90210 – Everyone has baby rabies!

(Season 1, Episode 12 – “Hello, Goodbye, Amen”)

90210 has been off the air for so long that if it weren’t for the fact that I review it, I probably would have forgotten about its existence. While we don’t exactly pick up where we left off, we may as well have, because nothing has actually changed for any of the characters. Naomi and Annie are still fighting, Silver is still jealous of the cheerleader who hangs all over Dixon, Kelly still can’t figure out why Brenda is being such a bitch, and Josh Henderson continues to have the worst generic TV Southern accent ever.

In all, I thought this episode was okay. I run hot and cold on this show and I’ve had a hard time putting a finger on exactly what my problem with it is, but I think this week I finally figured it out.

The new 90210 is too in the middle. Gossip Girl is so over the top crazy, with the expensive clothes and class wars and characters spending their winter breaks teleporting back to the 19th century and hanging out in opium dens, that 90210‘s shady illegitimate sons and trips to Cancun can’t compete. A show doesn’t have to be as insane as Gossip Girl to be good; they could choose to go the other way and try for a more accurate portrayal of high school life, a la Veronica Mars. Unfortunately, 90210 doesn’t do that either. It’s stuck somewhere in the middle, so I’m stuck somewhere in the middle of liking it and not.

Anyway, this week was all about havin’ babies. Between Harry and Tracy’s illegitimate son, Adrianna’s unexpected pregnancy, and Brenda’s inability to have kids, it seems as though everyone in Beverly Hills has babies on the brain — well, everyone except for Dixon and Silver, so let’s start with them.

As predictable as this show can be, I was way off on why they introduced the cheerleader. I thought she was brought in as a simple wrench in Dixon and Silver’s relationship; that as a black kid in a white family living in a predominantly white area, Dixon would be drawn to what seems to be the only other black person in California. It turns out this was only partly right. It seems weird to me that they made this character a lesbian. It seems as though it takes out whatever dramatic tension there may have been in this storyline. Now it’s just Dixon singing “Amazing Grace” at a fancy barbecue.

Adrianna’s storyline this week also threw me for a loop: my theory was completely off. So here’s what I thought was going to happen: Adrianna’s friend Hank, from rehab, was actually going to turn out to be Shaun. Since they had all been on winter break, I figured there was a pretty good chance that she hadn’t met Shaun yet. Since rehab seems to be the kind of place where you tell people things, I thought it would be reasonable that Adrianna mentioned how her best friend was trying to find her long-lost brother. Shaun decided to come to Beverly Hills and run himself a little con, which was going to come crashing down when he showed up at Support Day.

And this, ladies and gentlemen is why I write about TV, and not for it.

So, anyway, it turns out she’s pregnant instead. That’s cool too, I guess. She’s understandably nervous about telling her virgin boyfriend that she’s pregnant with some other dude’s baby, but she doesn’t know who, because she screwed so many guys while she was a drug addict. Navid is sweet, though; even though the previews for next week’s episode make it look like they get into a fight about it, he’ll probably be supportive.

Adrianna was also able to work Brenda back into the storyline. I don’t really read spoilers, but I still came across some things online that speculated that Brenda was either dying or pregnant. It turns out neither one is true. Instead, she can’t have children. Having this coupled with Adrianna’s pregnancy makes me worried that Brenda is going to try to adopt Adrianna’s baby. As Carrie said on Sex and the City when Aidan suggested Miranda give her baby to Charlotte instead of having an abortion, “It’s not a sweater.” I hope this show takes that to heart.

Hey, big surprise twist: Shaun is a fraud. While his plan may not have been as elaborate as the one I thought of, the end result is the same: He is not Harry and Tracy’s son. I think it’s funny that he still managed to scam Tracy, though; but Naomi blaming it on Annie? That’s just reaching. They’re trying to give the Naomi vs. Annie story more traction, and it’s just not working on any level.

At least we’re done with the bad Southern accent — and we’ll still get to meet the real brother! My only hope is that Naomi will inadvertently sleep with him before they find out they’re related. Now that’s a direction this show should go in.

Clacked by Kona Gallagher
on Jan 07, 2009 @ 09:00 EST5EDT