Customer Reviews

Beverly Hills, 90210 - The Fifth Season

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a fantastic season. With Brenda gone, having decided to stay in England, we meet Valerie who is a friend of the Walsh's from Buffalo and turns out to be a backstabbing and manipulative girl who is into drugs and alcohol. Kelly is with Brandon by now, Donna and David have split, Brandon becomes the new student body president of CU, Kelly is almost burned alive at a party, David dates Clare, Dylan goes to rehab, Donna dates Ray, Andrea has an affair and cheats on Jesse, Kelly makes the cover of Seventeen magazine, there is a stupid episode with Dylan going into hypnosis and finding out he was Billy McCoy in the Wild West, and Jim and Cindy put their house on the market to move to Hong Kong.
This is season 5 in a nutshell. There is so much material in between and the drama of it all is as addictive as always. I love to hate Valerie, hate seeing Donna and David apart and I cannot wait for this release. It's excellent and all fans of 90210 should be happy with this season.

For me this is one of the best seasons of the series, Brenda is gone and Valerie has replaced her, Dylan is diving seriously into addiction, Brandon and Kelly begin a relatioship that lasts several seasons to come....

Plenty of drama........

Where do I start with the bad? Setting aside the cheap and dismissive packaging for a moment, I begin with the hack-job they did on the show itself. Not only is the soundtrack COMPLETELY different (and it does suck), but any footage of Ray Pruit playing with his band has been cut out. That leaves us with about 2 rousing performances, including Ray singing, "the Worms Crawl In, the Worms Crawl Out..." to a bunch of kids at the KEG house Halloween party. Looks like David really had some pull in post production and got Ray completely taken off the PPAD roster for good. Now onto the soundtrack...you know, the music that plays in the background during the show? After watching the same episodes for years, I have come to memorize and appreciate certain scenes for their appropriately chosen musical accompaniments. Well, they're gone now. 2 notable disappointments: Episode 1: Kelly & Donna at the salon before the make up. The song should be The Pretenders, "It's Just the Night in My Veins." Now it's something else that wrong & crappy. And the other is the episode where David, Donna & Clare do the video with everyone sleeping around campus. Should be L7's "Pretend We're Dead", which actually suits the video, but no...

Why then 3 stars? Because, this is still one of the best seasons out there (second only to season 6.) The fire, the PPAD is born, Kelly joins a cult, Dylan does heroin and almost dies, then goes to Mexico and swindles his millions back from Kevin & Suzanne, in a word- Val, the "Real Life" episode, the great bear heist, and finally, the Walshes and Andrea leave (thank God!)

The bottom line? Buy at your own risk. The soul has been sucked from this show but it's still season 5 of 90210 (sort of.)

Ok, I don't want to be negative about this show...or a traitor to my generation... I love Bev Hills 90210! I was a sophmore in high school when they were, at the shows start, and we were the same age and we grew up together. I watched (and taped) every episode for the whole 10 years... but those VHS tapes wear out, so imagine my joy when the DVD set came out... or not...

As I said, I have taped every episode, and I watch it now on Soapnet... and as you know like watching your favorite movie over and over, you can "talk along with the movie"... well I am that way with this show. I now know (but didn't until after having bought the first 2 seasons) that the box says in fine print on the back of the box that "MUSIC HAS BEEN CHANGED FOR THIS HOME ENTERTAINMENT VERSION. SOME EPISODES MAY BE EDITED FROM THEIR ORIGINAL NETWORK VERSIONS.", but come on!!! I noticed a wierd edit in another season episode and a spot here and there, not to mention in season one when all the girls have a slumber party and are signing along to "Mony Mony" but now the music is different... but The Senior Prom episode was seriously butchered! There were major parts gone... not to mention Cathy Dennis sang 2 songs at the prom and they cut the whole second song out, along with shots of her and most of the actors lines that were said during that song. I am very disappointed in this. The prom episode was a great one, not to mention a pivital part of the season. Part of the greatness of 90210 was the fact that they used new, up to date music for every episode.

Come on FOX... how cheap are you? We are all paying $40 or more for a set that probably costs $5 to make... You couldn't shell out some cash to keep this amazingly cool show intact in it's original condition??? And what are you going to do in future seasons??? There were tons of episodes later on in the Peach Pit After Dark where a famous music group plays there... are those hour long episodes going to be edited down to a half hour show?

So, before you start sending me hate email, let me say this:
My review comes to this = Yes, I love the show and Yes, I have and probably will buy every season on DVD. But Yes, I am disappointed in the editing. So to all of you die hard fans like me... be aware of this before you buy and watch it, so you aren't completly disappointed like I was when I first bought and watched them. Maybe they will get this figured out and stop their "editing" or "ruining" our favorite show!!!

***Ok, if you read alot of reviews... you may recognize I wrote this above exact review above for season 3. Well, my questions were answered. I am watching season 5 now, and the group Jade made an appearance. Yes, they did show them sing one song, but they cut out all of the other spots in the show where they appeared. Not to mention that the Ray Pruet character sang on the show quite a bit, but so far thru disc 6 I have not heard one note... one episode they cut almost 5 minutes of an episode just to avoid showing him singing. This is getting ridiculous... should we be boycotting? Maybe we all should just stop buying these DVD's and watch the reruns on soapnet until they quit messing up our show and put the full versions out for all of us hard core fans! Anybody with me on this?***

This was another great season for Beverly Hills 90210. I bought it the day it was released just like I do with them all! After watching the season a couple times it seems like they cut out all the scenes with Ray (Donna's boyfriend) performing? When I watched the show back in the 90's I remember seeing him perform on the show a lot. In this season he sings one of his songs for about 10 seconds in the episode when they all go to the Rolling Stones concert. And if you pay attention you will notice in some of the episodes he is just about to go on stage and then the next scene the concert is over so you never see him performing. I love watching all of my favorite old shows from the 80's & 90's but I can't stand it when they cut stuff out. Did anyone else notice that?

I have been a huge fan of 90210 since I was 5 years old when the show first came out. I use to sneak behind my parent's backs just to watch it. I loved season 5, but like many others, was very disappointed by Ray's missing scenes and the constant music changes. I understand they do not have the rights to the music for the DVDs because the musicians were only payed for the original airing and syndication. I really wish they could work something out with the artists because this is a huge show, and hearing songs on TV really prompts users to download the songs on ITUNES.

I was also really let down that there was no special features. I think the segment, "Everything You Need to Know About 90210" is absolutely hilarious. I was so sad there was not one for season 5. Keeping my fingers crossed the rest of the seasons will at least have that one special feature!

I'm definitely looking forward to season 6, even though Luke Perry makes his exit..

Beverly Hills 90210 - The Fifth Season is probably the last great season of this '90s hit. Shannen Doherty left the show and a new character was introduced, Valerie Malone. The character of Valerie was played by Saved By the Bell's Tiffani Amber Thessian who just happened to be dating Brian Austin Green at the time. Her character is anything but a sweetheart, she's cold, aloof, and deeply troubled. There are some great gems this season, in season six through 10 the show dipped but I stayed a loyal viewer throughout. My favorite character was Kelly Taylor played by Jennie Garth, she always brought warmth and sensitivity to that role, love her! This is a near-perfect season so don't wait reserve your copy today, enjoy!

They took all of Ray Pruit's singing out of the show.Thats really stupid to do that.

Beverly Hills 90210 was the first soap drama I have ever watched on DVD. With The 5th Season released on DVD, Beverly Hills 90210 only has 5 seasons left to release on DVD. I think CBS/Paramount is doing a great job releasing the show on DVD, dispite the music changes. I hope Season 6 gets released soon, maybe for the Holidays of 2008. Please release the other half of the 10 year run, in the near future!

The season itself starts strong.Great episodes of Dylan being lost in addiction..Valerie being the sneaky conninving bitch..of course theres the always annoying Andrea..I was so glad when she left the show..The problem with this season is that it starts off strong and ends so bad..Dylan being hypnotized,Ray being an abuser,Andrea leaving..and of course the weirdest thing of all..Kelly choosing herself..I dont know if I can recomend this season too anybody looking to purchase it.I wouldnt buy it new thats for sure..look for a cheap used copy...That way if your disapointed you can tell yourself that you didnt waste a lot of money.