This Is Not Real Life

Last night was another 90210 fest at Plattie’s. Is there anything better than good company, an immense pizza, ice cream and cheesy old TV shows? The answer to that my friends is no, there is not.

We are on season 2 now, after the utterly shit cliffhanger that was ‘Dylan, I am late…no…late!‘ Brenda, I don’t want to spoil it for anyone here…was not pregnant. Phew! I had been sweating about that since last week. She is however, a nutcase. The writers decide to get her to dump Dylan (who by all rights should not be looking at Brenda twice) because they are ‘moving too fast’. OK fine, but she’s so damn contradictory! She doesn’t want to be with him. Then she kisses him. Then she’s pissed at her dad for letting him stay. Then she’s pissed at him for kicking him out. No one can win! Also, I hope beyond hope that the writers a) get rid of the parents in some sort of freak accident, and b) stop having Brenda and Brandon having intimate talks about their sex lives. With each other! Enough. Perhaps it’s just because the idea of having such conversations with my own brother makes me want to peel my skin off, but don’t any of these kids keep things to themselves? Honestly. And all the hugging and understanding. It is a bit much from siblings. Or perhaps that’s just me.

I have to say I was outraged on Brenda’s behalf over her parents’ response to her having had sex. Brandon had sex, IN THEIR HOUSE, with them knowing what was going on, and they did not bat an eye. In fact, Jim was very proud of his son, and they all smirked when Brandon did the obligatory ‘I have just had sex’ whistle the morning after. Brenda has sex and it’s all ‘Oh my God my baby girl, you cannot be having sex, we must all sit down and discuss it and put a stop to it at once!’ which, you know, is just wrong on so many levels. And the whole Brenda moving too fast speech was, I think, directed at young girls watching at the time. So, you’ve found that special someone, you’re in love, you feel ready…well DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! Look at Brenda, she has Dylan and she had sex and now she’s all upset. She says it’s not worth it, listen to Brenda. Puh.

And then there’s Brandon, who is still having moral dilemmas of the week that involve women who will flee the state once the episode is over and children being abused. He is also human truth serum. When Brandon is around, no secrets are safe. Complete strangers open up to him after knowing him for five seconds. He’d be very useful in world conflicts this dude. He also will become best buddies with someone and then abandon them. Matthew Perry is still sitting in the mental ward waiting for his buddy Brandon to come visit.

But Dylan, ah Dylan, he is my one bright shining star of the show. Basically because of process of elimination (all the rest bug the shit out of me), I love Dylan. It doesn’t hurt that they used him so sparingly in the first season that I would scream with glee whenever he walked on camera. I love his cryptic one liners that leave everyone going ‘huh?’ until the end of the episode (he’s like the Dungeon Master that way). I love that he’s been there, done that, with everything. I like that he is far superior in every way to stupid smug Brandon. It helps that he is often, and in fact mostly, half naked. I ignore the fact that you could drive a bulldozer through his frown lines.

He’s just pretty. And in a TV show full of scary high waisted jeans, shirts with glasses and hockey players on them, and parents with offensive chest hair, that helps a lot.

That Friday Feeling

Last night I went to Plattie’s after work to watch yet more 90210, and my god is that show fantastic. And by that I mean in the cheesiest, cringe-worthy way possible. Half the time you’re sucked in by the sheer awfulness of the fashion back then (when did they start making jeans that didn’t stick to all the worst bits of the female body and that weren’t up to your chin? Thank you whoever that designer was), and the other half you’re hiding behind your hands because the bloody mother and father are dancing around the subject of sex or Jim has his pyjama top open again (which is truly horrifying by the way).

I love the moral messages that are in every episode. My favourite of last night’s being ‘don’t take diet pills, it will make you a bitch,’ but if you then go to a slumber party and tell dirty secrets and have everyone hate you it’ll be ok, because all will be forgiven once said pills fall on the floor and one of your old friends call you a bitch. And then you can smile and have cookies. Mmmm cookies.

I cannot wait until our next marathon, where there is an episode in which Brenda finds a lump in her breast and oh my god, it must be cancer and there is an agonising wait to see if she will survive. I’m going out on a limb that it is in fact a cyst or something, as nothing goes beyond one episode in this drama. You can guarantee that if Brandon meets a girl, by the end of the episode she will turn out to be a bit of a slut, have a baby already, or join the witness protection programme. The poor lad. But it’s ok, we don’t like him any way.

Oh, and Shannon Doherty pulled in big laughs as Laverne the waitress. I was amused anyway, especially by her miming to ‘It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.’

And now I am very sleepy, because it’s the mid-afternoon slump, but that’s ok too, because it’s Friday. And I have deemed Friday cake day (so much for the Jamie Oliver scare tactics), and so surely cups of tea and cake will keep me going until I get to go home in…ooh…about two hours.

Yay weekend!

Accentuate the Positive

Being positive does not come easily to me. Being positive on a Monday morning, when you’ve been kicked off the bus four stops early and then the heavens open in a torrential downpour and you end up soaked, well, that’s even harder. But, I shall try and start my week with a sunny outlook. It won’t last.

But there are a couple of things I’m happy about. It’s a four day week for me because I am going up home to Yorkshire on Friday. This morning when I turned on the TV after spending the last couple of weeks watching The Wire, I found the lovely E4 was playing Joan of Arcadia. And it was one of my favourite episodes too, where God tells Joan to take a bully to the school dance. I know it’s a pretty hokey show, but I can’t help but love it. And I am happy to admit I well up every time Old Lady God tells Joan that by taking Bully Boy to the dance, she stopped him from shooting half her classmates. And tomorrow Adam finally forgives her for going postal and smashing his art work, and they kiss. It’s something that will make me get up slightly earlier than usual, so that’s good.

Also, on Saturday Plattie came by and we watched yet more episodes of the glorious 90210, and Brenda and Dylan finally had some interaction. I don’t really understand what they were thinking when they wrote this show. They keep all the focus on annoyingly smug Brandon, and if not him then Steve’s there, and yet no screen time hardly for Dylan, who is in fact more of a heart throb (were I 14 of course), than either of them. I was thrilled by Brenda and Dylan’s date, and that it was all so dramatic that he cried, as boys do on first dates, and then he stood her up, and then there was a very important message about AIDS. So, in our marathon of episodes, we covered alcoholism and drug abuse (Kelly’s mum), adultery (Brenda’s mum), date rape (a cheerleader I assume we never see again), and safe sex. They are slightly heavey handed with the moral messages, but mocking the fashion more than makes up for it.

So, deep breath, it’s Monday, I can get through it if I really try. Got to be time for a cup of tea. And a biscuit. Yeah, definitely a biscuit. Well, it is almost elevenses.