Category Archives: TV

The Boys of Beverly Hills 90210

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I spend such a large amount of time reading too much into the fashion of Donna Martin and the inner politics of the Kelly, Brenda, Donna clique that I’m often guilty of neglecting the boys of Beverly Hills 90210, but they are just as multi-layered, have just as many intricate relationships with one another and are responsible for just as many fashion don’ts (come on down David Silver) as the girls. So here it is, my countdown of the most prominent males of Beverly Hills 90210.

Mel Silver
Okay, hear me out. In the faceless credits after the theme song, there was a name that always came up and no, I’m not talking about Joe E. Tata, who finally got to spin around and smile in the opening credits in season 6. I’m talking about the name Matthew Laurance. I always wondered who it was, because Joey from Blossom’s younger brother was never in an episode. One day, I IMDB’d it – yes, I am that sad – and discovered that Matthew Laurance played Mel Silver, David’s philanderer orthodontist dad. He makes this list because, after years of being just another name in the faceless opening credits, I feel he deserves a little recognition.

Best moment: He was the one responsible for giving Donna champagne at the prom. That means he played an integral part in pop culture history.

Who IS Matthew Laurance?
Who IS Matthew Laurance?
THIS is Matthew Laurance.
THIS is Matthew Laurance.

Matt Durning
Let’s face it, he was a poor man’s Brandon Walsh, conveniently brought in one or two episodes before Jason Priestley’s departure as Kelly’s new love interest. Matt Durning, attorney at law, even looked like Brandon, and his entry into the show also conveniently coincided with a lot of the main cast suddenly having legal problems with which they needed assistance. To this day, I don’t really get Matt – he was a defence lawyer, was secretly married to a schizophrenic woman he left behind at a New York mental hospital and cheated on Kelly while under the influence of LSD, yet he still managed to be boring. How is that even possible?

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Revisiting ‘Wedding Bell Blues’, the Season 2 Finale of Beverly Hills 90210

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Fact: Brenda and Kelly were frenemies. Now, call me perverse, but some of my favourite episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 involved when they fell out with each other. Remember when Brenda caught Kelly and Dylan out on a date and Kelly defended herself when Brenda called her a bimbo? Brenda’s classic comeback was one of the best lines from the whole ten years of Beverly Hills 90210 put together: “Well Kelly, I was always taught that if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck…” Oh-may-zing.

Well, this season two finale is also a bit of a doozy. Get set for when frenemies, father issues, two Aaron Spelling dramas, a bottle of alcohol and a wall collide. Da na na na, da na na na!

 

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A Melrose Place Cross-Over and a Mexican Stand-Off
The episode opens with Brenda and Dylan stuck on the wrong side of the Mexican border after Brenda forgets her license. She and Dylan have been in Baja and she’s lied about it to Jim and Cindy, telling them she was with Kelly all weekend. Brenda’s flipping out because border control have called Jim Walsh and he is mad. He yet again forbids Brenda from seeing Dylan (how many times has he done that already?) and Dylan acts like a bit of an indignant douche when he kisses Brenda and telling her he’ll see her at school… tomorrow. Methinks the issue spreads a little deeper than the trip to Mexico, but we’ll tug at that thread later!

Meanwhile, Kelly’s been busy having it off with Jake Hanson from Melrose Place, who’s been hired to construct a wedding canopy for the impending nuptials of Kelly’s knocked-up mum Jackie and David Silver’s father Mel. That’s right, folks, this episode is one of the cross-over episodes used to introduce us to Beverly Hills 90210’s sister show Melrose Place. Anyway, for a 17-year-old girl, Kelly is pretty confident with her sex banter, telling Jake it’s “looking good”… and she’s not talking about the canopy. I still can’t talk to men like that, and I’m 31. Has that what my life’s become? Envying the scripted flirting on an early ‘90s teen drama? Anyway, moving on…

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Jackie storms out to the backyard wearing what has to be the loudest, most conspicuous maternity dress I’ve ever seen. She rips Kelly a new one for lying to Cindy Walsh about Brenda’s whereabouts and Kelly’s embarrassed that she now looks like a kid in front of Jake. She has a go at Brenda the next day at school, but Brenda doesn’t seem to care too much about that, asking, “What does Jake have to do with this anyway?”, to which Kelly replies, “Brenda, I do have a life”. Remember that – it sows the seeds for a showdown between the long-standing frenemies later in the episode, so stay tuned…

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When Sex and the City Went ‘Splat’

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Cynthia Nixon recently admitted to the New York Times that while she’s proud of what Sex and the City did for women, she didn’t like how the first movie linked love and money when Big bought Carrie a penthouse apartment with a customised walk-in closet and, worse, when the audience cheered.

“I remember when we screened the first movie in London, when Mr. Big shows Carrie the closet he’s built for her and the entire audience clapped”, she told the Times. “I found that devastating. Maybe that’s a strong word, but I was disheartened. Because I thought, ‘Is this what women in the audience think true love is? A man who has enough money to buy you a walk-in closet?’”

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Now that Cynthia’s opened the floor to criticism of Sex and the City, I’d like to take the opportunity to talk about how I felt the last few episodes of the series did a massive disservice to all the work the previous seasons did to champion single women and how I, as one of those single women in her late teens/early 20s at the time the show aired, felt betrayed by how the series ended. It is a view I rarely share with others due to the fact that the series finale regularly tops ‘best of’ SATC countdowns and because of a conversation I had with someone years ago who asked me, ‘What? Don’t you like happy endings?’ Yes, of course I like happy endings in general, but why does a happy ending have to be synonymous with a conventional happily-ever-after?

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