This past Saturday night, Lifetime aired the Unauthorized Beverly Hills 90210 Story, and while I was originally intending to watch it and review it, something occurred to me. I made the mistake of watching and reviewing the Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story, which I referred to as a heaping pile of WTF. It was so bad, in fact, that I didn’t even bother with Lifetime’s next installment of attempting to ruin my childhood, AKA The Unauthorized Full House Story. And after reading this USA Today review, I am glad I didn’t bother.
So why would I make the same mistake twice? I’m glad I didn’t because the reviews of 90210 are in, and it looks like I made the right choice.
The “movie” — or whatever it was supposed to be — was, as predicted, hot garbage. According to Heather over at Go Fug Yourself, there is a scene in which the actor playing Ian Ziering playing Steve Sanders insists to the actress playing Jennie Garth playing Kelly Taylor that they should practice their kissing scene(s), and she agrees. You guys. The exact same thing happened in the SBTB story, when Tiffani Amber Thiessen insists the same of Mark-Paul Gosselaar.
Now, it is entirely possible both those things actually did happen — and in fact, rumor has it that the set of SBTB was one big orgy. But seriously, Lifetime, how fucking lazy ARE you?
Lifetime also left out key characters in 90210 (Emily Valentine, whose omission is an affront to humanity, and Scott, David’s friend who accidentally shot himself) as it did in SBTB (Tori & Stacey Carosi). I only have one thing to say about that.
Lifetime gets ONE point for using the same actress to play TAT for 90210 as they did for SBTB. Probably because even if Lifetime wanted to use someone different, after seeing that movie, most to all working actresses they theoretically approached were like, “Hard pass. I would rather serve mega burgers at the Peach Pit.”
Speaking OF, I don’t think the national treasure known as Nat Bussichio was included in this movie. RUDE! He walked Donna down the aisle when she married David, because she spent so much goddamn time at the Pit and her Dad was dead so who else was going to do it?? But Lifetime apparently felt it could leave Nat out of the story because it was too busy focusing ALL its energy on Shannen Doherty’s super diva behavior. And I mean, yeah, it got her fired, but there was so much more to this show than just that. It ran for 10 freaking seasons, for fuck’s sake.
So anyway — my question is this. Why does Lifetime continue to produce these garbage movies? Considering how many people tuned in for their first attempt at whatever it was they were attempting, because who knows, I am beyond shocked they (whoever was responsible for this shit show) didn’t pack it in to jet off to Fiji and sell Mai Tais on a beach in disguise, because that is what they should have done.
As Cinema Blend puts it:
“According to THR, the 9 p.m. ET telecast only brought in 1.6 million total viewers, which is roughly 100,000 less than the number of girls’ numbers that Mario Lopez and Mark-Paul Gosselaar got while starring in the original series. These numbers are pretty dismal, though it’s possible they’ll be a little larger once DVR totals come in.”
The problem is that Lifetime has been around since 1984. It has produced such gems as Mother, May I Sleep With Danger and the particularly creepy For My Daughter’s Honor, which, I mean, Gary Cole, you didn’t need the paycheck THAT badly, did you?
So, since it has been around since 1984, we know there is an audience there to watch whatever hot mess the network feels like throwing at us. In the 90s, it was creepy sex movies. Now, apparently the latest trend is throwing together piles of garbage to ruin our favorite childhood shows. Either way, it doesn’t appear there is an end to our suffering any time soon. My only advice is to log on to Hulu immediately and start watching the reruns of the actual shows, rather than what Lifetime wants us to see.
