90210's A Hit! The Showrunners React And The PTC Rages
90210 is a hit! We'll admit, we were surprised at how much we enjoyed the first episode -- as we said in our season-preview podcast, we feared the worst when the network declined to send out screeners to critics. But the show had the highest-rated premiere for a scripted series in CW history, and according to a TV Guide.com poll, 86 percent of viewers intend to keep watching. Not bad!
TV Guide's Matt Mitovich talked to show runners Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs about the first-week numbers, and found out they were prepared for the worst: "You know that no matter what you do, on a show like this, some people are going to crap on it," Judah said. Added Sachs, "Especially with a campaign like this," featuring scantily clad teens in a swimming pool. "People were ready to hate it."
The showrunners claimed they were shocked by the "tsunami of publicity" that surrounded the return of original Jennie Garth or Shannen Doherty. "We did not understand the fanaticism that the previous fans had," Judah admitted. "We naively were thinking, 'Maybe we should put Kelly in the first scene, so people know she's in it…?' We had no idea that she was going to be on 17,000 magazine covers!" Hmmm. We confess a wee bit of skepticism to that. How could they not know the return of Kelly and Brenda would be the media event of the new season?
Of course, the show also got a bit of a boost from critics who hated the show sight unseen. We had to laugh at this LA Times blog headline: "'90210' decency complaints give CW attention it couldn't buy." The folks at the Parent's Television Council launched a complaint against the show just hours after it hit the air: "The CW Network has openly, wantonly and eagerly violated every business tenet of the broadcast industry. They shocked viewers during the family hour by depicting high school children engaged in oral sex in their car," said the council's president, Tim Winter. "It's such a sucker punch to viewers and a lot of families. No one tuned in to '90210' thinking, 'Hey, maybe I will get to see [oral sex].' "
Somehow, we don't think raking in publicity constitutes "violating every business tenet of the broadcast industry." If anything, the rest of the industry is taking notes!