This or That: Beverly Hills, 90210 vs. Melrose Place

They even wore opposing colors.

 My obsession with Beverly Hills, 90210 and its subsequent spin-offs is hardly a secret. It's one of the most beautiful television franchises in history. And it's probably not a coincidence that its two best series, the original 90210 and its first spin-off Melrose Place, aired together in the 90s. Though they shared the same universe, the shows were vastly difference, so much so that they were constantly pitted against one another during their original broadcasts. This leaves us with one question: Which is better? Once again, Tommy Time's This or That is on the case.

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

Beverly Hills, 90210 is the foundation of the entire franchise. Story-wise, if Kelly didn't get involved with an older man who lived in an apartment complex off of Melrose Avenue, there wouldn't have been a spin-off. Melrose Place owes BH90210 its life. Not only that, but the parent show revitalized the teen drama, showcasing adolescence in a realistic yet dramatic way never before seen on television, and was one of the first high school centric series to successfully transition into the college years. Melrose Place took a different tonal route (which I'll discuss later), but it didn't do anything that prior primetime soaps like Dallas didn't before it.

Awards and accolades

Neither show reaped up a plethora of awards, and both were snubbed by the Emmys. However, 90210 was nominated for 4 Golden Globes (2 for Best TV Drama and 2 for Jason Priestley as Best TV Drama Actor) while Heather Locklear and Laura Leighton were nominated a total of 5 times for their Melrose performances.

In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named 90210 the #20 classic in the new TV era, with Melrose trailing in at #51. The magazine also named the 90210 theme song as one of television's best and the guys' sideburns as one of the best pop culture fashion trends; Melrose failed to make either list. Both shows made an impact on TV, but it's clear that this round goes to 90210!

Just the numbers

90210 ran for an astounding 10 seasons; Melrose ran for 7. And while Melrose outperformed 90210 during the 1996-1997 broadcast season, it was the latter that won in the ratings. Additionally, the 90210 reboot lasted 5 seasons; Melrose's reboot was cancelled after just one. Without question, 90210 wins this round!

Star power

90210 took a bunch of unknown actors and turned them into superstars. Jason Priestley and Luke Perry were teen heartthrobs while Shannen Doherty, Jennie Garth, and Tori Spelling were notable tabloid fixtures. Along with co-stars Brian Austin Green, Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, and Hilary Swank, the West Bev alums are still household names.

Melrose didn't have nearly as much luck. Heather Locklear was already at the top of her game when she joined the cast, but only Marcia Cross and Kristen Davis emerged from the series with a notability that they still keep to some degree. Clearly, Melrose has nothing on the 9-0 zip. This round goes to 90210!

Quality

Both shows may have shared the same universe, but they couldn't have been more different. 90210 tended to have better performances and stayed as true to reality as it could; the rare outlandish plotline was more than compensated by amazing character development and a strong sense of continuity. Melrose is one of the soapiest shows I've seen. It's crazy storylines never serviced the characters but rather sought to jolt the audience. Different strokes for different folks, but I say this round goes to 90210!

Well, wow (as Amanda Bynes would say in reference to a hair cape). It sure looks like Melrose Place struck out, huh? Well, unlike previous This or Thats, there are no losers here. Both shows are amazing, but 90210 is just superior. If you haven't, I encourage you to watch both series. It's only 17 years worth of television. Totally doable.

A Look Back on 90210: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Class of Beverly Hills.

Tonight, 90210 airs its final episode, thus officially closing the book on its five-year run. The show, a reboot of the original and far superior Beverly Hills, 90210, was once the CW's flagship program, but has spent the last two years just flagging. Join me as I bid farewell to everybody's favorite zip code and take a look back on every aspect of a show past its prime: the good, the bad, and ugly.

The Good

United they stand. Unlike its parent series, 90210 managed to keep its core gang together for the entire series. Early reports of on-set squabbles proved to be false, as the cast got along just as well as their onscreen counterparts. Seems like they learned from Shannen Doherty's mistakes.

Devious bitches. Catty backstabbers were a dime a dozen in Beverly Hills. Adrianna (Jessica Lowndes), Naomi (AnnaLynne McCord), Jen (Sara Foster), and Vanessa (Arielle Kebbel) are just a few 90210 vixens who did whatever it took to get what they want.

Blasts from the past. 90210 wasn't shy about delving into the franchise's DNA. Not only was main character Silver (Jessica Stroup) introduced in the original series as an infant, but Jennie Garth, Shannen Doherty, Tori Spelling, Anne Gillespie, and Joe E. Tata all reprised their famous roles, giving us updates on all the shit that went down in the 8-year gap between series.

Three's a crowd. While no love triangle will ever beat the notorious decade-long Brenda/Dylan/Kelly saga, the new 90210 came close several times, most notably with Adrianna/Navid/Silver. Adrianna and Navid (Michael Steger) were a considerably stable couple for the first three seasons until Silver intervened. What followed was a year of pill-swapping, baby-stealing, trash-talking rivalry. That's some juicy dramz and that shit gets the Tommy Time seal of approval.

The Beverly Hills of Tomorrow. The original series may have touched upon the social issues like racism, antisemitism, and homophobia, but its core cast almost exclusively belonged to the straight, white, Christian majority. The new series was considerably more progressive: Dixon (Tristan Wilds) was black; Navid represented the large Persian population of the real-world Beverly Hills; and Teddy (Trevor Donovan) came out as gay after a lifetime of womanizing. They even had a Wiccan in Ivy (Gillian Zinser)!

The Bad

No parents? No problem! In the series' early days, the parents played an integral role in its storylines. However, slowly but surely, they began to disappear. Some died, some fled the country, and some were simply just negligent. Moving to Paris was another popular parental method of exit.

Everybody's famous, rich, and successful. These kids sure took advantage of living in the city of angels. Before their 21st birthdays, the gang achieved a level of success everybody else could only dream of. Annie (Shenae Grimes) inherited an actress' entire estate, established a charity, and became a best-selling author. Dixon was a much buzzed-about music producer who set up his own record label. Naomi became a high-profile event planner and the local press's "Beverly Hills bad girl." Liam had a successful stint as a model and action movie star after running a bar at age 18. Even Ivy was so talented a surfer that she was being solicited to go tour the world.

The most indulgent, however, was Adrianna, who started the series as a former child star and struggling actress, became a pop singer, then got a reality show after the world discovered she stole her songs from her dead partner. Then she became a country singer, then a pop star again, then a songwriter, and now she's a pop star again. What have you done with your life?

Silver gets cancer, so she decides to have a baby. Perhaps the most ludicrous storyline is one in which Silver discovers that she has a cancer gene and will need to have her ovaries removed. At the ripe age of 19, she decides to have a baby, because it's now or never. Over a season later, we've seen her struggle to find a donor, almost lose ownership of her eggs, and deal with one bitch of a surrogate, but there's still no baby.

Special Guest Star [fill in the blank]. The CW seemed to love shelling out money for random-ass celebrities to hit up the 90210. Kim and Khloé Kardashian, Nelly, Snoop Dogg, Joe Jonas, LaToya Jackson, Taio Cruz, Olly Murs, Tegan and Sara, Sammy Adams, Denise Richards, and Rita Ora are just a few of the renowned actors to appear on the show.

Back in style. I'm all for paying homage to the original 90210, but the CW reboot often took it too far, creating near carbon copies of storylines from the original series. For example, Dixon's gambling problem was identical to Brandon's (Jason Priestley), and Naomi unknowingly got herself inducted in a cult just like Kelly did.

The Ugly
  
Naomi's crying face.

Clearly, each episode of 90210 is hit or miss. I'm surprised that a show that does as much wrong as it does right has stayed on the air for so long, but I've truly enjoyed these past five years of fuckery. It it with a bittersweet heart that I say goodbye to Beverly Hills. RIP 90210.

PS I'll take the Beverly Hills, 90210 20-year high school reunion special now plzzz.

Cunt of the Week: Shannen Doherty

You can take the girl out of Beverly Hills... And then you realize she
shouldn't have ever been there in the first place.

As Jennie Garth was Tommy Time's first ever Bitch of the Week, it seems only appropriate that I give her ultimate foe, Shannen Doherty, Cunt of the Week. And oh is ShanDo a cunt. Her first major act of cuntitude is her name. An E and no O's? Mm. But it wasn't until the 1990s, when she was cast as Brenda Walsh in Beverly Hills, 90210, that the name Shannen Doherty became a household synonym with "major cunt-ass bitch." (Imagine the fun you could have by telling someone you hate that he/she is such a Shannen Doherty, and they would have no idea what you were talking about!)

Shannen's time as Brenda Walsh, who was a cunt in her own right, lasted only four seasons. By this time, everybody was sick and tired of her bullshit. Her inflated ego took a blow when the Walsh-centric drama was revamped into an ensemble teen drama and she was forced to share the spotlight with the supporting cast. She didn't hold back when it came to expressing her dissatisfaction.

The increased focus on the ensemble cast strained Shannen's already-tumultuous relationships with her co-stars, particularly Jennie. The girls' feud was notorious, and according to Tori Spelling, they frequently fought over wardrobe and even got into a fist fight once. Think Jennie's just as much to blame? She's not. Shannen was also known to argue with Gabrielle Carteris and break into Jason Priestley's dressing room. On one occasion, she allegedly crashed a car on set and blamed it on Ian Ziering. Even her on-screen boyfriend Luke Perry allegedly requested to work with Shannen as little as possible. Shannen had shown her true cunting colors and everybody hated her, as they should. So after she rebelliously cut her hair mid-episode, thus throwing off continuity, nobody spoke up when Aaron Spelling decided to fire her.

All of this was in ADDITION to Shannen's other monumental personal problems, including frequent and fleeting engagements, a secret and bizarre last-minute marriage, bar fights, evictions, a lawsuit for bouncing over 70 checks, and accusations from a former fiancé that the actress held him at gunpoint and threatened to hire men to sodomize him in her front yard.

Shannen was universally hated, on and off-screen, and her career took a hit. In quite possibly his biggest regret, however, Aaron Spelling gave her a second chance and cast the troubled cunt in his supernatural series Charmed. But it seems like Shannen didn't learn her lesson, because she began duking it out with co-star Alyssa Milano right off the bat. In 2001, after three seasons of on-set drama, Alyssa reportedly threatened to quit unless Shannen was fired. Guess who came out the victor of that ultimatum? That's right: Alyssa. Once again, Shannen was packing her proverbial bags and was on her way out of another Spelling Production.

Since then, Shannen seems to have cleaned up her act. She has admitted to being a pain to work with, and for instigating most of the on-set tension with her co-stars. Still, her career is practically non-existent. While she reprised her role as Brenda Walsh for a season of the new 90210 fourteen years after getting fired from the original show, she's basically been reduced to a part-time reality star who makes television movies called Gretly: The Witch Hunter. So, just let that sink in.

No matter what she does now, ShanDo will never be able to undo over a decade's worth of cuntitude. If there's a lesson to be learned in all of this, it's that you should never go up against Jennie Garth. You will lose and your life will be ruined.

20 Things You Didn't Know About Beverly Hills, 90210

This reeks of 90s.

1. Beverly Hills, 90210 was originally titled The Class of Beverly Hills. That shit just ain't catchy, and now 90210 is the most-recognized zip code by both Americans and foreigners.
2. Jennie Garth was the first actor cast in the series, landing the role of the spoiled and beautiful Kelly Taylor after five auditions. (Bullshit! Bitch should've gotten it when she walked through the door!)
3. Despite urban myth to the contrary, Tori Spelling insists that producers were well aware that she was the daughter of series creator Aaron Spelling when she auditioned, though she did use a fake name in hopes of avoiding special treatment. Tori originally tried out for the role of Kelly, but was instead cast as Donna, a role specifically created for her. When the series began, she only had a few lines per episode. It wasn't until the second season that audiences were subjected to her so-called acting.
4. Luke Perry, who originally auditioned for the role of Steve Sanders, was cast as Dylan McKay for a two-episode arc. Aaron Spelling liked him so much that he made Luke a series regular, despite the Fox network's reluctance.
5. Beverly Hills High School would not allow the show to use its name or location, thus producers created West Beverly High and filmed at Torrance High School, which was also used for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, She's All That, and Bring It On. Filming for the exterior scenes of the fictional California University took place at Occidental College.
6. Originally, the family-oriented drama depicted twins Brandon (Jason Priestley) and Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) and their parents as they adjusted to the move from Minnesota to Beverly Hills, and each episode was a sort of a lesson of the week. Midway through the first season, however, the show began targeting a younger audience and focused more on the twins' group of friends. The first of these teen-driven episodes aired in February 1991, when other networks had suspended creative programming to cover the Gulf War. (At the time, Fox didn't have a news department. Wish they still didn't!) The show's new tone compounded with the temporary elimination of its competition led to a surge in ratings.
7. Starting with the second season, Fox capitalized on the show's success and ordered extended seasons of the show, airing as many 32 episodes per season instead of the traditional 22-24. Beverly Hills, 90210 often aired summer episodes, which no other show at the time was doing, thus attracting even more viewers. By this time, the show had solidified itself as a youth-driven soap opera, forever abandoning the original family-friendly concept.
8. Douglas Emerson, who portrayed Scott Scalon, was the first actor to be let go from the series. Both he and Brian Austin Green portrayed dorky underclassmen, but only Green caught the producers' eyes and received real storylines and more screentime. Emerson's character was killed off in the second season, a decision that reportedly stemmed from the network pressuring producers to cut costs.
9. Both Aaron Spelling and the Fox network wanted to make the high school years last as long as possible. Though the characters refer to themselves as juniors in the first season, the second season later became their official junior year, and from then on, the first season was retconned as sophomore year. Much to Spelling and Fox's chagrin, executive producer Charles Rosin constructed the third season as senior year in real time (college applications in the fall, prom in the spring, etc.). It wasn't until he agreed to send the characters to the same college that Spelling and Fox stopped protesting the transition out of high school.
10. Though Shannen Doherty's highly publicized personal troubles and onset squabbles with her costars, particularly Jennie Garth, are often cited for reasons behind her getting fired at the end of the fourth season, producer Larry Mollin says that the straw that broke the camel's back was when she cut her hair halfway through filming the season finale, thus throwing off the continuity of the scenes that had already been shot. At the cast's urging, Aaron Spelling released Shannen from her contract, though he later cast her in Charmed, from which she was also fired.
11. Tiffani Amber Thiessen, who joined the cast as Valerie following Shannen's departure, was dating Brian Austin Green at the time. Brian was not happy about the casting, as Thiessen's promiscuous character was often getting it on with the other male cast members. Several actresses were offered the role of Valerie, including Alicia Silverstone and Drew Barrymore. All I can say is praise Baby Jesus that Drew fucking Barrymore wasn't available to mumble Valerie's lines out her side mouth.
12. The gang's hangout spot, a diner called the Peach Pit, is modeled after the Apple Pan, an actual restaurant located in West Los Angeles.
13. Gabrielle Carteris was 29 when she was cast to play 16-year-old Andrea Zuckerman. When bitch got knocked up, reluctant producers had no choice but to write the pregnancy into the script. By this time, the age difference between Gabrielle and her co-stars was becoming increasingly apparent. Additionally, producers weren't satisfied with the performance of Mark Damon Espinoza, who played Jesse, Andrea's baby daddy. For these reasons, neither actor's contract was renewed after the fifth season.
14. Aaron Spelling was incredibly dedicated to protecting Tori's reputation, and by extension, the Donna character's as well. For this reason, Donna remained a virgin until her college graduation in the seventh season, despite the fact that Tori was a noTORIous slut behind the scenes. Additionally, audiences wrote in and called the character an idiot for staying with an abusive boyfriend, Ray (Jamie Walters), in the fifth and sixth seasons. Though Jamie was signed for an additional year on the series and the writers had planned to redeem his character, Aaron demanded that he be written off as soon as possible in order to protect Donna's character.
15. Dylan's father, Jack McKay (Josh Taylor), was killed off in a car explosion in the third season, but the scene was shot in a way so that the revelation of his survival could be used later on. However, Luke Perry left the show in the sixth season and the storyline was delayed until he returned at the end of the series. By this time, none of the writers who had implemented the original plot were on staff and the "Jack McKay is back from the dead" storyline was butchered and contradicted earlier events in the series.
16. The Brenda/Dylan/Kelly love triangle is one of the show's most iconic storylines and one of the most apparent. It spanned the entire ten seasons of the series, even after Doherty and Perry's departures, and continued into the current CW reboot.
17. While Shannen Doherty's departure led to a mild ratings decrease, it wasn't until both Jason Priestly and Tiffani Amber Thiessen left during the ninth season that the show experienced a major blow to its viewership, prompting Fox to make the tenth season its last.
18. By the end of the series, Jennie Garth, Ian Ziering, Brian Austin Green, and Tori Spelling were the only remaining members of the original cast. However, not a single actor appeared in all 296 episodes of the series.
19. Among the various Beverly Hills, 90210 spin-offs, Melrose Place (1992-1999) is the most famous. Its drastic and soapy tone proved immensely popular, and it overtook its parent series in success for most of its run. The show cemented Heather Locklear's status as a television superstar, and launched the careers of other actors, including Marcia Cross, who later brought her own brand of OCD craziness to Wisteria Lane on Desperate Housewives.
20. In 2008, 90210 premiered on The CW. The show is a reboot of the original and focuses on a new generation of West Beverly (and later, California University) students. One character, Erin Silver (Jessica Stroup), appears in the original series as the toddler half-sister to Kelly (Garth) and David (Green). Additionally, Garth, Doherty, and Spelling have all reprised their roles on the show. But besides a few characters and half a title, the new show has little in common with Beverly Hills, 90210. Seriously, watching them is like night and day.

Bitch of the Week: Jennie Garth, Queen of 9021-Oh Snap!

Still ruling the 90210 zip code after all these years.

Happy Friday! The weekend is finally upon us, and what better way to celebrate its arrival than with the Bitch of the Week. You may be questioning what exactly is the difference between Bitch of the Week and Cunt of the Week. The answer is simple: while a Cunt of the Week is someone who just sucks ass, a Bitch of the Week rocks the shit out of life. It's a highly prestigious title, and it gives me great honor to present it to the great Jennie Garth.

Photographic proof that Jennie has been
making the ultimate bitch face since 1992.

Jennie rose to fame in the 90s while starring in Beverly Hills, 90210 as Kelly Taylor, a self-absorbed bitch with a slutty reputation to boot. Anyone who knows me will tell you that any character fitting such a description is usually my fave, so I was instantly drawn to Kelly, and to Jennie by default. Though Kelly was originally a supporting role on the show, playing second fiddle to a couple of flannel-clad twins from the Mid West, it didn't take Jennie long to outshine the resident hag, who is occasionally referred to as Shannen Doherty, and become the show's female lead. There was so much alleged tension between Jennie and Shannen as the former's character began eclipsing the latter's that it was reportedly one important factor in Shannen losing her job. Other reasons include her excessive partying and legendary cuntitude. Jennie & Co. would have none of that! Here's Jennie being passive aggressive as fuck about Shannen's departure to Entertainment Weekly:

We were friends at work, and I miss her most of the time. We were all uncertain about how it would be (without her). But now that we're back, it's like she was never here.

Beautifully said, J! But like a true bitch, Jennie didn't go without feuding for long. When Tiffani Amber Thiessen dragged her sorry ass from Saved by the Bell to BH90210 for the fifth season, Jennie let that Brenda Walsh wannabe know her place immediately. While the women eventually became friends, Jennie soon shut her out again. Loving the whole "keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer and then banish them" attitude! The cat fight is still making headlines as of this past May, which is just too delicious!

Soon enough, Jennie was queen of the set, basically carrying the whole fucking show by herself and continued to do so for ten seasons. (Let's face it, it's not like Ian Ziering and Tori Spelling could really do shit.) So important was Jennie's portrayal of Kelly that she even launched an entire fucking spin-off, the famed Melrose Place, and would later reprise her role in the 2008 90210 reboot. Can you imagine having the foundation of an entire franchise on your shoulders? Of course not. You ain't Jennie Garth!

Since the BH90210's finale in 2000, Jennie's career has flagged quite a bit, but that hasn't stopped her from being the ultimate bitch. She starred in the underrated sitcom What I Like About You from 2002 to 2006, during which time Jennie reportedly got into yet another feud with her co-star, a pre-meltdown Amanda Bynes. Then she danced the shit out of Dancing With the Stars in 2007 and reached the semi-finals. (Side note: Shannen Doherty also did the show and was eliminated in the first week. Lol!) That same year, she taught me and my entire health class all we needed to know about AIDS in the Lifetime movie Girl Positive. Oh, and she was also married to that Twilight guy for a bit. They had a couple of kids and then he cheated on her. Guess some men can't handle a true bitch!

It's clear that Jennie Garth is, has always been, and will continue to be a bitch. Whether it's picking fights with co-stars or just being an all-around BAMF, Jennie knows who she is and she is not apologizing for it. You go, girl!