Throwback Thursday: Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990-2000)

“First day of school. Strange city, new house, no friends……I’m psyched!”

Brandon and Brenda Walsh, Dylan McKay, Kelly Taylor, Steve Sanders, Andrea Zuckerman, Donna Martin, and, heck, even David Silver, are names that are synonymous with the 1990s. Those names, of course, are a list of the primary characters from Beverly Hills, 90210, one of the most successful shows from the 90s that remains popular to this day. The show focused on the day-to-day lives of a core group of teenagers making their way through life at upscale West Beverly Hills High. At the center of the group are Brandon and Brenda Walsh, two new transplants to the area from Minnesota. While their fish-out-of-water predicament initially drove the series, they ultimately became quite comfortable in their new surroundings and the series became more dramatic and, at times, ridiculously intense.

Although most of the people who were alive during its initial release (including myself) remember it as a wildly popular show, Beverly Hills, 90210 actually started with a whimper. Fox, the show’s home network, managed to save the series by releasing a “summer series” giving viewers original programming at a time when most networks were showing reruns. This move by Fox would result in the series running the entire decade and having ten seasons.

In the series, Brandon Walsh came off as the most level-headed guy in the group. He always seemed to be looking for a way to make everyone as happy as possible. His twin sister, Brenda, was a tad bit more rambunctious and seemed to ease into life at West Beverly Hills quicker in my opinion. She has an on-again-off-again relationship with the school’s local rebel, Dylan McKay, and forms strong friendships with the school’s apex snob, Kelly Taylor, and Kelly’s friend, Donna Martin, a kindhearted but ditzy girl who struggles in school. Brandon befriends Dylan and the school’s resident spoiled brat, Steve Sanders. Brandon also forms a strong bond with Andrea Zuckerman, a hard-working and highly intelligent student who has a crush on him. Then there’s David Silver, the freshman who desperately wants to be a part of the cool kids club. He is rather annoying at first, but ultimately matures into a fairly decent guy.

All of the primary characters in the series deal with terrible issues, but on a level much higher in some cases thanks to their well-to-do lifestyles. Depression, drug abuse, alcoholism, rape, the deaths of friends and family, pregnancy, learning disabilities, and infidelity are just a few of the many issues that members of the group faced. As a result, all of the characters changed, matured, and became different people by the end of the series.

The primary cast:

• Jason Priestley as Brandon
• Shannen Doherty as Brenda
• Luke Perry as Dylan McKay
• Jennie Garth as Kelly
• Ian Ziering as Steve
• Tori Spelling as Donna
• Gabrielle Carteris as Andrea
• Brian Austin Green as David
• James Eckhouse as Jim Walsh, Brandon and Brenda’s father
• Carol Potter as Cindy Walsh, Brandon and Brenda’s mother

There were a number of characters brought in for brief arcs that would change the lives of the main characters. Some would go on to have starring roles in the series while others would only be around for a few episodes. Some of the most impactful were Christine Elise as Emily Valentine, an unhinged bad girl who has a relationship with Brandon, Mark Damon Espinoza as Jesse Vasquez, a law student who impregnates and ultimately marries Andrea, and Rebecca Gayheart as Toni Marchette, who marries Dylan despite the fact that her father had Dylan’s father murdered in a mob hit.

Shannen Doherty was famously fired from the series before Season Five began and this would trigger a revolving door of new characters that would star in the series. It also triggered the exit of a number of the other main actors in the series such as Gabrielle Carteris, James Eckhouse, and Carol Potter. Carteris was written out of the show after her pregnancy (which was included in the series) and Eckhouse and Potter’s characters were moved to Hong Kong so that the series could focus on its now young adult cast.

Kathleen Robertson (Clare), Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (Valerie), Hilary Swank (Carly), Vincent Young (Noah), and Jamie Walters (Ray) are just a few of the many actors brought in to replace exiting characters over the last five seasons of the show. Luke Perry exited the show after the sixth season, eventually returning in the last two seasons. Jason Priestley left the show after its ninth season. Douglas Emerson, who starred in the first season of the show as David’s awkward best friend, Scott Scanlon, was famously killed off in the second season of the series by an accidental shooting. Writers of the series were forced to drop at least one character in the series due to budgetary reasons and decided that Scott was the weakest character on the show.

I was a massive fan of the series for its first five seasons. So were a lot of other people. I had posters on my wall and even grew out my sideburns and styled my hair into a pompadour just like Brandon and Dylan. I was insane enough to be the only guy at my school willing to wear a 90210 t-shirt in public and was often ridiculed as a result. The show was very popular with teenage girls and (at least in my opinion) was also very popular with young guys who did not want to admit that they watched it. I had crushes on pretty much all of the main female characters over the course of the series and a few of the recurring ones as well. My first big crush was on Jennie Garth and I then moved through crushes on Carteris, Doherty, and Spelling. When Emily Valentine was introduced in the second season and then later returned in the fourth and fifth seasons, I only had eyes for Christine Elise! I got to meet her recently, which was very cool. I also had a crush on Kathleen Robertson’s Clare for a long time as well.

The popularity of the series began to slowly die after the fifth season, but it remained one of the most successful shows on Fox until its cancellation in 2000. Melrose Place and Models, Inc. were spin-offs of the original series. A reboot arrived in 2008 on the CW entitled simply 90210. There was also a Melrose Place reboot. A six episode reunion series was released in 2019. As much as I hated the character of David Silver, I loved seeing him return on That 90’s Show in a hilarious episode that parodies Beverly Hills, 90210.

Whew! Sorry that I got a little long-winded there, but there was a lot of information to cover on this show. I loved and still love Beverly Hills, 90210 and hope that you enjoyed this trip down memory lane with me. See you at the Peach Pit!