S02.E14: The Next Fifty Years

[lottiedottie]

Memory is such a funny thing. If I'd been asked before listening to this podcast I would have said Dead Scott committed suicide. I remember what happens as you all are talking about it but have little or no recollection of it before that. I also have no recollection of Brandon being such a sanctimonious jerk with all that braying (thank goodness.)

Onward to Donna Martin Graduates!

And I thought that the gang was there when it happened, but I guess not? But like you, I misremembered it as suicide also but that probably would have been way too deep for 90210 to handle.

[zobot81]

Seriously tho. How is it possible that they couldn't get around the audio/music rights in order to be able to stream this episode on Hulu? It's 2018 and there are plenty of amateurs with laptops and video editing software who could prolly figure out how to edit around this issue.  Or how about just cutting the choir scene altogether, if it's so impossible alter the music?  I'm serious, I'm very pissed off right now, bc (if I remember correctly) this event is what cements David as part of the group. And even if one scene is super important to any episode, the episode is overall vital to the 90210 cannon, and should not have been plucked out of the lineup.

smh.

[Asp Burger]

There were all kinds of things to find fault with in this episode, but it's still "good" 90210. We were a long way away from the crime drama, teenagers as club-owning moguls, coma dreams, game-show dreams, episodes set in the Old West, and that Single White Female ripoff that finally did me in for good. (I never saw anything after S6.) 

And I'm not made of stone. The character of Scott may have been annoying and superfluous in dramatic terms, but in the world of this show, he was a lonely, needy kid who died way too young, and it's sad that even the person he thought of as his best friend had moved on from him. It's also sad (and, unfortunately, true to life) that someone who saw him all the time and even was in a class with him would say "Which one was Scott Scanlon? I thought it was that kid, but obviously not."

You get a sense of why he was socially inept when you spend that much time with his mother.  Not that the "cool kids" of this show's Beverly Hills did much better for parents. The Walsh twins had the best parents on the show, and that family was imported.   

I liked David's radio rant, and Brian Austin Green and Jason Priestley (in the reacting role) did pretty well with the scene.  

"Somewhere" is okay to use in other contexts. Most good songs are; that's how they become standards. There's what "Somewhere" was supposed to signify in the musical, but it's obviously taken on a big life beyond that. When some middle-aged diva sings it in a concert, or Tom Waits records it, or whatever, we're not thinking about the singer's appropriateness for Maria or Tony.  The song more generally is about a hope and belief that present circumstances can be transcended.  

[Katy M]

On ‎10‎/‎16‎/‎2015 at 10:11 PM, swimmyfish said:

I remember being incredibly disappointed with this episode when it originally aired because it really seemed (to me) like they were building up to DeadScott killing himself, and having him die in an accident instead struck me as a massive cop out. I apparently kept it very real as an 18 year-old.

 

Thinking about it now, it seems really weird to me that they went to the trouble to kill DeadScott in any fashion since, as many of you have already pointed out, there were zero repercussions for his good pal David. Scott wasn't a beloved character, and they could have just as easily come back from the summer season and discovered his family had returned to their home planet. Maybe there were contract issues in play with Douglas Emerson; maybe they needed to check 'gun safety' off their big list of issues to address. But bringing back a character of so little importance just to kill him off after 3 episodes really seems almost mean to both the character and the actor. 

I wish they would have had him legit kill himself.  That would have been a much better pay off, storywise.  He had plenty of reasons to do so, and David would have had reason to actually feel guilty about his death specifically, instead of just generally. 

[oakville]

On 10/16/2015 at 1:35 PM, sinkwriter said:

Back when I first watched the show, I genuinely liked Brandon. But I remember HATING his behavior in this episode. He (along with Ms. Emily Valentine) was so rude. Total asshole. I wanted to smack him.

And I remember hating Mrs. Scanlon too. The way she ordered David around and guilted him into everything and treated him like he should be doing everything (right down to eyerolling at him for not swiftly getting the cake and the candles, seriously?? It's YOUR son, lady!), everything about her drove me nuts.

Brandon & Emily should not have been making out in Scott's brother's bedroom.

Why did Scott's dad leave a loaded gun in the office? That issue wasn't discussed.

Scott's mom was a riot. Poor David.

Scott seemed to have trouble reading his lines. He looked shocked after interacting with David. It was a weird physical tick.

[CeeBeeGee]

On 10/16/2015 at 5:47 PM, StatMom said:

Yes, thank you! I knew I remembered her being an annoying whiner in some other role. Has she ever done any non-cringey characters?

Jenni O'Hara was also in the first few episodes of the first season of The Facts of Life--she played a normal, common-sense teacher who was very much the foil to the inane, cringe-y headmaster who routinely made a fool of himself. O'Hara asked to be let out of her contract when she saw how few lines she was being given.

On 6/7/2018 at 2:03 AM, Asp Burger said:

And I'm not made of stone. The character of Scott may have been annoying and superfluous in dramatic terms, but in the world of this show, he was a lonely, needy kid who died way too young, and it's sad that even the person he thought of as his best friend had moved on from him. It's also sad (and, unfortunately, true to life) that someone who saw him all the time and even was in a class with him would say "Which one was Scott Scanlon? I thought it was that kid, but obviously not." 

"Somewhere" is okay to use in other contexts. Most good songs are; that's how they become standards. There's what "Somewhere" was supposed to signify in the musical, but it's obviously taken on a big life beyond that. When some middle-aged diva sings it in a concert, or Tom Waits records it, or whatever, we're not thinking about the singer's appropriateness for Maria or Tony.  The song more generally is about a hope and belief that present circumstances can be transcended.  

Dylan also stood up for Scott against bullies in their tech class in the first episode in which Dylan appeared.

In West Side Story Somewhere is reprised when the two gangs unite at the end to carry off Tony's body. So it's appropriate in a funereal sense.