19 minutes ago, Chris B said:

Season three is as impressive as I remember. For a teen show, this has such impressive writing and I see why it's so difficult to recreate the type of magic they had here. I miss the longer scenes shows used to have. There is so much character development we've lost in an effort to speed through things. This Brenda/Dylan/Kelly triangle today would likely just be another triangle, but the fact that it takes Brenda 13 episodes to find out made it so much more impactful. I also love that they had the complication of Brends flirting with Rick in Paris and the lack of sex between Dylan and Kelly. They spent the season really building the Brenda/Dylan and Brenda/Kelly dynamics so by the time it hit, it exploded.

Another relationship I love that I feel is overlooked is David and Kelly. Making them siblings was a clever way of maturing David and integrating him into the group in a real way as his relationship with Donna developed. The weakest part of the season for me continues to be Brandon, Andrea and Steve. The ironic thing is that Andrea has good chemistry with both guys that is completely ignored. Brandon/Andrea was teased at the start of the season, but they instead put him with a string of forgettable romances while she mostly sat on the backburner or in Blaze related plots. Steve is just kinda there. 

I wish they would've gone there with Steve and Andrea. They had good chemistry since back when they had made out that one time. Imagine Brandon's growing jealousy as Steve and Andrea get closer. Brenda calling her brother out for being jealous. Steve and Andrea confronting him with Brandon admitting he had feelings for her. 

Edited January 18, 20223 yr by Forever8

Yep. Season 3 (and season 2) were great. There was a big drop in quality when they sent everyone off to college. Everyone being in the same college was ridiculous, not to mention the political stories, Andrea and her pregnancy, Claire, Greek life. Ugh.

I wish they had just had each new season take place during the summer, when the gang was home for college. You could have had a time jump each season. The summer episodes were always my favorite anyway.

I’m into season five now, which is just fantastic. Valerie is an inspired character and I love that they’re full on soap now. I find I don’t miss Brenda, because she was such an outsider in season four that it was time. 
 

The biggest disappointment of season five is Andrea. I was shocked at how well she was written in season four and it seems everything they did right has disappeared. Instead of mostly having scenes with Brandon of Steve, they fully integrated her with the girls which I loved. She felt like a real part of the group and an important part. I loved her dating and sleeping around as well and she fit in perfectly. 
 

I don’t mind the pregnancy story, but it would’ve worked better with Steve or Brandon as the father. If it had to be Jesse, the casting needed to be better. This is probably one of the worst pieces of casting I’ve ever seen. Now in season five she’s isolated mostly to dull scenes with him, has aged a decade and is clearly in the way out. Season four proved there was a long term future for Andrea, but you can tell the writers and producers used Gabrielle’s age to push her out.

3 hours ago, Chris B said:

Season four proved there was a long term future for Andrea, but you can tell the writers and producers used Gabrielle’s age to push her out.

Agree.  There are times when it's all-too-apparent that storylines and such are being driven by BTS agendas.  To me, Andrea's marginalization was one of those times.

Larry Mollin discussed part of the Andrea issue here, in one of several very candid BTS interviews by a few 90210 staff on this site. They make it clear Mark Damon Espinoza was an issue.

Quote

TDW: That was actually my next question. You were there for some big casting changes. You had Shannen leave in season 4, Tiffani join in season 5, Gabrielle [Carteris, Andrea] leave later in season 5 and you had Luke leave in season 6. What do you remember about those times and having to adapt the show?

Mollin: Oh, it was sad. The Shannen one, we wanted her to work. I mean, the writers loved Shannen. She’s a child of this business. You give her a script and she’ll just read it exactly like you wrote it. Never change a word, never ask a question. She had a photographic memory. She could be doing anything she wanted the night before and just come in and nail it–and the other kids hated that. She’s tough on the set. She’s just a child of the industry. It’s not really who she is. She’s just whoever she plays, in a lot of ways. She’s just a kind of unusual, very talented professional but hard to get along with. She just kind of pissed everyone off eventually and she pissed off the most important person, which was, you know, Tori [Spelling, Donna]. And not only that, she introduced Tori to a man who beat her. So that pretty much put the death card on her. So that was pretty much that. I think they were willing to go with her but, basically, what happened was, in the middle of a show, she cut her hair and totally screwed us up for continuity so everyone was pissed off at her. Like I said, not the writers so much, but the producer people. And the other kids were out to get her head, because she had pissed everybody off, and they basically went to the old man [Aaron Spelling] and said she had to go. He was happy to let her go because, like I said, she had introduced Tori to the guy who beat her. I’m not going to mention his name. So that was just the way business was done there. The old man was never the bad guy. He would let everyone else be the bad guy and then he’d get rid of her and then bring her back again [in Charmed]. But it was unfortunate she left, because we had all intention of keeping her there. And I always feel bad, because it was my idea to send her to England to get acting lessons [Episode 5.31-2, Mr. Walsh Goes To Washington], which kind of became a bad joke because she was a good actress. I never thought she was a bad actress. That whole storyline came out of something that I really loved. I loved Tennessee Williams and we went to the estate and got the whole Cat on a Hot Tin Roof thing [Episodes 4.27-30]. We had the Laura Kingman suicide [Episode 4.29, Truth and Consequences]. It was kind of out there but it was good, it was fun. It was well-done and Shannen was good in it. But it was a way to get rid of her. But we, obviously, always kept her alive in season 5, 6 [by mentioning her]. We always meant to keep her and, of course, that’s the big relationship. Our largest triangle–her, Dylan and Kelly–that’s the crown jewels, as far as we were concerned. We would never do anything to harm that so we always just kept it going. And that’s what’s so harmful to me. All these careful things we did, these new people [on the new 90210] are just indiscriminate. Whatever they can get the jolt with, they do. There’s no thinking.

TDW: We’ll get to that later on, for sure.

Mollin: So she left and Tiffani came in. We obviously had an exhaustive search to replace her. We looked at many people. We liked Tiffani and we thought, “Oh, this is cute. I think she’s Brian’s girlfriend. He’ll love this!” When we cast her, Brian [Austin Green, David] was so upset! Oh my god, he felt betrayed! We were totally shocked and had no idea. But, then, of course, we realized why: because other people would be kissing and feeling up his girlfriend! That’s what the guys do. That’s their free shot. Luke’s a wonderful man and Jason [Priestley, Brandon] is a wonderful man. But they are young guy actors on a show, which basically means they get to feel anybody up they want. And that’s just the way they are. I’ve got tons of outtakes of this stuff. That was just the fun of it. That’s just the way it was before sexual harassment became really a watch word in the industry. Young actresses just had to put up with that sh*t. I had seen that for years and years on shows. It was the way it went. Obviously if a girl didn’t like it, she could complain but most of them just put up with it and just expected it. The guys were just like that. But Tiffani came in and we just had fun with her character. Chuck and I created her character. I remember creating that one-hand pot-smoking/rolling thing [in Episode 5.01, What I Did On My Summer Vacation And Other Stories] and her character just took off. She was a total two-faced character and we really hadn’t had anyone like that on the show. We brought in the character and it totally helped lift the show up a bit for a while. Who was next?

TDW: Gabrielle. She left later that season.

Mollin: Well, Gabrielle, we asked her politely–she was the oldest–if she could just hold back. We didn’t want to do a baby. Did not want to. We certainly didn’t do the Hunter Tylo thing where [Melrose Place] asked her to get an abortion but, you know, we didn’t want to go down that road. But she got pregnant and was having the baby and there was nothing we could do. I actually used my whole personal story for it. Her premature baby and all that came out of my life. We gave it a good shot. I have to admit I was not in the room when Mark Damon Espinoza [Jesse] was cast. I was totally appalled that they cast this guy. He had ears as big as Botswana as far as I was concerned. I just could not believe it. I have no idea what happened in that room that day when they cast him. I just thought they totally blew it. To have a guy with a receding hairline– just everything I thought was wrong. And he was a nice man but it just was never going to happen. And rather than getting like an Esai Morales, someone who was really sexy and good–I just had no idea what he was thinking, the old man. He was always difficult with minority casting. He would always go ways we would never understand but we never wanted to get into it. So they cast him and they just didn’t really click. It didn’t really add to us. It took away a lot of the fun, to have to be in this grown-up stuff. We eventually just didn’t think it was going to work, and I don’t know who made the decision; I guess it was the old man. She was done. She was gone. We sent her off to Yale, as I remember [Episode 5.30, Hello Life, Goodbye Beverly Hills]. But she came back. She came back for Steve’s birthday party on the Queen Mary [Episode 6.31-2, You Say It’s Your Birthday]. I think we brought her back for that. I did that one with Steve Wasserman. That was a big show, too. That was a fun show.

Edited February 7, 20223 yr by Vee

Wait Melrose Place asked Hunter Tylo to get an abortion in 1996?

Edited February 7, 20223 yr by John

It was part of a massive lawsuit launched when she was hired to play Taylor McBride and then dropped after getting pregnant. They recast with Lisa Rinna and she sued Spelling. I'm sure that was among her allegations and it may well be true.

33 minutes ago, Vee said:

It was part of a massive lawsuit launched when she was hired to play Taylor McBride and then dropped after getting pregnant. They recast with Lisa Rinna and she sued Spelling. I'm sure that was among her allegations and it may well be true.

i knew all that but not the abortion angle. 

I remember that Hunter Tylo scandal. IIRC, her son was born with a birth defect and she claimed that was due to the stress they put her under. I remember hearing when she stood up in court at 9 months pregnant, you couldn’t even tell she was pregnant. I wonder if she felt pressure to stay slim to justify keeping her job for the lawsuit. 
 

Reading those interviews @Vee posted don’t paint Aaron Spelling in the best light. I feel like Donna suffered from his interference. I liked the chemistry Tori had with Cress Williams (who was also great with Brandon), but Aaron didn’t want his daughter with a Black love interest. Watching season 5 I feel like all of the fun has been drained from Donna. That goofy, funny, but lovable girl is completely gone and she’s been turned into the type of heroine that Tori isn’t great at playing. 
 

While I’m here I almost must say that Kelly Taylor is a hateful bitch. She always has her nose turned up at someone. I’m glad Brenda is gone because I hate how she’d always do something to Brenda and turn it around to play the victim. I’m curious when her likability will return because this ain’t it.

Originally I only saw seasons 9 and 10 when they originally aired and after season 5 it’s going to be fresh for me, barring episodes here and there that I’ve seen. I’m curious how I will react because I recall seasons 6 and 7 not grabbing me from the episodes I can remember.

 

 

Kelly doesn’t get better. Only worse. She becomes judgmental and sanctimonious starting in season 5, and it only gets worse. I kept hoping Valerie would pop her in the nose, but that never happened unfortunately.

11 hours ago, Vee said:

Larry Mollin discussed part of the Andrea issue here, in one of several very candid BTS interviews by a few 90210 staff on this site. They make it clear Mark Damon Espinoza was an issue.

Thanks, @Vee, for the link.  I think I might have come across those interviews in the past, but I'm not 100-percent sure.  Regardless, Larry Mollin's comments re: the Andrea situation pretty much confirm or reinforce my suspicions.  I never suspected that they hated Gabrielle and wanted her gone, but I could tell from what I was seeing that what was happening ON-screen was being dictated by stuff that was happening OFF-screen.

Anything after Season 6 (which gets pretty sleazy, but has Clare and the great Emma Caulfield as Susan Keats, who should've stayed) is a wash AFAIC. Especially Season 7.

Edited February 8, 20223 yr by Vee

Yeah, the show started going into the drain by season 7 though I'm fine with thinking of it as the final season. Post-college they sort of fell into being pre-Amanda Melrose. Why they thought we'd enjoy seeing these characters struggle with their careers is beyond me.

Maybe Wear This! could've been exposed as a money laundering operation or something.

I think it was Season 8 where a very different team took over from the old guard? One of the interviews at the site above discusses some of that. I think it was John Eisendrath? Either way the show got worse and worse. I didn't think Hilary Swank was one of those mistakes, though clearly Fox did as they shoved her off the show right before she became a star. I never understood why Kathleen Robertson left but I think it was her decision; she was doing a lot of Gregg Araki stuff at the time. I never forgave the show for her exit, I loved Clare.

I'll never get over this show being given a reprieve while MP got canned in much better shape. I think that was down to Spelling protecting Tori.

Cress Williams was indeed great on the show, and I kept wondering as a kid if they'd go there with him and Donna or another lead but suspected they wouldn't. He was all over Fox at the time; he recurred on Living Single right to the end. I was shocked when he turned up decades later as the lead of Black Lightning, I hadn't seen him in forever.

I don't know if it's discussed in those intvs bc I haven't read them all in awhile but I know there was supposedly some blunder re: Jamie Walters and that's why they chose to vilify him and write him out when it wasn't originally the intent. I def hated Ray by the end.

Edited February 8, 20223 yr by Vee

11 minutes ago, Vee said:

I don't know if it's discussed in those intvs bc I haven't read them all in awhile but I know there was supposedly some blunder re: Jamie Walters and that's why they chose to vilify him and write him out when it wasn't originally the intent. I def hated Ray by the end.

The intention with Ray was to redeem him by having him work with his anger issues. Of course this was a case of Daddy Spelling pulling the plug because he thought it made his precious daughter look like an idiot (like she needed help...) and he was promptly written out before they even got to that point.