Anyway, I have thoughts based on the pilot, it isn’t much to go on, but I don’t remember very much of this outside of kiwi fruit, a slumber party with rape stories and icecream and popcorn in a bowl, Kelly’s nose job and Brenda wanting to be a blonde and sleep with Dylan. (Brenda actually has the terrible Demi Moore shorty jagged bangs).
I have to jump to the second episode, however, because I also forgot Brandon and Dylan meet before Dylan even interacts with Brenda, (and she already knows he’s a bad boy), so Brandon gets a crash course in hanging with bad surfers who happen to have rich parents who own hotels but are also victims of child neglect. But there’s something so horrendously gay coded over how Brandon and Dylan become friends. Brandon sees Dylan magnanimously defend the dweeb who later kills himself, chases after him and tries to make friends with Dylan, who’s like too cool for that, but then he later sucks up to Brandon saying he wants to be friends, because he’s a loner bad boy who needs buddies. He’s also too cool for proper pants so he wears overalls with one strap down and PJ pants with a white shirt and rolled up sleeves. I won’t go looking for the slash fic on these two, I’m going to trust it’s out there, and this episode would be the perfect foundation for that.
The pilot isn’t badly written, it has the sass the reboot had, it’s kind of clever. Brenda takes a while to be less dweeby, I remember now how frumpy some of her outfits were but she has Heather Duke vibes when it comes to little black dresses. Kelly’s outfits were dorkier in retrospect. Brandon was actually objectively attractive even if he’s supposed to be kind of a nice guy dork to play off Dylan’s bad boy affectation, which is actually laughable at first. I think they turn it down eventually. It doesn’t have a lot of subtlety, the outfits are late 80s early 90s. David isn’t that annoying, Steve doesn’t improve much either. Mr and Mrs Walsh aren’t the worst in terms of parents. It’s not the worst in terms of cringe either, if it was supposed to be American Degrassi, it tried, I guess. I don’t have much else to add for now, maybe I’ll go back to it. I’m not feeling it right now but it’s noise I can deal with.
Oh, and why the FUCK (apart from nepotism) does Tori Spelling have cast billing in the fucking credits and she literally hasn’t had a single episode involving her. She’s been in the pilot and a couple of scenes with Kelly, but at least Kelly’s been around. I guess Steve and Kelly haven’t featured much either but they’ve had way more speaking lines and screen time than Donna, hell Dylan’s had his own episode. Even Andrea’s had more screen time. Maybe I’m being silly but Donna just having billing without barely even been in the background. She’s on screen right now but again, I don’t remember what episode she was featured as the focus. Dada must’ve been firm about her placement in the show even if Jenny Garth had her own issues. I don’t hate Tori Spelling, it was just interesting how she had to work to get out of the background.
Brandon’s cringe once he gets laid. Ugh. I think they didn’t have the rights to the song he does play which was another burnt on my brain moment. I can’t find proof. But he does turn into a jealous, violent prick who smacks drinks across bars, and I was team Brandon,
The score’s also very Heathers synth coded. Except when shit gets dramatic then it’s very Twin Peaks coded, and they drop a reference give they were simultaneous.
