Beverly Hills 90210 - The Seventh Season - DVD

Content: The series Beverly Hills 90210 made a significant impact on 90s pop culture. For ten seasons, fans followed the adventures of the clique led by Brandon, Steve, David, Kelly, Donna, Dylan and Brenda. The actors, especially Luke Perry, Jason Priestley and Jennie Garth became idols for a whole generation of TV junkies. Although some actors left the series again and again, but successors were always found quickly. For example, the departure of Shannon Doherty was cushioned by Tiffani-Amber Thiessen and even the departure of teen heartthrob Luke Perry did not herald the end of the series.

In season seven, the friends from Beverly Hills spend their senior year of college. And of course there are again quite a few problems, intrigues and quite a lot of relationship chaos. So right at the beginning it is not at all good for the former dream couple David (Brian Austin Green) and Donna (Tori Spelling). Even the happy relationship of Steve (Ian Ziering) and Clare (Kathleen Robertson) is shaken when Clare finds out what happened between her Steve and Donna (Jennie Garth) in the past. And Val (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen) gets involved in an affair with a married man. Too bad Val doesn't like to share at all, and is even less good at losing. But every problem has a solution, after all. Things, on the other hand, are looking good for Peach Pit owner and father figure Nate, who gets to step in front of the wedding altar right at the start of year seven.

Doch the 31 (!) episodes of Season 7 have to offer admittedly not only lively Liebesreigen. Again and again, the creators have tried to work more serious issues into their series. For example, Brandon is confronted with a case of racism during a road trip, Kelly has to fear that she has contracted AIDS during her charity work, David is driven into depression by constant failures and outside pressure, Donna's father suffers a stroke and the clique is also confronted with drug abuse. A stalker, a supposed pregnancy, the theft of a term paper and a hostage situation are other dramatic events the series deals with in its seventh year.

Admittedly, the handling of many of these issues is richly naive. For instance, the way Brandon reacts to racist rednecks would almost certainly have had a very different outcome in real life. But Beverly Hills 90210 never aimed to represent reality. Rather, it was meant to entertain the target audience by weaving in issues that young people have to deal with. And the series did a good job of that, even if good dialogues, sophisticated dramaturgy and high acting skills admittedly look different. Since here and there a little self-irony could always shine through, it can be assumed that the creators were well aware that they have not created a high-quality product, but simply a piece of good TV entertainment that has hit the spirit of the times in the 90s. That this is not really easy and is also difficult to repeat, shows the fact that none of the many clones of the series and certainly not the remake launched in 2008 could even begin to achieve the cult status that Beverly Hills 90210 holds to this day among fans.

So this box is also again a must for all fans, even if the seventh season was certainly not the best season of the series and the peak of success has long passed. Because even if some moments are riddled with unintentional comedy and the once so trendy fashion is now more of a reason to be embarrassed, Beverly Hills 90210 is still a piece of TV history and for fans of yesteryear a piece of wonderful and still entertaining nostalgia.

Picture + Sound: The picture quality is quite okay for a TV series that is just under fifteen years old, although a noticeable coarseness and blurring detract from the overall positive impression. The original English sound can be heard quite well, in the German language version, the dialogues are mixed much more front-heavy and background noises such as the screeching of seagulls or sea and wind noise are almost completely lost.

Extras: Bonus material is unfortunately not included.

Conclusion: The seventh season of Beverly Hills 90210 again offers soap nostalgia at its best. Even if the series can not really be called good, it has an important place in the pop culture of the 90s and also has - at least for fans of that time - even today a decent entertainment value. The technical realization is okay, bonus material has the box unfortunately not to offer. For fans nevertheless: absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp