REACTION: 9021OMG Episode 7
Monday’s “9021OMG” podcast featured a special guest: Gabrielle Carteris.
As teased during last week’s installment, Gabrielle (Andrea, Beverly Hills, 90210) reunited with Tori Spelling (Donna, Beverly Hills, 90210) and Jennie Garth (Kelly, Beverly Hills, 90210) for a discussion that — no surprise — jumped from topic to topic, but at least stay focused on the show.
What was surprising is that they devoted the entire hour to talking with Gabrielle and didn’t discuss episode six of “Beverly Hills, 90210.” Given that they had watched the fifth episode last week and that it was our “homework” to watch the sixth, I assumed they would either have the podcast be half with Gabrielle and half with Jennie, Tori, and Sisanie discussing the episode, or they would have Gabrielle discuss the episode with them. She does have a pretty considerable role in it.
Alas, it was a full-hour of chit-chat with Gabrielle… which wasn’t actually a bad thing.
9021OMG Episode 7, “Andrea Zuckerman is Here”
Jennie: “Here she is. Guys, the time has come. Our very special guest is with us now.”
Gabrielle praised Jennie and Tori as “doers, creators, and makers.” She said, “I think it’s awesome you’re doing this show,” and further called them “innovative, creative, dynamic.”
Jennie: “We just love working together and we love being able to work with you too.”
Tori: “I feel like we should all be in Vancouver right now.” She explained how the three of them stayed on the same floor while shooting “BH90210” last year. “It was like being in a dorm, you guys,” Tori said. Jennie: “It was like summer camp.” Gabrielle: “Every night a little drink and a little chat.”
Gabrielle pointed out that if the show had been renewed, production “would’ve been shut down” due to the pandemic. “There’s a reason we didn’t go back right away,” she said.
Jennie: “We were just talking about what a trailblazer your character was, what a champion she was, and how it cool it is in your life that you are Andrea Zuckerman. You are a champion for all actors out there, for the Screen Actors Guild.”
Jennie thought Gabrielle’s only been president of the guild for two or three years. Gab pointed out it’s more like five. Tori: “We don’t do math.” (Me either.)
Tori asked about the pronunciation of “Andrea.” Gabrielle recounted meeting a casting director and mispronouncing the woman’s name as “Ann-drea” when it was actually “Ahn-drea.” It stuck with her, and however many years later, “When I did the audition and I say, ‘Hi my name is Ahn-drea,’ they corrected me. I said no, no. And that’s how I got the role.”
She added that the character was actually named “Ann-drea” for one of creator Darren Star’s friends.
Tori: “Tell them what role you originally read for.” Gabrielle: “They negotiated the deal for me for Brenda and then for Andrea.”
Gabrielle pointed out that since she’s a twin in real life, she brought a picture of her brother to the audition. Sisanie: “Now that I think about it, you kind of look like you could be Brandon’s twin.”
Jennie: “Do you remember the first time you met the rest of the cast?” Gabrielle: “I totally remember. It was at Tori’s [really Aaron’s] house... It was overwhelming, Tori, seeing you and Randy, your brother.” Tori: “I did see you?! You just foiled my story I’ve been telling for 30 years.” Tori thought she didn’t meet any of them and just watched from afar with envy. Gabrielle: “I can’t remember. When Jennie says ‘I can’t remember,’ Jennie, I’m on that train with you.”
Gabrielle: “All I can remember is being scared to death. Couldn’t believe your father was there... It was the introduction to Hollywood for me. I was coming from New York and I could barely make my rent. Then I was suddenly in LA in your home with your father who’s so iconic — so iconic — and getting ready to read through the show. I couldn’t even take a breath.”
Tori: “Now my life’s like the flip of that.” Gabrielle: “I have to say you are one of the most resourceful people, though. You are definitely one to create a great life. I will never, ever worry about you.” Tori: “Oh, you should. On so many levels.” Jennie: “You should rethink that.”
Tori asked about her meeting Jason. “I’m a hopeless romantic. I just want Andrea and Brandon to be together. They had such good chemistry.”
Gabrielle: “I felt a connection with him. He’s been a very good friend to me through all these years. Really a great friend.” Tori: “They are seriously super close. It wasn’t just on TV. They were like super best friends in real life — still.” Jennie: “And neighbors.”
Gabrielle was “petrified” during filming early on and recounted a hallway walk-and-talk with Jason. “Everybody overwhelmed me. I couldn’t remember my lines. I felt like I was gonna pass out. I don’t know what happened. I was freaked out and Jason took me aside and he said, ‘This is your time. Don’t you worry. You take your time.’ He was so loving and supportive. Clearly I got through it. Thought they were going to fire me. They didn’t fire me. But he always, always has been there as somebody who I really trust. He has my back. And such a great guy. Just a good human being who really wants a great family and a great life.”
Tori is obsessed with Jason’s eyes. She noted Jennie isn’t getting “flustered” like usual. She said rewatching Jason today, “You have all the feels. Girly feels.” Gabrielle: “Even my daughters who saw the show all these years later... they said, ‘Oh my god, he’s so cute, mom.’ There’s a reason why the guys were so loved by the girls. They were the perfect choice.”
Gabrielle: “And now look at Brian! I’m still blown away. When we worked together last year and I hadn’t seen him since we had really shot the [original] show. I always thought he grew up to be one fine-looking, hunk of a guy. A real man.” Tori: “Watch it! Watch what you say with my man.” Jennie: “She has her claim on him.” Tori: “For life.”
Jennie brought up how Andrea married Jesse (though she didn’t seem to remember his name and said he wasn't a “core cast member,” even though he was a series regular in season 5) and asked who she thought Andrea should’ve ended up with.
Gabrielle: “First of all, Mark was great to have.” She said Jason argued that “you can’t put Andrea and Brandon together because he said they love the tension of almost seeing us together and not being together.” She compared it to the dynamic on “Moonlighting.”
Jennie: “Our friendship definitely grew over the years... I remember going apartment shopping with you — it must’ve been the first season because you didn’t have a place to live.” Gabrielle recalled calling Jennie crying trying to find an apartment.
Tori: “There must be something in you that thinks on some level that Andrea and Brandon should’ve ended up together. I know the fans feel that.” Gabrielle: “I think they should’ve but I can’t say that in front of Jennie... It should've been Andrea and Brandon. If we were to do another reboot...” Tori: “How would’ve it played out?” Gabrielle: “How would you have written it? Because you’re the story maven.” Jennie: “I think you’re definitely right that Andrea should’ve ended up with Brandon.”
Tori: “If you talk to the fans, they loved the notion like one day Andrea and Brandon are gonna get together. It’s what all of us girls, us hopeless romantics out there, we wanted it. Not that Andrea was the underdog, but she was the girl next door. She wasn’t the cool, hot, popular girl, but she had all of that... understated sexy.” Jennie: “Don’t you think she was giving off Meg Ryan vibes?” Tori: “She nailed it. Harry met Sally. Wanted them to be together. They should’ve been together.”
Gabrielle: “Look, you guys, we’re gonna do the show again someday, right? In the geriatric ward!” Tori: “9021-OLD!... I’m so honest, I can’t take credit for that. Jason threw that one out last summer.”
Gabrielle: “I have to say, it was a very good looking cast. Really, when you think about it, all really beautiful... I always said I never would’ve got in on the show, if I had been cast five years later, they would not have had me go in for the audition... I think everybody’s very attractive on our show, but it became a show about beauty. I think everybody was so pretty.” Tori: “What were you?!” Jennie: “What language are you speaking right now?! You were beautiful. You were beautiful and you are beautiful.” Gabrielle: “Five years later, it wouldn’t have happened. That’s all.”
Gabrielle asked who else has been on the podcast and they told her she’s the first. Tori: “You broke our OG cast member cherry.” Gabrielle: “I’m so happy I could be the person to do that. I’m so honored.”
Gabrielle wanted to know about the podcast and why they decided to do it. It felt like deja vu for Jennie, because Gabrielle had asked them the same thing about “BH90210” a year and a half ago. Tori: “It’s like recurring. When things are recurring in your life, you keep doing it until you do it right. So maybe this time we’re doing it right. Remember those five stars, you guys. We need a five-star rating.”
Jennie on her and Tori: “We’re always just looking for ways we can hang out together, work together. Our bond is so strong — just like our bond with you and the rest of the cast. Just being with people that you’re comfortable with and that you love forever and always on such a deep level, there’s such a comfort in that. Of course we want to keep working together and keep working with you and the rest of the cast.”
“Always and forever” is a “One Tree Hill” thing.
Sisanie said they had “rapid-fire questions” for Gabrielle. Gab: “I won’t remember anything, but fine.”
The first question: “Who from the cast would you call to bail you out of jail?” Gabrielle: “Well, now that answer might be different than it would’ve been a year ago... I’d call the girls. I’d call almost anybody... almost.”
The second question: “You have to live on a deserted island with one other cast member. Who is it? Don’t feel obligated to choose one of them.” Jennie: “You never asked us this question, Sis.” Gabrielle: “On the island, can I have each person living on each section so I can rotate them around and be with different people at different times?” Tori: “Of course she’s going to compartmentalize everybody.”
Jennie: “Don’t ever get us all together, though, ‘cause that’s just a disaster waiting to happen.” Tori: “It’s so fun, though. Nothing gets done when we’re all together... Don’t you miss dinner and drinks at Gab’s house?”
The third question: “What did you buy with your first ‘90210’ big paycheck?” Jennie blurbed out, “Boobs.” Tori said she went on a shopping spree at Express... “and then boobs.” Gabrielle eventually got a car... “and then boobs.”
Tori: “Oh my god, we’re the fake boob gang! That’s what all actors do when they get money and become famous, they get boobs.” Jennie: “During that time, there was a lot of pressure on each of us individually to look a certain way and I feel like none of us escaped that without some scars.”
Gabrielle: “I’m much older than them, so I used to go home and cry.” She recalled sobbing through a cast shoot after she had given birth to her first child and asking her body to be hidden.
This must’ve been a shoot for season 5.
Jennie asked Gabrielle how old she was when the show started and how old her character was supposed to be. “I was supposed to be 16 and I was 29,” she answered.
Given how well-known this is… is this something else we just chalk up to Jennie’s apparent memory issues??
Tori: “Scream that loud and proud!… I feel like people knew, like it was in the press that you were older than you were playing, but I feel like if peoole did not ever know that and have that perception — when I watch it now, rewatching it, I would’ve never thought you weren’t 16.”
“I thought maybe 19, 20 — not 29,” said supposed superfan Sisanie.
Gabrielle called herself an “old lady” and said how great it was to come together last year for “BH90210” with everyone having their own families. She explained, “It was so different to see everyone in their lives, really owning their lives. We were, in the beginning, kind of thrust into our lives... The whole thing [‘BH90210’] was so wonderful, as an experience.”
Tori said Gabrielle’s wedding was the first wedding she ever attended. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I have a friend getting married.’ I was like 18. I was like, ‘I’m so cool — one of my friends is getting married. I’m going to Santa Barbara for her wedding.’” Gabrielle said she has “great pictures” of them from the wedding.
Tori said she had no idea at the time that Gabrielle was 29. “We were just on different paths at the time and it all balanced out.” She compared it to the gap between siblings as kids and how “at some point in your lives you catch up. That happened. We caught up. When I was young, I felt nurtured and mothered by you. I did. I looked up to you. Last summer, to put it into perspective, you were just my friend. You’re my friend for life. It took all these years to come to that balance and it was so beautiful, the relationship the three of us had last summer, and we’ll always have that.”
Gabrielle revealed that three of them were in Vancouver before anyone else and said she was “nervous about it” but “it was a real blessing.”
Of “BH90210,” Tori said, “We really believe like... god, why didn’t this continue? Why didn’t this work out? It was what the fans wanted. But maybe it worked out the way it was supposed to work out because it was the journey we all needed. It was for us. We love that we gave it to them. But maybe it was something special for all of us and that’s okay too.”
It definitely seemed more for them than the fans all along, if you ask me.
Gabrielle recounted spending time with Jennie after RewindCon in 2016 and “really talking for the first time about really the experience of being on ‘90210’ in the early years. It was great, but there was a lot going on there. Things we never talked about. It was so great. That was really an inspiration for me to want to do the show again too because being in the car with you told a different story we had never shared and I thought, ‘This could be really great.’ And then it was. The process of developing [‘BH90210’] and watching you guys and your thought process — I don’t say it lightly. I talk about you all the time. Very impressed with your courage, but your really in-depth way of looking at things — the details. I just [see] so much to be proud of. I hope you guys can own that. I hope that’s something that came out of it for you a year ago, to help you see what you guys are really capable of. What you created was great.” Jennie: “It was definitely a great experience.”
Jennie: “As a young girl growing up on the show and in that environment, I feel like I was developmentally a lot further behind than you. You were already 29. You had already kind of figured out who you were a little more. You had your feet firmly planted on the ground. Speaking for myself, I did not have that. And doing the show for 10 years and then having the fame and the sort — everything that came up with that for all the years, I never really got my feet on the ground until I was 40 years old, until I had a moment to breathe, to figure who I was and what I wanted to be and how I wanted to show up. It’s so weird to now be adults and share and have that conversation with each other and get it in a different way. We were close back then, but it’s such a different closeness now.”
For the record, Jennie was only 28 when the show ended in 2000. She’s 48 now.
Gabrielle said being parents and making decisions on “real-life stuff” makes a difference too in their ability to connect better today.
Tori said hanging out last year, they “got to talk about the past and things we had never said to each other.” She said Gabrielle shared how she felt with the rest of the cast and they never knew her feelings before then.
Gabrielle: “I felt separate. The idea that you guys were — it was really exciting and it was really hard. I felt that you all were in the same universe and I was lying about my age. I didn’t tell you my age right up, either. That came out in an interview that went on People magazine. They were interviewing one of you guys, asked me a question, and then they asked how old I was. I said, ‘I don’t play age, I play character.’ I thought that was brilliant. I got a call from the writer... this is before the internet really. ‘We have friends at the DMV, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and we know your age and we’re gonna post it’... I said, ‘You can’t post my age. They don’t know my age. I lied on my contract.” I talked to the lawyers. I signed that I was 21 so I was allowed to do that. I said, ‘If you do that, I will lose my job.’ I had my lawyers call, I had my agent, my manager — they would not take it off. I remember crying, ‘This is the end, this is the end.’ But the show just started to become popular and as a result, they did not fire me. But I have no doubt that if they had known my age, I never would’ve walked into that room.”
As a former journalist and a former People intern, let me just say, the magazine did nothing wrong in wanting to report Gabrielle’s actual age. It is literally someone’s job to fact-check that information. It wouldn’t be ethical to hold it back or to refrain from printing it as part of some cover-up.
Gabrielle: “I always felt really, you know, just never quite as — not pretty enough, not in it enough, I was always feeling outside. I was older. It was hard. It was already an isolating show in some ways. It became hot so fast that everybody already was kind of in protective mode because nobody really knew — I didn't know how to say to you I’m feeling a little bit lost. I didn’t know how to say to you guys all that... When you say to me, ‘Oh, Gabrielle, you were older so you were grounded’ or whatever, I didn’t feel all that. I’m quieter about that.”
Tori: “We looked up to you.” Jennie: “Your character was also isolated from the rest of the kids, so I can see how that would lend to even more isolation.”
Perhaps Andrea was isolated a lot in season one, but certainly less so as the seasons went on.
Tori: “When Gab told Jen and I this last year, we had that moment where we were like, ‘Oh my god.’ We felt bad. We were like, ‘God, we were just kids. Did we make you feel that way? We would never.’ But we didn’t know. We were figuring our stuff out. We just were going through the motions of being a teenager and kind of exploding on TV and the fact is, we loved you and we wish we would’ve known then... and we never knew. It was empowering yet heartbreaking at the same time to hear you talk about something 30 years ago that we’re like, ‘Shoot, we’re just now getting it right.’”
I wonder if that would be Tori’s explanation for all the other female cast members, including those who recurred and guest-starred, who felt they weren’t welcoming.
Gabrielle: “I don’t think of it that way at all. I do think it’s really interesting we do come full circle in our lives. The opportunity to be able to revisit... During those earlier years, they did everything they could to keep us separate in some ways. To keep us together — we were together, but it was very important, it was a power play, I think in the studio. What made last year so great also is we all talked about stuff so the power came from the group. It was a really different dynamic. I really appreciated that, that feeling that we were living as a healthy family.”
Tori: “They say family’s always messed up, right? So we got it right... We didn’t even do therapy! We just did it together. Well, we did have therapy on an episode [of ‘BH90210’], Carol Potter, who’s now a therapist. She came full circle too. What the heck?! This is all making sense now.”
Gabrielle: “It’s wild... It was a really wonderful experience, everything that went on. And I think you’re right, Tori. I think it was just meant to be just for that, maybe for that time.” Tori: “And that’s okay. I feel like in some ways, a big expense to FOX, but we kind of all needed that. We needed that one summer together.”
Gabrielle: “I can’t believe they haven’t even reaired it yet.”
Um, networks typically don’t reair canceled shows. But then there was confusion over which show they were talking about and why some episodes are missing. I don’t think they were on the same page with what they were talking about.
There was a small tangent on Jennie loving “Cobra Kai,” which was shockingly the only tangent in the whole thing. But there was a point to her bringing it up: “In watching a reboot done, a straight reboot like that, I wonder how people feel about — should we have just done a straight reboot? Should we have just played Kelly and Andrea and Donna and given the people exactly what they thought they wanted?”
Tori: “There was a moment in time where we came in strong that we wanted to do it our way, heightened versions of ourselves that would've led into semi-showing the characters nowadays, what they were up to, kind of splitting it, and remember, Gab, there was a moment when some cast agreed and some didn’t and we were all like, okay, let’s talk this out, how it should be.”
Gabrielle: “That was really interesting because I actually thought it was going to be maybe the other way and then you guys talked about it. I thought you guys talking about it — yes, there were some people who wanted it to be a pure reboot, but the majority, I think, what brought people forward was the idea that it wasn’t. I don’t think the show could’ve happened if we had done a straight reboot. I don’t think the people, emotionally — now if you were to say it, because we went through last year, that would be different too. I think that people did not have closure so they didn’t want to go and redo the characters. I think they were carrying a lot of baggage with them on it.” Tori: “Weren’t we all?!”
Gabrielle: “I couldn’t even grasp what you were talking about [with the premise], and then I thought, ‘Oh, what the hell? There’s no sure thing here. I don’t know what it’s supposed to look like, but that’s something that’s different. I can really embrace that.” I rather do something different and exciting and fail than just something boring. Life is too short, if anything we’ve learned.”
That was the only allusion to Luke in the discussion. At least I interpreted it as an allusion to him.
Jennie: “It would’ve been cool to play Kelly again and be the characters again and create a whole new world as that, but I also feel like we did something that hadn’t been done before. It was more exciting and more fulfilling as a creator, as a writer, and all of us creating it together and coming together to figure out what we wanted the show to be and how we wanted our characters to be. There was something so unifying about that and so strengthening and affirming. I just thought it was a really good experience overall.”
I don’t know why Jennie is STILL saying they “did something that hadn’t been done before.” It wasn’t true then and it’s no more true now.
Tori: “And they got to see our characters for 10 years on a show. They got to see how those characters were written. And we wanted them to see that our bond was equally as close, if not closer, off-camera, so that’s why we wanted to give them that perspective. I don’t know. No regrets. But hey you guys, if you want to start a petition to bring it back after you give us 5 stars — did I mention the 5 stars? You should totally do that. A lot of things have made comebacks.”
Ugh, let’s not fuel those inane petitions that are never actually going to go anywhere.
So they wanted fans to see that their bond “was equally as close, if not closer” in real life (or at least their fictionalized version of real life), but by their own admission in this conversation, some of them didn’t really become truly close until actually filming “BH90210.”
Sisanie thought it was “so creative what you guys did with having it be reality TV meet scripted. But I also don’t think it’s completely off the table to do the [straight] reboot... who’s to say you can’t do it in a few years?”
Apparently Jennie was physically reacting in a negative way. “I’m just gonna shout out ‘boobs’ again and we’ll laugh and stop.” Tori: “Jen just lost five years off her life. You just aged her. She just literally had PTSD and lost five years.”
Makes you wonder what happened behind the scenes — besides lots of writers quitting — that Jennie would have a “PTSD” reaction.
Jennie: “I would always love to work with you guys again. I would never turn my back on this show.” Sisanie: “And you don’t need everyone. If they don’t agree, maybe it’s just you guys!”
Gabrielle: “I think we should do a movie. If we did a movie, and just did one great thing, we don’t have to do the series like that, but we could do a movie a year about where we’re at. How’s that?” Sisanie: “Yes, do it for me!” Jennie: “Talk to somebody.”
What is this, Boyhood? And who the hell is going to fund something like that?
Sisanie: “I am the voice of the fans!” Sure, Sis.
I think “Sure, Sis” is my favorite phrase of 2020, which is pretty funny considering I only started using it in November.
Gabrielle asked where this is airing and didn’t seem to know this is a podcast (probably because they were on camera recording) or that it comes out weekly on Mondays.
Jennie: “We’re only on season 1, episode 5, so we have like, you know, 10 more years of doing this.” Tori: “Then we’ll just draw it out, like our careers, just draw it out.”
Glad they finally acknowledged how long this is going to take if they actually stick with it. And that, yeah, this is in fact them trying to draw out their careers (by capitalizing on the show no less).
Jennie said it’s “so fun” to rewatch the series for the podcast and that she and Tori sometimes watch on the phone together. She said how they just watched “the basketball episode,” as if there was only one in the series. Goodness, she really doesn’t remember.
Sisanie reminded Jennie and Tori to ask about Andrea calling Steve a “spoiled slut” in the fifth episode. Gabrielle thought it must’ve been “spoiled slug.” She argued, “Can you imagine them letting me say ‘slut’? No way. I couldn’t wear a Jewish star on the show. I definitely couldn’t say ‘slut.’”
Tori: “Can you tell that story?” Gabrielle: “That I couldn’t wear a Jewish star or I couldn’t go and touch my black boyfriend? Which one?” Gabrielle rehashed what she said on the “Beverly Hills 90210 Show” podcast about these things a few months ago, putting the blame on “Middle America.”
Jennie: “I take offense to that. I’m from the Midwest. I’m from Middle America. I have no problem with you touching your black boyfriend.”
Tori: “It was a sign of the times and the network. It wasn’t even the viewers. It wasn’t Middle America. It was network executives that were conservative and that were nervous. They were nervous pressing the envelope because what if it’s not received well?”
Gabrielle: “It was all older white guys running everything and they wanted the status quo, what was safe, and... god bless your father, right, who wants to step in but not too far — it was a matter of the times because then it was several years later, they even said when I went to have my baby on the show that they didn’t really know how to write it and then it was a couple a years later that they really started to embrace as you guys started to have your kids and all that, they were able to really start to make it happen. But there was so much controversy around my character when I had my baby. ‘She’s so smart, she would never get pregnant.’ Oh, really?” Jennie, joking: “Smart people don’t get pregnant.”
Tori: “And you were like, ‘Screw this! When we all get together 30 years later and do ‘BH90210,’ I’m gonna make out with a woman on the show!’ That was her idea, you guys!” Jennie: “I love it. Gabrielle is a lesbian.”
Tori: “She got the last laugh... Remember that day? I was watching you make out on camera with that girl. I was like, ‘Oh, it’s so sexy.’”
That girl? You mean Christine Elise…?
Apparently Gabrielle’s daughter came to set that day and Jennie said she was ‘very uncomfortable’ watching her mom shoot that scene.
Tori then brought up Jennie and Jason kissing for “BH90210” and watching from the monitor: “I had my headphones on and I came over to her and I’m like, ‘There’s too much [makes lip-slapping noises].’ Remember?” Jennie, dryly: “Yeah. Thanks for the notes.”
Gabrielle claimed when she had to kiss Jason on the original show, a director told her to put her tongue in his mouth. Jennie said how they recently discussed “the tongue of it all” on the podcast. Gabrielle quoted the director as supposedly saying, “‘Don’t tell him and just do it.’ Because he wanted the shock of it.”
Tori thought that actually made sense, but added, “Can you imagine now a man coming up to a girl” and advising that or doing that? Gabrielle said the actor being kissed would have to be told beforehand. Tori wanted to know if Gabrielle did the surprise tongue and she said she did. “I’m not afraid. I’ll kiss a girl. I’ll kiss Jason. It’s okay. It’s not a problem.”
Around 52 minutes in, Sisanie said, “Ladies, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we have to wrap... We’ll have to have you come back on the show.” Gabrielle suggested they do it at her house next time with drinks and dinner. Guess she forgot we’re in the midst of a pandemic.
Gabrielle: “I really do miss you guys. I’m so happy for you. I’m gonna listen in, I’m gonna make sure everybody’s listening in, give you those five stars.”
Jennie: “Girl, stay fabulous. Stay safe!” Jennie apparently imitated Gabrielle doing a clap like “chop, chop” that we obviously couldn’t see, but it made them all crack up.
Gabrielle hopped off the call and Jennie exclaimed, “That was fun! I missed that lady.” Tori: “I missed the shit out of her.”
Jennie said whenever they see “anybody from the old show... your heart feels full again and you just want more. I want more. I want to spend more time with her.”
Tori: “And it’s not like a day has passed. That’s a true sign of friendship, when you can not see someone for a while, not be together, and when you’re together, you just can’t stop talking. I don’t know. It’s a show I’d watch.”
Sisanie: “As a fan, I was just sitting back and freaking out. That warm, fuzzy feeling is felt by us fans too... You can feel the love, you feel the connection, you feel the sisterhood between you guys and it’s so cute... I felt like I was part of your guys’ group.”
Tori: “You were like the younger sister. You were like me when they had the read-through, peering out through the stairs, watching. See, Gab admits she doesn’t have a good memory, and I’m telling you right now, she did not get that one right.”
I’ll come right out and say it: This was arguably the best installment of “9021OMG” yet. And it makes me wonder: Why the hell wasn’t this the premise of the podcast?! Why wasn’t it them interviewing their former co-stars? This setup was so much more controlled than Jennie and Tori just riffing. I’d love to hear similar conversations with the rest of the original cast and whoever else. Yes, the “Beverly Hills 90210 Show” podcast already does that, but it was different hearing about their experiences in relation to one another.
It was also really interesting — though not necessarily in a good way — to hear them attempt to defend “BH90210” and essentially admit that it was less about the fans and more about them. With the teen dramas in general, I’ve always gone back and forth in my head on who owes who what. For example, should us fans be grateful they did “Beverly Hills, 90210” for so long? Or should they be grateful to us for watching and keeping the show on the air for 10 seasons? In any case, my problems with “BH90210” — from the premise to storylines like “Gabrielle being a lesbian” — are no secret. And the timing of this discussion is particularly interesting, because the failure of “BH90210” and the possibility of doing another iteration also came up during the last few days with not only Garth and Spelling separately from this, but also with executive producers Charles Rosin and Larry Mollin and with Brian Austin Green (David, Beverly Hills, 90210).
I’ll be sharing all the details on that in tomorrow’s “Teen Drama Links” for premium TDW subscribers, so make sure you’re signed up and stay tuned!
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