nine-oh-two-one-black-guy-only

Whether you're prepared to admit it or not, you watched the rebirth of 90210 last night. And if you didn't, you're likely cursing the day that the VCR died.

Torontonian Shenae Grimes was darling and tiny as usual, and the characters were, for the most part, representative of the original "dramatis personae" - even some of the primary cast members were, very ineptly, written into the script. A geriatric Joe E. Tata fumbles with an espresso machine, and reminisces about the days when regular potted coffee kept the rich kids at bay, while Jennie Garth finally gets her shit together and finds a real job.

However, on the flip side, many things are quite obviously changed - and, I'm not referring to the breadth of Shannon Doherty's waistline.

In July of 1999, CNN reported that as a response to complaints made by various equal opportunity groups as well as the NAACP, most major networks, including CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX, started making moves to broaden the racial spectra of their casts. Only a year later, Spelling's first gaggle of girls and boys said goodbye to Beverley Hills and pursued made-for-TV-movie careers and rehab. As the series was already drawing to a close, not much effort to diversify was made on part of the soon-to-be-jobless writers during their last year with the show.

So, it would only make sense that the second time around would be different. Bring in the bruthas! However, something just didn't feel right last night in the city of Angels. Rich white neighbourhood, rich white school, rich white parents, and rich white...black kid...

...who was adopted…

...and whose sole friend is the only other ethnic character on the roster?

A 17 year old with a Bentley and private jet is believable, but an entire, self-sufficient black family living in Beverly Hills would have just been asking the audience too much, I suppose.

This script seems to have been written by the confederate army.

Maybe I'm reading too far into things, I am a pisces, but if you ask me, the creators were so concerned with updating the show that they followed a few trends too many in order to appeal to the new generation of idiot-boxers. Corey Kennedy. Tillie and The Wall. American Apparel. And then, of course, the next natural choice would be adopting black babies. Because everyone knows that adopting black, is well, the new black. Just ask David Ritchie.

And this was supposed to be the evolution of TV.