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Beverly Hills, 90210: The Complete 3rd Season

Genre: ,

Cast: Jason Priestley, Shannen Doherty, Luke Perry, Tori Spelling, Jennie Garth, Brian Austin Green, Ian Ziering, Gabrielle Carteris, Carol Potter, James Eckhouse & Joe E. Tata

Creator: Aaron Spelling

Rated: NR

Review By:
Rocco Passafuime

School:
SUNY Purchase '05

Quote:
"I don't compromise my values and I don't compromise my work. I won't give in." -Michael Moore

beverly_hills_90210_season_3_dvd-luke_perry-jason_priestley-ian_ziering
Release Date: December 11th, 2007
Click to Buy on DVD or Bluray!
Overall Grade: B

Beverly Hills, 90210: The Complete 3rd Season

Review By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

Beverly Hills, 90210The Complete Third Season

By the summer of 1992, it became undeniable that Beverly Hills, 90210 had ballooned into an enormous teen pop culture phenomenon, with dolls, trading cards, and even a hit soundtrack with several top 40 hits. However, it would be soon time for the teen characters to inevitably finish their high school years and graduate, so creator Darren Star and executive producer Aaron Spelling pulls out all the stops for Beverly Hills, 90210: The Third Season, now available on DVD.

As senior year is afoot, much is still happening with the tight-knit circle of friends at West Beverly Hills High. After flagrantly taking a stand against her parents Cindy and Jim's (Carol Potter, James Eckhouse) disapproval of her relationship, headstrong Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) and her equally such boyfriend Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) comes to an end.

They both flirt with temptation when Brenda goes away to Paris for the summer and engages in a fling, deceivingly posing as a French native, while Dylan begins getting closer with and eventually leaving Brenda for her best friend Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth). Dylan himself, however, begins to mend bridges with his shifty and absentee father, but is reeling when his father is killed in a car bombing. Lovable party animal Steve Sanders (Ian Ziering) soon learns the hard way that his privileged life as the son of an actress does not make him invincible, when he resorts to attempting to break into the school's computer system to change his grades for the better.

Meanwhile, the overachieving Andrea Zucherman (Gabrielle Carteris) faces perceived threats to her image as the school's brightest student, when her confidence is continually shaken with her newspaper's new faculty advisor Gil Meyers (Mark Kiely). Perenially geeky David Silver's (Brian Austin Green) relationship with Donna Martin (Tori Spelling) continues to grow, despite occasional temptations bubbling up due to the latter's desire to stay a virgin, as well as his emerging talent as a hip-hop musician.

Donna herself has little to fear, until she gets barred from graduating for getting too drunk during senior prom and her friends scramble to rally around her during finals. And finally, even Brenda's twin brother Brandon (Jason Priestley) is not completely above the fray when his increased compulsion for gambling gets him into money trouble with a bookie.

Beverly Hills, 90210: The Third Season pretty much directly continues where the previous season left off. While dialogue has never been this series' strong point and the mood is still often campy and comical more than anything else, the cast is still in top form and giving it their all. The writers deserve immense credit for making much of the third season's character arcs more deeply layered and continual than they have ever been previously.

With logistical time running out for the incredibly popular series, the creators design to continue with a massive year-round

season that had made the series increasingly popular with teen audiences here. However, while the story arcs are certainly very well-thought and mapped out, the long season often lapses and runs out of steam during the second half, sinking into its more comically, campy mood, which, while fairly well-balanced during its first two seasons, wears pretty thin by this point.

The great cast and still-trailblazing and generally good character arcs keep this series in good form around this period. However, its stabs at urban social commentary of the time, including homelessness and the Los Angeles riots, often come off today embarrassingly naïve, excessive, and almost unintentionally comical, feeling obligatory and tacked-on as a result.

The DVD's picture quality is of the 1:33:1 full-screen aspect ratio of the original TV broadcasts. Much of the music has been altered on the DVD in accordance with licensing issues and some episodes are grainier than others, which may be more evidential that some of the episodes used were in their syndicated versions.

The DVD also comes packed with a few special features. The first, the featurette "7 Minutes In Heaven", is mainly a compilation of clips of key moments of the entire third season.

The second featurette "Everything You Need To Know About Beverly Hills 90210 Season 3". It features VH1's Best Week Ever panelists Michael Colton and John Aboud, who provide an occasionally amusing and sharp, but annoyingly cynical comical analysis of the series during its third season.

Rounding out the special features is "The World According To Nat". It features a rather warm and engaging interview with cast member Joe E. Tata, who played Nat, the owner of 90210's hangout diner, The Peach Pit.

Much of Beverly Hills, 90210: The Third Season still is fairly good due to a still-fantastic cast, as well as writers who compensated for the show's more campier shortcomings with great story arcs for the characters. However, its overlong season and immense popularity with children, as well as teens, causes it to slip occasionally into absurdity with its often embarrassing stabs at urban social commentary and excessive overall cheesiness.

Movie Grade: B-

DVD Features Grade: B

Overall Grade: B

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