90210 – The Second Season (2009 – 2010) + The Game – The Third Season (2008 – 2009/CBS DVD Sets)
Picture:
C+/C Sound: C+/C Extras: D Episodes: D
Trying to
revisit a hit TV show is not easy, especially when the show was a peak of trash
TV as Beverly Hills 90210 was for ten seasons, teaching the world the upscale city’s
zip code if nothing else. CBS decided to
revive the show a few years ago and it has been a very small success at best,
with 90210 – The Second Season
arriving on DVD and boy, is it bad.
Yes, they
cast good-looking (taking a bath is half the battle won) group of young actors
(some of whom can sort of act) and put them in the same locales, but no one
here has much personality and if they do, it is restrained by the bad writing,
bad camerawork (now shot in HD, this does not look as good as the original
show, as shot in superior 35mm film) and seems cheaper all around like the many
imitators of the original that failed to catch on.
There is
also one other difference and that was the producing savvy of Aaron Spelling,
who knew how to make trash TV work, including admitting that it was what it
was, creating a slight ironic distance by default. Hew also knew how to cast interesting people and
cast for chemistry. This revival thinks
it is above itself, the past show, its audience and anyone who does not have
money like several bad “reality TV shows” that have supplanted trash TV like
its predecessor. Any so-called sexiness
here is sexless, tired and generates all the heat of mannequins, which fits the
razor thin storylines. All I could do
was wait for an earthquake to hit or a serial killer to show up. After 22 hours, you will still ask “who are
these people and why would I care?”
Just as
bad is The Game (not a TV series
version of the David Fincher thriller) that cannot make up its mind what kind
of show it is. Shot like a drama and
with a mostly African American cast, why does this have a laugh track? The
Third Season (bet most of you did not even know this was a show) picks up the
tired soap opera antics as one of the players (double meaning?) seems to have
impregnated a young lady who is not his girlfriend and along with all the other
such serious storylines, this might as well recycle the laugh track from later
episodes of The Jeffersons (oh,
let’s not give them any ideas).
The
bizarre laugh track (you can tell it is added later, especially because nothing
is funny here and they do not try to cover up this fact), formula storylines,
odd acting, odd chemistry and overall unbelievably makes this come across like
a very, very bad rip-off of the British show Footballer’s Wives and I was not a big fan of that one either. These actors deserve better and so do the
viewers.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is a disaster in both cases, with 90210 having annoying editing, motion
blur and softness that shows the money is not here, but Game is even worse with an even softer look throughout. Wow do they look bad. The Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo mixes on
both are also underwhelming, with 90210
not knowing what to do with its sound and Game
having stage recoding so poor that it is like an old live soap opera from the
1950s minus the compression and yes, you get slight audio dropouts like bad
location audio.
Extras
are non-existent on Game, while 90210 offers us commentary on some
episodes and seven annoying featurettes including one called Looking Back: 90210 Season 2 In Review
meaning they think the audience is so shallow that they can’t remember what
they just watched? Or is this cliff
notes to the whole season? That sure
will not make this LOST either.
Enough!
For more
on the original 90210 from a fan of
the show, try these links for our coverage of the following seasons:
Three
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6410/Beverly+Hills+90210+%E2%80%93+T
Five
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7330/Beverly+Hills+90210+%E2%80%93+T
- Nicholas Sheffo
