As we near the premier of 90210, websites all over the internet are still coming up with last minute speculations. While many of us are aware that this new show is actually a spin-off of the late great teen drama series, Beverly Hills 90210, it pretty much stops there. CW (the network that will be airing 90210) has barred critics from an early preview of its pilot episode. Why you may ask? Well, that’s a good question.

A recent article from the Washington Post suggests that maybe CW doesn’t want to risk a repeat of the former shows “underwhelming” success from its 90-minute pilot episode back 1990. Critics had a shot at it before the general public did, and from what I heard (I was too young to remember) it received a bashing. It took the former show’s producer Aaron Spelling a few tries to get the show on track, and with a little bit of luck and “slumber party rape revelations, lesbian stalker episodes,” viewers ate it up– ten seasons of it to be exact. But the article also mentions something about the pressure of living up to the old. After all, bad as it was, the original is still considered as “legendary.” Maybe CW wants to avoid any press which compares this new one from the old. Not that it will help. The way I see it is that, for the first few episodes, the show’s main audience will be the older generation who are a bit sentimental about the famous zipcode. So of course they’re going to make comparisons no matter what. The show will only catch its targeted “younger” audience when and if the show takes off much later, which is clearly out of the hands of critics by then.

Another speculation is that the show is really, absolutely, indefatigably terrible, so the network decided to throw a Hail Mary, hoping that viewers won’t know the difference between smut and quality without a critic telling them what to think.

Lastly, the article also mentions that CW spammed emails to critics saying that they “made the strategic marketing decision not to screen ‘90210′ for any media in advance of its premiere.” But as speculations go, it won’t stop until every possible worm hole is filled. Lisa de Moraes of the Washington Post thinks that this may be a “strategic move” in itself. She claims that it is a well constructed ploy by CW, seeing that critics won’t take the denial too well and so would write all this stuff about it (it’s called publicity). If someone wants my two cents about all of this, I would have to ask, what the hell is Moraes smoking? If anyone knows, please, let me have some too.

For those of you who want to learn more about the new cast, here’s a video:

Click here to see casting calls for “90210.”

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