Narla

Ha! This episode lives in infamy in my mind, because it's the one that led my (single) mother to ban LHOTP from our house for several months. My brother and I were watching a rerun while my mother made dinner and right as Pa shot Laura's horse my mother called us to the table. My brother and were both wracked with sobs, absolutely hysterical, about the dead horse. My mother was so infuriated that she had to deal with two devastated children at dinner time that she just flat out banned Little House, full stop. It was only listening to this episode that I found out how things ended!

Like most Canadians, I don't watch a lot of Canadian TV -- I've made it through maybe one episode of Murdoch Mysteries -- but I LOVE the plot. It's so Toronto that someone would be freaking out about people using the beaches. Just this week the Toronto Star had an article about residences of The Beache(s) (City calls them one thing, they insist on calling themselves something else) being up in arms about a kayak kiosk being an eyesore. Because Lake Ontario belongs to the home owners. Using Murdoch Mysteries to point out that people who live near the Beaches have always been exclusionary wingnuts is both hilarious and crazy passive aggressive.

I appreciate Dave making what is, even in Canada, an extremely obscure Shuffle Demons joke.

Just a point to Sarah for the Sopranos-in-Grimsby -- as she clearly has an affection for that city name, I feel the need to let her know that there's plenty of mob activity in neighbouring Hamilton, ON, which I have always thought had a lot in common with Jersey. I mean, it's a city, not a state, but it's unexpectedly pretty in places and everything thinks we're just a crazy industrial city on fire, because all they ever see is the steel plants as they go past on the Skyway Bridge, heading for Niagara.

I've always felt like I'm getting a special bonus whenever EHG leans into the fact that its three founding members are all from the Niagara region (or at least have spent significant time there) -- I was yelling "GOLDIE!" at my iPhone and it was so satisfying when Joe said her name, I can't even tell you.

A sorta sappy comment before I even listen - I broke my ankle yesterday. Not badly, but I'm in one of those stupid boot things and it hurts. Last night, having hobbled home from the ER, I lay on my bed waiting for the painkillers to kick in and trying to figure out what was going to make me feel better. I came to the conclusion that the only thing I wanted was a new episode of this podcast. I wanted something that was going to be both funny and cranky with a thin layer of nostalgia and I could come up with nothing else that would make me feel better. I ended up re-listening to EHG's catfish coverage as a placeholder, but this morning -- still swollen and still in pain -- I'm freaking delighted to be able to sit back and listen to this. I know this week's episodes haven't been your collective favourites, but I am so grateful to have your snark to keep me company today.

gesundheit -- Yeah, lots of people dated each other's exes at my high school, too -- but if anything like what 90210 is showing us happened, it would have been extremely dramatic. This isn't dating an ex, this is your BFF screwing around with your boyfriend when you're away, not telling you about it, and then eventually all your friends expecting you to get over it immediately. That's not how teenaged girls work, and when I was a teen it absolutely infuriated me. If there had even been a three a episode arc in which Brenda and everyone else comes to terms with what happened, I'd feel differently -- but the way I remember it, everyone was immediately all "get over it, Brenda." Even her flipping brother, the Indignation Machine.

Tooch -- I KNOW, NOT EVEN HER BROTHER GAVE A DAMN AND IT MADE ME INSANE! I am about this like Tara is about Mary's husband dying in a car crash. I just can't conceive of a world in which one's twin freaking brother doesn't stop hanging out with his buddy who dumped you for your best friend -- who he had been screwing around with behind your back in the first place. I get it, Reek, she's no angel... but, again, some more, how is no one on her side??? Where is your self-righteous bray NOW, Brandon? It makes no sense!

Tooch & AndySmith - I think the behind-the-scene stuff plays a big role in the rest of season 3/4. Because the way I remember it, no one is on Brenda's side and it seems insane to me that, in a high school drama like this, people wouldn't be on Brenda's freaking side! Her boyfriend is screwing around with her best friend. That's the highest of high school drama. I remember a guy leaving one girl for another in my high school -- the two were not even friends, but EVERYONE across all five grades (Ontario) knew about it and no one was on the boyfriend/new girlfriend's side. Even teachers were giving them the evil eye. The fact that it plays out so differently on BH90210 has GOT to be because everyone was sick to death of Shannen.

I'm curious to see how I feel about this storyline this time, because when I was 17 I felt VERY STRONGLY about this whole thing and I was heavily on Brenda's side... Though in my memory that is mostly because of the reaction of all her friends. It seemed so unjust! Also, great that Linda Holmes did her part to make the podcasts have a Dean Cain theme this week.

It's so weird to take this in as an adult, when the fog of teenaged hormones has lifted and realize just HOW terrible Dylan is. I mean, everyone is pretty terrible, but his anger at Kelly is completely groundless. While it was nice to see Peak Dylan and understand that he DID have an appeal originally, I'm still amazed at what a jerk he is in these scenes. I get that the show was trying to manage the hatred the cast was starting to feel towards Shannen, but MAN. They do not do Dylan any favours with this storyline. I turned on both Dylan and Kelly about half a season from now

Ugggh. Alexandra Wilson, who plays the racist girlfriend, was on Another World and for whatever reason (I honestly can't figure it out now) I loved her and her character -- I vividly remember being excited when she turned up on 90210, and then having to deal with a) her hair and b) her horrible character... I'm not sure I ever saw her on TV again.

As soon as I saw this post I yelped "It's the Donna's butt-cheeks episode!" -- I know she wore short shorts at other times, but this is the episode I remember watching as a teenager and being completely stunned at her outfit -- in a "wait, but her Dad RUNS this show" sort of way.

The phone stuff was real -- My stepfather wasn't too grumpy about it and my Dad was not in a position to be controlling about it... but my BFF, who I was always on the phone WITH, her father was INTENSE about the phone! A big part of our phone conversations involved trying to avoid her father's notice.

@mostly C -- I agree about raisins AND apples -- and then raisins in things that also have apple in them. The guy who played the rapist isn't a regular on Castle, but he is still a working actor who does a lot of TV... including a guest spot on Castle.

Huh. I remember the date rape storyline as being much harsher on Kelly than it was -- probably because I'm mostly remembering the Brenda parts -- but go Dylan for being unambiguous and decent. It reminds me of why I really liked Dylan up until I ... did not like Dylan at all. Raisins ruin everything.

Oh my God -- I had forgotten about harmony balls, but I also had at *least* one and it was also a bas-relief earth. (I've gathered from things you'd said that, at least in your later teen years, we were in the roughly the same area of the country... I'm positive I bought it at a festival of some kind.) I also thought it looked a bit like a magnifying glass -- it doesn't make my top ten of Mortifying Things We Wore in the 90s.

I cannot believe that weirdly racist driving test scene! I have nothing to add, other than my continued disbelief at how completely unaware I was of all this stuff when I was 16 and watching this. Also, Team Tara on the vest/monocle thing. Teenagers wear weird things around their neck, that seems as reasonable as any.

I'm glad you guys did this -- the Canadian feed of the movie screwed up and repeated a good 20 minutes of the movie in the middle, and then started doing terrible mid-scene cuts to commercials, with the whole thing ending in time for Tori Spelling's lie detector show, so we didn't actually get the end. That's my excuse for WATCHING the Tori Spelling Lie Detector thing, because I was mad about the movie-interuptus... It's as good as any. It was pretty cringe-worthy, but a few things worth noting: * Tori says that Shannen actually wasn't involved in the red dress fight at all -- it was her and Jenni and she's still embarrassed about it. * Tori also made it sound like the physical Jenni & Shannen fight was toned down on TV. * Most hilariously, Tori admitted that she got the role because she was Aaron's daughter and the movie got it right -- she used a fake name, but everyone in casting knew who she was. She's never said this, but she clearly has the same problem Damon Wayans Jr. had when he tried to do stand-up under another name -- she looks exactly like her dad. She's basically Aaron Spelling with Candy's hair.

Kerfuffler -- I have an uncle who exclusively called me "niece" and it is SUPER weird and always has been. That said, even he seems to muster the ability to call his kids by their names.

@JennB -- YES! It was senior ditch day or something. I remember nothing else, but that Donna had that line, that was the music cue -- coming in on her pause like it was planned -- and they were literally at an amusement park. And all of this is before "the show got bad" in my teenaged estimation.

I may be wrong about this, but I remember the use to the slow, emotive BH90210 theme song being a hallmark of the show. Particularly, I remember watching a senior year episode where Donna and... someone (Andrea?) have a conversation and she has the line "Love..." cue the first note of the theme "is like a rollercoaster." It was the perfect encapsulation of how cheesy this show could be. (I mean, assuming I'm remembering it right. I was wrong about the song in the car being Elvis Costello's Other Side of Summer, but apparently that's the next episode. Losing my Religion sounds about right.)

Head's up -- Wrong text in the main post. I gotta admit, most of these episode I somehow saw, at some point, despite the fact that BH90210 was not something I really dived into as a kid until Spring Dance and I don't remember revisiting it later on, really. (Maybe it reran on OMNI a bit, but that's literally 20 years ago) -- This is the first episode I have absolutely no memory or knowledge of. None. Imagine my dismay to discover how deeply stupid Brenda is.

I swear this happened this week. I listened to that old Extra Hot Great where Joe, David and (to a lesser degree) Tara talked about GI Joe for 45 minutes and I ... found it funny. Granted, I had seen the show as a child and I knew the show, but remembered NOTHING about it other than "Go Joe!" and "and knowing is half the battle..." -- but I did want to say that I was a) not mad and b) actually really enjoyed the episode. Last week another podcast, We Hate Movies, released a summer rerun of their "Animation Damnation" series about an episode of GI Joe (they go to a dance club... it gets taken to outer space...) and thought "I wish Extra Hot Great would revist GI Joe, I'd love to hear more Dave talking about how ridiculous that show was." I do not remember the show well enough to have figured out what all the viper drops were about, so it was enormously exciting to get to the Canon and find out it was about GI Joe. I have to admit, the sincere rage of some of the other panelists just made it all the more entertaining. Gooooo Dave!

AndySmith! This used to drive me crazy -- when I was 15 and watching this! I've said it on this site before, but Donna's clothes, especially in the early seasons, make no sense. But as weird as Felice letting her out of the house with half her ass hanging out, I also don't understand why Aaron Spelling -- who had Donna stay a virgin for at least 8 seasons -- was ok with her going on TV like that. It's so weird!