lovers, eating burgers at their favorite diner and, sometimes, escaping the clutches of the assorted nasty characters -- stalkers, rapists, back-stabbing roommates and the like -- who lurk on the streets around Rodeo Drive. But a lot of time -- and tragedies -- have elapsed since the gang graduated from West Beverly High School. They've gotten even more fabulous cars and careers, tied the knot (or at least attempted to walk down the aisle, even if they never made it to the altar) and had children (none of them intentionally, however). Now, sadly, it's time for all of us to move on. Our little group is disbanding, and I'm preparing to embark on my final visit with my buddies. The Fox Network is bringing the curtain down on the long-running nighttime soap "Beverly Hills 90210." The final installment airs at 8 p.m. today (Channel 5). A bit of back story for those unfamiliar with the residents of this famed zip code: The series, executive produced by TV guru Aaron Spelling ("Dynasty," "Melrose Place"), premiered Oct. 4, 1990 and introduced the fictional, Minnesota born-and-bred Walsh family to overindulgent Beverly Hills. The Walsh children -- teenage twins Brandon and Brenda (Jason Priestley and Shannen Doherty) -- were quickly welcomed into a clique of quintessential Beverly Hills babes: Kelly (Jennie Garth), Dylan (Luke Perry), Donna (Tori Spelling, daughter of Aaron), Steve (Ian Ziering), David (Brian Austin Green) and Andrea (Gabrielle Carteris). Early episodes followed the bunch through high school and college, stopping to tackle the occasional weighty issue -- drunk driving, suicide, pregnancy scares, AIDS and rape among them. Characters came and went: Brenda bailed after four seasons; Dylan left the following year (and later returned), followed by Brandon and a few other assorted characters. By last season not a single Walsh family member remained as part of the regular cast. For the most part, though, the show was about unrealistically beautiful people living in an unbelievably beautiful place, tending to their unabashedly privileged selves. It's been all about escapism -- and I'm going to miss every single minute of it. How could I not? These characters endured my late teens through my mid-20s right along with me. The Walsh kids moved to a new city and changed high schools the same year I did; the entire group fumbled through their college careers just as I was doing; a couple of them wed their spouses around the time my husband and I took the plunge. (At least Andrea and Jesse, a bartender, did. Dylan married mob daughter Toni, who was murdered during the same episode. And Kelly and Brandon halted their nuptials at the last minute.) And now they're all leaving me. Fans unite At least I'm not alone in my misery. Las Vegan Christy Cuban began watching the show in its early days, mostly for laughs. "They were the worst actors and actresses I had ever seen and they were comical to me," she says. It wasn't long, though, before the mother of three was "sucked into the storyline and then, before you know it, you're hooked. So now, after 10 years, you kind of feel like you know them and you kind of feel like you grew up with them." She plans to preserve the final episode on videotape. Las Vegan Jill Marker has also watched the show since its debut. She was 24 then and, admittedly, a little older than most of its teenage fans. For a while she and a group of friends met weekly to watch "90210" followed by "Party of Five" (also on Fox, which aired its final episode earlier this month) over dinner and wine. 'I'm bummed out," Marker, a salesperson and mother of a toddler, says about the show's demise. She appreciates the show because it has tackled such issues as drug and alcohol abuse and infidelity. "That's what goes on in young people's lives." One of her favorite characters was Brenda -- "because she was scandalous." Also, "I like David a lot because he used to be a dork and now he's a stud. If you look back 10 years ago he was the nerd of the nerds." Marker's not sure how she will fill the viewing void on Wednesday nights. "I'll clean the house, I guess." Or surf the Internet, which is loaded with "90210" websites. One, Rex's Beverly Hills 90210 Obsessed Fan Sanctuary (http://members.aol.com/rexfelis), has won awards for its mix of gossip, trivia, photos and such. Rex (who requested that his last name and hometown not be used) has also watched "90210" since it began and has every episode on videotape. He uses them to answer questions from visitors to his site, which he spends about 10 hours each week updating. He gathers information about upcoming episodes (or "spoilers" as they're called), from online media outlets. (Advance buzz about the finale has Kelly and Dylan re-establishing their love connection.) In the early years the show "had a lot to do with Brandon and Brenda being outsiders, from a family with a modest income moving into a world where most of their friends were from wealth and fairly spoiled," Rex says. "Things like Brenda not being able to buy the latest, trendy clothes like her friends, and Brandon having to work to buy a used car, where his friends all drove sports cars, added a great touch of what it's like for the rest of us who aren't fortunate enough to live in the upper class." Although the Walshes intergrated into the swanky Beverly Hills lifestyle as the show progressed, Rex says, "it was always nice to see the gang stick together through everything over the years, even when problems arose that might have threatened their friendships." Take the love triangle that grew between Brenda, Dylan and Kelly in season three, for example. That's what turned Rex into an "obsessed fan" of the show, he says. "After that I always had this need to see what was going to happen next." Lending legitimacy Thankfully, fans' grief over "90210's" passing has been validated by television experts, who say the show made an impact on the medium. "Maybe the thing we're going to remember it most for is it was one of the last bastions of good, old-fashioned, cheesy television," says Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at New York's Syracuse University. Where the '70s were dominated by this type of viewing fare, the '80s gave birth to "Hill Street Blues" and "this really serious era of really good TV," he says. Still, "There's this tendency to dream of the days when 'Knight Rider' and 'The A-Team' dominated the airwaves, and 'Beverly Hills 90210' was one of the last places you could go and remember what television used to be, when television was the way God meant it to be." But Thompson doesn't mean to trash "90210." The show, he says, is significant because it served as the "great-grandparent in what became ... and remains a really important new genre of television programming that network television had pretty much ignored." That being the tidal wave of teen-driven shows that followed in its wake, including "Party of Five" and the WB network's current hits "Dawson's Creek," "Roswell," "Felicity" and "7th Heaven" (also produced by Spelling) as well as what Thompson considers the "masterpiece of the genre," ABC's short-lived, angst-ridden "My So-Called Life." "90210," he says, "settled this new, dramatic real estate of the teenage nation. Whatever you think of all these programs that came after it, this is an exciting and rich vein to tap for television drama. "You've got people who are in this liminal period between childhood and adulthood. ... They are on the verge of inventing themselves; they're young and everything is potential. The way to that potential is, of course, fraught with land mines and all of these various things that challenge youth, from alcohol to drugs to sexuality to identity crises." In fact, "90210" did garner some praise, including Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Television Series in 1992 and '93. Priestley also earned a Golden Globe nod that year for his acting on the show. Its long list of guest stars over the years is also impressive -- as well as eclectic -- and included: Academy Award winner Hilary Swank (playing a single mother/Steve's girlfriend); Milton Berle (whose portrayal of an Alzheimer's patient won him an Emmy in 1995); and Rosie O'Donnell, Little Richard and B-movie king Roger Corman (as themselves). Joe E. Tata, for one, had a great time on the set. The actor played Nat, owner of the Peach Pit diner, since the show's inception. His character also served as a sort of father figure/favorite uncle/big brother to the, uh, youngsters. (In tonight's episode he walks Donna down the aisle when she weds David.) Tata is amazed by the impact the show has had in the more than 100 countries in which it is seen. "Bottom line, there ain't no blue-eyed blondes in Sri Lanka, and they love our show," he says. "It's unbelievable the letters I get, like from Asia," where, he says, parents have written him: ' "We watch the show to understand our children who are being Westernized.' They watched what the Walshes did. They're trying to understand the young kids who just came from Minnesota to Beverly Hills." Saying goodbye Maybe that's part of the reason why Thompson considers the show "a generational and cultural phenomenon." Its audience worldwide aged along with the characters -- from their late teens well into their 20s -- and, for many viewers, it bridged their first kisses, sexual experiences and the births of their first children. "It really did take them through a long period in their life and I think there is a sense, as with any long-term program like that, that (it) really kind of creates its own universe, that when it goes away you realize you've been spending an hour a week with these people, which is probably more (time) than you spend with your siblings or parents in a lot of cases," Thompson says. "One of the interesting things about that show is that it mutated into something entirely different." The show's audience demographic target "moved up as its age was moving up and that's kind of difficult to pull off. I don't know that they did it entirely effectively, but they certainly didn't fail at it. The show has done well for Fox right up to the bitter end." That's precisely the point another of the show's executive producers, John Eisendrath, makes. While the show did not always find favor with television critics, Eisendrath says that ultimately it was the public's perception that mattered most. "I understand it was tough (for critics) to see past the look of the show, the midriffs, the hairstyles, the flash, to see if there was perhaps something beyond that," he says. "But, listen, 300 episodes are testament enough to the success and to the credit it was given by the most important people, and that's the people who watch TV." Will those viewers ever see another show like "90210" again? Rumors of a script for a sort of "90210: The Next Generation" are already floating around Hollywood. "I don't know anything about it," Eisendrath contends. "I don't think it can be replicated. (It should) just go, I think, gently and, hopefully, respectfully into the world of syndication and reruns." Ciao, my fabulous friends. Lisa Ferguson is an Accent feature writer. Reach her at lisa@lasvegassun.com or 259-4060. archive Share on printShare on emailShare on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareMore Sharing Services 0