10.09.2008

This is absolutely the last goddamned time

Look, I know I've been saying for weeks now that I'm going to stop watching 90210: The New Class, then each week here I am, once again, not only watching the show but sharing my thoughts on the show with the world (or at least the very limited part of the world that reads this blog). But this time I mean it! No mas! I've got a pile of books to read, I've got old episodes of The Wire on DVD, I've started downloading This American Life's weekly podcast -- there are so many things I could be doing instead of watching this interminable program, which serves only to make me nostalgic for the original 90210, which in turn makes me feel very, very old.


So here you go, kids -- your final 90210: The New Class Somewhat-Live Blog.

0:01: New student at West Bev, and she's a total bitch! Yet I don't really care, because like I said I'm never watching this piece of shit again. Go ahead, bitchy new girl, set fire to the school, fuck every single dude in sight, form a terrorist cell and fly an airplane into the Beverly Hills Kabbalah Center. See if I care!

0:03: Remember that episode of Saved by the Bell when the kids got paired up and had to take care of a fake baby, and Lisa Turtle got paired with Screech but was then all angry about being paired with Screech, and hilarity ensued? Apparently the writers of 90210: The New Class totally remember that episode, because they've decided to just go ahead and rip it off. Except two dudes are paired up as a same-sex couple, because that's what happens in the land of godless Hollywood elites, and also because the writers probably also saw I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, so they can rip off all those stupid jokes, too, instead of actually writing an original and interesting show. 

0:05: Rob Estes' daughter is auditioning for some kind of horror movie, and the bitchy girl who got kicked out of the play for being hopped up on goofballs is also trying out for the movie. Bitchy Girl seems all nervous and out of it, but then she snorts some coke and everything's all better. Or at least I assume it's coke. Maybe it's crushed-up Ritalin, or horse tranquilizer, or whatever the hell the kids are snorting these days. Again: I'm old.

0:10: Sorry, I think I actually passed out for a minute there. My fault.

0:17: Cokehead Girl got the movie part, and is now celebrating by doing more coke (or whatever). I bet this won't end well!

0:20: Here's the thing. At first I thought maybe the show's writers were just trying to keep the older characters from dominating the plot, since it is, after all, a show about the younger kids. Which: okay, fine, understandable. But then last week they pretty much promised a Dylan McKay appearance, since Kelly was taking a hiatus from work to go hang out with him in Africa or wherever he is these days, and yet so far in this episode not even a single mention of Kelly or Dylan or even stupid Brenda Walsh, so that I think what's actually going on is the writers have figured out a certain segment of their audience (of which I am a definite representative) are only watching the show to see the older characters, and they also realize that as soon as we've seen the older characters we'll stop watching, so that this whole Kelly-Dylan thing is just a lame bait-and-switch. I'm on to you people! No more!

0:40: Oh for God's sakes: in the span of forty minutes, the Coke Girl has gone from starting up a coke habit to totally melting down to agreeing to enter rehab. The writers of this show clearly don't have any interesting or original ideas, so their only source for plot points is to crib them from other pretty bad television shows, then make those worn-out cliches even shallower and clicheier, so that, in the end, this isn't even a television show so much as the outline of the idea of a television show (did I mention I'm not going to watch this anymore?).

0:45: The teacher who is kinda the poor man's Jake Gyllenhal is on a date with a girl he met online. She's an actress who's been in commercials. Do I need to tell you that she's incredibly self-centered and airheadish? Or that the teacher makes a variety of sarcastic jokes the dumb actress doesn't get? Of course I don't need to tell you these things, because the show is being written not by actual people but by the ClicheBot 3000, the CPU of which is a kind of Dumb Television Cliche Mad Libs program that spits out plot points and various pop culture references and ... well goddamnit, I really hate this show.

And now it's over! Good night, and good luck.

4 comments:

dave said...

I enjoy these blog posts so much more than the actual show. In fact, I stopped watching the show, but continue to enjoy the posts, so, you know, it's kind of your duty to continue this, Mike.

If you wouldn't mind, I'd also appreciate live-blogs on Lipstick Jungle.

Thanks, man.

Dan said...

I agree. These have been great. Much better than the actual show. There's an almost Homeric retelling of the 90210 tales going on. Instead of swift-footed Achilles, it's poor-man's Anne Hathaway. You're updating the epic paradigm to reflect our shallow, media-obsessed times and I like it.

Mike Ingram said...

Goddammit.

You people are gonna make me keep watching this show, aren't you?

Fair enough, I guess, though I think this means Dave has to start watching Kath and Kim.

-blessed b9, Catalyst4Christ said...

Not nice to take the
Lord's Name in vain.
Why?
2 treasons:
It's damnable
and damnable.
Now...
Make Your Choice -SAW