Beverly Hills 90210 caused a stir in my family. Or that is how it appeared to me when it aired in 1990. Both of my sisters (being 11 and 8 at the time) had been talking about it before it came out and we were all pretty excited. It is only now that I realize I was not quite 5 years old. I don't remember feeling that young. But both my sisters wanted to see it and I was the youngest so I didn't want to be left out of any grown up girl activity. In the end I wasn't allowed to see it because I was too young and it was past my bedtime, but I eventually learned how to 1) stay up past my bed time and 2) sneakily watch the show from the kitchen under the guise of making a snack.
90210 taught me so much. It taught me what cocaine was and that breast cancer looks like chewing gum. I don't know if this actually happened in one of the episodes, but I seem to remember Dylan sniffing coke out of a ring he was wearing on his finger.
I was also confused by the Luke Perry and Jason Priestley. They had the same hair so it was years before I realized they were two distinct characters.
Beverly Hills 90210, an impressive but confusing show to a young kid.
