Who knew 2017 would turn out to be the best retro telly year ever?
Hands up who is LOVING the return of early 90s television? This month saw Twin Peaks back where it belongs, on our screens. It is over 25 years since Agent Cooper first started investigating the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer, but Kyle MacLachlan and many of the other original cast members are as fresh (and as freaky) as ever. A new generation now get to hear the eerie ‘Falling‘ theme music of what was once the most-watched television programme in the United States. You understand what this means of course; the time is nigh. The door is open. We must now bring back all the nineties telly.
The first episode of Twin Peaks aired on April 8, 1990. Six months later we had the first episode of something equally important, if somewhat less cerebral: Beverly Hills 90210. That’s right ladies and gents, it’s not far off thirty years since we met Jim, Cindy, Brandon, and Brenda Walsh fresh off their move to Beverly Hills from the rather less-exciting Minnesota.
Twins Brenda and Brandon (and Brandon’s luscious sideburns) quickly became the most popular Minnesotans to ever attend West Beverly Hills High School. The siblings and their besties – spoiled diva Kelly Taylor, super rich Steve Sanders, nerdy Andrea Zuckerman, James Dean wannabe Dylan McKay, DJ David Silver, and ditzy Donna Martin – gave us year after year of pre-Kardashian drama and glamour.
Ignoring the fact that these high school ‘teens’ were played by a cast who were clearly looking down the barrel of 30, we just couldn’t get enough of the convertible-driving students’ style and gigantic hair. Who, for example, can forget the spectacle that was Donna’s red gúna for the Spring Dance? Sadly the Scarlett O’Hara style prom dress was overshadowed by the ‘Brenda and Kelly bought the same off-the-shoulder-black-and-white dress’ storyline debacle.
Who amongst us didn’t feel for Brandon when he developed a booze problem purely on the basis that one of his drinks was spiked at a party? Spare a further thought for Nat, Brandon’s boss at The Peach Pit, who had to save quaffed Brandon from a gangster bookie during his short-lived gambling addiction. A serious life-lesson for all us 90s teens about the risks inherent in having even one drink or a flutter on a horse.
Meanwhile, Brandon’s on-again-off-again true love, Kelly, battled her way through more than the average amount of trauma for an adolescent. On top of her schoolwork, poor Kels had to deal with a drug-addicted mother, a father who was imprisoned for embezzlement, almost being burned alive at a rave, a coke habit, a stint in rehab, being stalked and almost killed by her mentally unstable roommate, getting shot in a drive-by shooting, and amnesia. Still, her biggest challenge was the constant dilemma: Brandon or Dylan? Seriously though, who could possibly choose…
A character who had more choices in Hawaian-shirted men than one woman could cope with was latecomer, Valerie. Played by Saved By The Bell’s Tiffani Amber Thiessen, Valerie became romantically entangled with… Well, everyone to be honest. Dylan, Steve, Brandon, and David were all part of Team Thiessen at one stage or another, with Valerie eventually becoming the co-owner of the hottest music venue in town, The Peach Pit After Dark.
So, now that the cast are in their late forties and early fifties, a full on reunion can deal with more pressing issues like who’s banging who down the golf club, Kelly’s torment over her varicose veins, and Steve’s impending back surgery…
Whadaya reckon?
