The clothes! The cars! The side burns! The most famous zipcode in modern television is back and we have thoughts. Beverly Hills 90210 screened from 1990 to 2000 and made household names out of actors Shannen Doherty , Jennie Garth, Jason Priestley , Tori Spelling , Ian Ziering, Brian Austin Green , and Luke Perry (RIP) . Writer Sarah Pollok wasn’t even born when the show started.
Kim Knight was in her first journalism job. Dan Ahwa just wanted to live in Casa Walsh. This week, the Gen X, Y and Z trio went back to where it all began to ask: Does 90210 stand the test of time? Overview Kim Knight – Gen X: In September 1991, when the TV-watching world’s most aspirational zip code finally landed on New Zealand screens, I was a 21-year-old baby reporter living in Greymouth.
My flatmates were a physiotherapist and a district court clerk. We inherited a floor-to-ceiling beer can feature wall, listened to a lot of U2 and Beverly Hills 90210 was appointment viewing. When Brenda ordered a banana daiquiri and Marianne ate nigiri, I knew what these things were, but I’d never tasted them myself.
The show was a walking, talking, glossy magazine at a time when it felt (momentarily) OK to embrace glamour. Greymouth’s own Julie Christie had just made the doco Rachel Hunter: Cover Girl ; thanks to Shortland Street we were about to have a slew of celebrities who didn’t play rugby and women’s magazines ruled the media world. I didn’t even really know what a “zip code” was, but.
