Beverly Hills 90210 was a popular
television show that ran from
1990 to
2000 in the United States. The show was about the lives of a group of teenagers who live in the posh, star-studded area of
Southern California but who have to face the daily troubles many
teenagers face.
The show propelled Luke Perry, Shannen Doherty, Tori Spelling, Jason Priestley, Jennie Garth, Brian Austin Green, Ian Ziering and Gabrielle Carteris to fame. Tiffany Amber Thiessen had already found fame as a member of the cast of Saved by the Bell when she arrived.
Priestley and Perry became Teen Idols[?] and they were on the covers of Tiger Beat, Teen Beat[?] and many other magazines quickly after the show began.
The show's main topics included drugs, abortion, divorce, stealing, cheating, and split families. It was a mirror of the problems of many teens worldwide, and it didn't try to be a comedy or a show with predictable, happy endings every time. That was part of their formula for success.
The show's characters and their problems included:
- Brandon Walsh (Played by Priestley, drinking, gambling, unknowingly took Euphoria drug, friend was killed in a car accident).
- Brenda Walsh (Played by Doherty, Car accident, leaves for Mexico with Dylan and gets caught, smokes, gets involved in a love triangle, almost dies in a plane crash, gets arrested for raiding an animal test lab
- Kelly Taylor (Played by Garth, involved in love triangle with Dylan and Brenda, diet pill[?] abuser, was stuck in a fire at Steve's house, became involved in a cult, uses cocaine, is date-raped and has a miscarriage. May never be able to have children).
- Steve Sanders(Played by Ziering, steals tests, searches for roots, finds out mother was killed in car crash, steroids[?], hacker, his house caught fire, steals Brandon's tests, pot user).
- Andrea Zuckerman (played by Carteris, attends out of district school, breaks legs in car crash, divorce).
- Dylan McKay (Played by Perry, surfing accident, alcohol, school drop out, wrongly accused of cheating on SAT tests, father dies in car/bomb right in front of his eyes, involved in triangle with Brenda and Kelly, gets into coke and heroin, has car accident, wife gets killed by gunmen).
- David Silver (Played by Green, takes Steve's car without a license and crashes it, friend commits suicide, uses speed and crack, father dies of heart attack, gambling).
- Donna Martin (Played by Spelling, the show's producer's daughter, low SAT score, learning disability, drinking, gets expelled from school, almost raped and pushed down stairs by attacker, held at gun point on tv station, has memory blockage and walks out during college final exam, grandmother dies of heart attack, drugs).
- Valerie Malone (Played by Thiessen, pot smoker, tries to steal 100,000 dollars, tries to commit suicide).