9021-oh, no

It's almost September, which means my peaceful summer life is coming to an end and very soon my television obsession will take over all of what passes as my "free time."

I hadn't heard too much buzz over any of the new shows coming out, so I was pretty psyched. Could it be that a new TV season would dawn without me adding any new series recordings to my overtaxed DVR?

But then I heard that the new 90210 show was bringing back Brenda and Kelly, so now I am, despite myself, a little pumped.

I wasn't, like, a huge Beverly Hills 90210 fan or anything. At least, not at the beginning. Not that I would admit. I remember going to a teen leadership conference my senior year in high school and being at a table with some girls who were going on and on and on about Steve and Kelly and Brenda and Dylan and Brandon and Andrea. I was going through a phase where I was trying soooo hard to be mature and sophisticated beyond my years (that's what a summer away at the Kentucky Governor's Scholars program will do to you) and I didn't have much to say.

"Do you think Kelly and Steve should get back together?" they asked.

"Uhhh...I don't really know. I don't really watch that show."

I might as well have confessed to eating kittens for breakfast. "You don't watch 90210?! What do you watch?"

"Well...I really like Northern Exposure."

They didn't talk to me much after that.

What I didn't tell them was, even though I didn't watch all the time, I did try to catch it when I could. Just to make fun of it. Of course.

Well, maybe for Jason Priestly, too. He always was kind of a hottie.

Despite my I-am-so-above-all-things-high-school mentality my senior year, I did watch the prom episode. You know, the one where Brenda and Dylan ohmygod finally do it. And even though I didn't have a TV in my dorm room freshman year, and didn't have time to do anything besides study and play the role of the sober girl at Jason's fraternity parties, I was somehow acutely aware that ohmygod Kelly stole Dylan from Brenda while she was in England or wherever. I was always part of Camp Brenda; we bitchy brunettes gots to stick together, know what I'm sayin'?

My sophomore year in college, a group of us (mostly girls, but with a few boys who just wanted "background noise" while they studied) used to get together in the common room on Wednesday night for the 90210/Melrose Place double feature (my roommate-at-the-time's boyfriend called it "Hooters and Mel-hoes Night", which is really pretty apt.) Over the next year I grew away from 90210 (just wasn't the same without Brenda) and became, unlike Seinfeld, a proud and vocal Mel-hoes fan. Give me a break; that was the season of "Crazy Kimberly." Nighttime soaps do not get any better than that.

Both shows became uber-ridiculous at the end of their runs, and while I did watch the last Mel-hoes, I didn't inhale. I mean enjoy.

I figured once Ian Ziering and Jennie Garth appeared on Dancing With The Stars that the nail was in the coffin on that series. But, alas...the 90s keep on keeping on, and what I had thought would be just a Millennial reboot of 90210 will also throw us 30-somethings a bone and at least bring back Brenda and Kelly and give them a few minutes of storyline every week (no Donna, alas...she always did get the short end of the stick, poor thing.) And Jason Priestly will be directing an episode, so I hope that means Brandon will be back in the zip code every so often, too.

OK, readers, 'fess up. Did you watch the original Beverly Hills 90210? And are you going to give this new one a shot? (You can claim morbid curiosity or "I watch it to make fun of it" if it makes you feel better.)