BH90210 moment #5

Donna Martin Graduates!

This was such a stupid storyline. All the kids went to prom together and Mel Silver had them over to his stupid bachelor condo beforehand and gave them champagne and then they had more champagne in the limo and because Donna was pure and virginal and had never even breathed air that had been exposed to alcohol before, she got good and wasted. They tried to sneak her out but Ms. Teasely totally busted her all hiccupping and babbling and then told her that because of some new rule about zero tolerance Donna would not be allowed to graduate. And Donna may have been stupid and had some kind of unspecified learning disability but she totally wanted to graduate! No fair making her take responsibility for her actions! And for some unexplained reason Brandon got all excited about it (something about the process the school board had used to make the rule) and organized a walkout of HUNDREDS of students all chanting “DONNA MARTIN GRADUATES” and the school board was powerless against such a massive demonstration and caved and she DID graduate. And then never used her education ever again.

BH90210 moment #9

The Guardian Angel and the School Bus

Ohmigod you guys this was the best concept episode ever. So it starts with the kids on a bus going to the Alvarado Street School for their yearly do-good-works event. (Note: when you move to LA after having watched lots of 90210 and someone mentions Alvarado Street, do not ask if it’s the same as the one in 90210. Although poor people do live over by Alvarado.) This is when all the kids are hating each other – Brandon and Ahhhhhhndrea have some stupid shit that nobody cares about, Brenda Kelly and Dylan are in their perpetual triangle, Steve is on thin ice at school after the legacy key problem, and David is all pissed that he’s an immature child and will be left behind when everyone graduates. But they do not know that their school bus will be hit by a garbage truck and they will ALL BE KILLED – unless of course the guardian angel in training can protect them! It is a nail-biting race to the end of the episode to see if everyone can get along again (they can) and the angel can avoid the accident (she does in a killer special effects move that makes it look like the truck magically passes through the bus). Everyone lives and an angel gets its wings!

BH90210 moment #10

Ray Smashes The Pumpkins
In Season 4, Donna, for some reason, started dating this soft-voiced blue collar acoustic guitar boy Ray Pruit (played by Jamie Walters, who actually had some acoustic guitar hits around the time – ‘How Do You Talk To An Angel’ – and if you remember that song, you remember it with anger). He turned out to be semi-abusive, because all “other” characters on 90210 must have deep flaws in comparison to our main heroes. Ray pushed Donna down the stairs in Palm Springs in the finale of Season 4 and even though Donna is the most spineless doormat-like character in all of history, she started staying away from him about 8 episodes after the abuse started. Ray kept trying to get back with her and as a blue-collar love gift brought her all these pumpkins from the pumpkin patch his alcoholic chain-smoking mother ran, which were on the balcony of the beach house compound where Donna and Kelly and Claire lived. Anywayz, this guy named Griffin, who is in KEG house with Steve and Jon Sears, totally wants to date Donna so he takes her out to Catalina Island and Ray FINDS OUT and he totally wants Donna back and so his little blue-collar heart directs him to go to the compound and SMASH ALL THE PUMPKINS and there is pumpkin carnage all over the beach house deck area. Surprisingly, this does not win Donna back and Ray left the show soon after under a vague implication that he was the campus rapist (if there are too many evil characters, we get confused, so they had to consolidate).