It’s
been a while since I’ve written any reviews for 90210, and that’s partly
because I found the past several episodes rather boring, but it’s mainly
because I’ve been getting a ton of traffic for my posts related to the show New
Girl, so I decided to focus on that show for a while. Plus, I’ve been working
on a couple more long-term and elaborate posts for other shows as well as some
writing not related to my blog. Anyway, given the fact that there are only a
few episodes left of the series, I’ve decided to get back to writing reviews
for the show every week; that being said, here are my thoughts on this episode.
I
have to say that my thoughts on this episode as well as the past several
episodes have been very mixed. They’ve also caused me to once again think a lot
about why I like 90210 more than Gossip Girl, but at the same time I’ve also
been thinking about some things that I think both the writers and the cast of
Gossip Girl did a better job of compared to the cast and crew of 90210.
One
thing that I’ve almost never been able to stop doing whenever I’m watching
90210 would be that I’ve constantly found myself comparing the character Naomi
to Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl, and this would definitely be example of
something that I liked more about Gossip Girl. Both Naomi and Blair are similar
to each other in terms of the type of the character that they are: the “bitch”
of the show, who’s rich, ambitious and is constantly seeking to elevate their
social status. Don’t get me wrong, I like Naomi and I think that AnnaLynne
McCord is one of the stronger actresses from the cast of 90210. However, I
definitely like Blair more than Naomi, and I like Leighton Meester more than
AnnaLynne when it comes to their acting.
When
it comes to why I like Blair more, most of it has to do with the writing. To
me, Blair has much more depth as a character than Naomi does. To me, a kiddy
pool has more depth than Naomi does as a character, and I think the same can be
said of the storylines that Blair had throughout Gossip Girl’s run compared to
Naomi’s, which often lacked depth and just came across as a lackluster
variation of quite a few of Blair’s storylines. For example, the rivalries that
Naomi has had throughout 90210’s run have often felt very reminiscent of not
only Blair’s storylines, but sometimes Serena’s as well, but where the
storylines that revolved around Naomi dealing with a rival usually suffer is the
motivation behind the rivalry, which have often been rather shallow and petty,
making it hard for me to care that someone was causing problems for Naomi.
The
writers for Gossip Girl on the other hand often gave enough depth and proper
motivation and reasons for the viewers to get invested in storylines like that.
For example, there were times where Naomi’s rivalry with Holly in season four reminded
me a lot of Juliet’s vendetta against Serena throughout the first half of
Gossip Girl’s fourth season, which I couldn’t help but get emotionally involved
in as I was watching that storyline. Sure, I pretty much spent the whole
storyline cheering Juliet on as she did everything in her power to ruin
Serena’s life, mainly because I hate the character Serena, but at least the
writers made me feel something. When it came to Naomi’s feud with Holly, I
couldn’t have cared less about it and thought that their whole rivalry was
beyond lame.
