Brenda rocked my world.

By now you all know my intense passion towards crappy, trashy television. I can't explain this. I'm a pretty intelligent girl. Why my brain feels the need to gravitate towards stupid people doing stupid things on stupid shows is an eternal enigma. I can't even tell you all the shows that are programmed to automatically record with my DVR. I can't tell you because they are too numerous to remember, and because despite my very no-holds-barred shamelessness about my life, some things are too embarrassing to reveal. Suffice it to say that I hold a place in my heart for Adrianne Curry and Christopher Knight (no doubt some, if not all, of you are like, "who??").

Perhaps it all started when I was a teen lump of clay, ready to be molded into whatever my master the TV wanted me to be. Apparently, the TV wanted to be one of those exceedingly well-rounded people who could carry on conversations about politics (go Barack!) AND Denise Richards. Because the first trashy show that I loved was Beverly Hills, 90210.

I still remember the summer of 1991. I was a fair child of 13, on my way to summer camp in Vermont. I remember the passionate, pleading converstation I had with my mother on the subject of the absolute need for her to tape (back in the VCR days) every single episode of 90210 that summer, or else I would be very upset. It's so funny to reflect on as a fair woman of 30.-- I can actually remember how desperate I was for her to remember to tape them, and how, excited as I was for camp, upset I was that I would be missing 90210 for so long.

This post was actually inspired by my blogging-colleague Copycat Emily's recent post on moving, as she lists "her life in moving boxes." Because the first thing it made me think of was this one episode of 90210 where Donna's all freaked out about this English class essay she has to write, an autobiography. But then they read them out loud in class, and nerd Andrea's literal, chronological listing of events in her life isn't so exciting. Donna, who has chosen to write her life out in terms of a chronology of all the shoes she has owned, therefore showing the evolution of not only her style but of herself, people, woos the class and the teacher.

Why do I remember the specifics of a meanlingless scene from a meaningless show, 17 years later? I do not know. But alas, I do. I also remember the white, skin-tight dress with weird holes/metal grommets all over it that Brenda wore in the pilot episode to go to some LA nightclub. I remember the episode where Donna gets like a 600 on her SATs, decides she's stupid (um. .. .), and drops all her friends to hang out with the "bad" kids (who are denoted as bad by their leather jackets and cigarette smoking). I remember Emily Valentine, a punkish girl who has a crush on Brandon, and so to get his attention, she burns down the stage of the school's talent show (but not before performing a rousing rendition of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" with Donna, Brenda, and Kelly as back-up). Also, I remember my undying love for Luke Perry, aka bad boy Dylan . . . I thought he was SO hot. He still is pretty hot, actually. And, to THIS DAY, there is a poster of Dylan/Luke hanging in the basement of my parents house, leftover from the early 90s.

Another thing you might all be wondering is, why am I wasting my time writing about 90210? The answer is twofold: I was reminded of my love for my original trashy TV due to Emily's blog, and then that reminded me that the CW's 90210 starts next week. 90210 is a newly imagined "re-creation" of sorts of the original show. I have absolutely no idea why I'm so excited for it, because there's really no guarantee, and even less hope, that it will be anything like the original show. It will probably end up being more like the crap that even I don't watch, like The Hills. I don't even watch Gossip Girl, despite that seeming like it's right up my alley and I've heard only great things about it. (Plus, I'm loving their current ad campaign, which is to show the characters in sexy postions with "negative" reviews of the show-- "mind-blowingly inappropriate"-- by insignificant reviewers-- the Parents' Television Council-- splashed across the posters.)

So, I give major kudos to the marketing people for the new 90210, who are going to manage to get at least one viewer based solely on the fact that they geniusly named the show after a classic, whether or not they live up to the namesake. Plus, they brought back Jenny Garth (Kelly) and Shannen Doherty (who's bitchy Brenda was the best thing going in the 90s), so that's too exciting for words, really.

Lesson of the day: I really need to get a life.