Grrl TV

Original Air Date: September 2, 2008

It’s common knowledge among serious TV watchers that you should try not to judge an entire series based only on a pilot or premiere episode, especially if the first installment doesn’t impress. As far as I’m concerned, 90210’s opener “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore” sits firmly in the middle of the road and is nothing to get excited about. The second episode, “The Jet Set,” is no better.

Now that Annie’s in the high school musical, albeit only as a background chorus singer, and has just broken up with her Kansas boyfriend Jason, she’s part happy and part seriously on the rebound. So, at Silver’s encouragement, she focuses her energy on hottie — at least to these Beverly Hills types — Ty Collins, who reciprocates Annie’s attraction. Lucky her, especially since Ty is also the richest (and probably tallest) guy in the school.

How rich are we talking? He takes her to dinner in San Francisco on his private jet. But, unfortunately, Annie gets so wrapped up in the (chaste) good times she forgets she’s supposed to go home to pick up her hard-drinking grandma Tabitha’s laptop.

Of course, mommy and daddy are disappointed when she reneges on her promise, an oversight made worse when Tabitha gets in a car accident while retrieving the laptop herself. Annie finally winds up in the biggest trouble of all when her mother Debbie finds a matchbook from the restaurant with her clothes. Busted (for not coming clean about where she really was) and grounded.

Dixon ends up in trouble, too, thanks to his understandable determination to be one of the regular guys on the Lacrosse team instead of just the principal’s obedient son. He gets the perfect — or so it seems — opportunity to prove his average dude-ness when rival school Palisades literally trashes the hallways of West Beverly Hills High with garbage. It’s all about some ongoing sports silliness, and the Lacrosse team is pissed.

Harry forbids any form of retaliation whatsoever, but naughty grandma tells Dixon and Navid about the time when Harry was a WBHH student and he and his teammates got back at Palisades with some well-placed pig poop. A plan is born, and once the new best buds acquire the needed swine from one of Navid’s porn-producing father’s movie sets, all it takes is minimal persuasion to get the rest of the team onboard.

Of course, Dixon confesses to being the lone culprit when Harry inevitably learns about the scheme after it causes massive damage and threatens to punish the entire team if the guilty party doesn’t come forward. Later, Ethan and Navid follow suit after learning Dixon is off the team as punishment. I would have enjoyed the whole plotline better if they hadn’t said anything and avoided the boring resolution.

There are two more main characters left, however, and they have similarly yawn-inducing plotlines. Annie spies the same symbol, Chinese for “friendship,” tattooed on Naomi and Silver’s backs, which leads Silver to admit a secret I’m sure is intended to be shocking. She and Naomi were BFFs until Silver learned her father was having an affair with her mother’s best friend. Naomi promised not to tell anyone but did, which hastened the breakup of Silver’s parents’ marriage. Now Silver, half-sister of guidance counselor Kelly, is devoted to making Naomi suffer.

And suffer Naomi does when, after a revenge hookup with George that spreads through the school like wildfire, Ethan breaks up not with her, but “us.” Yeah, deep. Almost too deep for this show, which produces a kind of out-of-body feeling when he says it. If only more scenes ended that way instead of the predictable sad face when Ethan goes to visit Annie, I guess his new love thang, and finds her tonguing Ty outside her mansion’s front door. Poor baby — somebody give him a hug.

Meanwhile, Amanda, who stole her friend Naomi’s purse in the previous episode to get the $200 needed for her next fix, chickens out during an audition right after winning me over by telling teacher Ryan she wants to be an actress to pay the mortgage her mom can’t. If she were a star of 90210 rather than a mere peripheral character, I’d be more into it.

As for the old folks, Kelly and Ryan begin the first part of their courtship with a little misunderstanding when Kelly surprises him with the news she has a child and he makes a comment about “baggage” without thinking. They get over it when he shows up later with flowers, and Brenda offers to babysit so they can go out. That, thankfully, is the end.

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