Beverly Hills, 90210 Discussion Thread

[Chris B]

I forget his name but Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth had the EP on after they didn't understand the 60s flashback episode due to the lack of original music. He felt that was one of his strongest episodes so he came on to explain to them just how much the music changes hurt the series. Basically, they only allowed him to pick a selection of episodes he felt the music was vital and other than that they didn't bother to save the music. 

They kept music for prom and things like the Color Me Badd episode and for most of the musical acts but any music you loved from the opening of the show or just music played in random scenes was cut. 

I know there are also some scenes cut but I don't know too much about that. The most glaring one was Clare's final scene being cut which is obviously a huge problem for a character who'd been around for so long. Overall I was able to enjoy my rewatch using the DVDs but without all of the original music it isn't nearly as good a show.

[vetsoapfan]

Personally, I felt that the deletion of the original music from the girls' slumber party episode, and the axing of REM's Losing My Religion from the ep featuring Brenda and Dylan breaking up, were the most painful. The changes really damaged those episodes.

I dropped the DVDs after season two, but I've been told by other viewers who kept going that tunes from all the seasons continued being replaced, and the situation only got worse as the DVD releases progressed. Yes, penny-pinching from those in charge was the principle issue, but I wonder how much better the DVDs would have sold if such poor choices had not been made in the name of cost cutting.

On the other hand, when Time-Life put out the Vietnam-war era classic China Beach, they dug deep into their pockets and ended up clearing the rights to a whopping 268 (!!!) of the original tracks. This represented 96% of the total. TPTB said that when they were not given permission to use a few of the remaining pieces, they substituted different singers' versions of the exact same songs, in order to preserve the show's integrity as much as possible.

The CB set was expensive as heck, to be sure, but to me it was worth it.