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On October 4th of 1990 I was only 13 years old when something unexpected and life changing happened to me; I watched the premier of a new show called Beverly Hills 90210, and it changed who I was then, who I would be for the next ten years during the show's initial run, and who I am today. The impact and influence that 90210 has had on my life is probably greater than that of any other single media production, in the past, or in the future. The show, while important to me on a personal level, is not that single-faceted. Aaron Spelling himself wrote in his autobiography that, "Of all the shows I've done, the one I'm proudest of is Beverly Hills 90210, because it was like a new beginning for me" (Spelling, Graham 172). Not only did the show reinvigorate the career of the greatest mind in television history, it also helped to solidify the Fox Network as a viable competitor to the existing "big three", ABC, NBC, and CBS, it set trends in fashion, music, and ideas, and changed the way a generation grew up. The morals and ideologies expressed through the characters on 90210 shaped the face of a generation, and helped youth-culture to have a voice that could be heard.

To understand how important Beverly Hills 90210 was, it is easiest to first explain what it did for the network that carried it. In 1990 when the show premiered on the Fox Network, the network was still not considered one of the main networks, nor did it have a full lineup of programming seven days a week. With this being the case, Fox made a bold and abstract move; they decided to run new episodes of their quickly rising star 90210 during the summer. Fox's target audience, teens and early twenty-somethings, adapted well to this change in programming, and quickly 90210 became one of the Fox Network's hottest properties. Through 90210 Fox became a more viable network, both economically and in the eyes of youthful television audiences. Merchandising of the show, along with other properties such as The Simpsons, helped Fox to battle the "big three" networks, and eventually to raise enough money to sign a contract with Major League Baseball in 1995 for broadcasting rights to their games. Through creative marketing and dynamic scheduling of their number one property, Fox was able to scratch and claw its way toward the top of the television mountain, and as a young teenager myself, I followed every step of the way, largely in part due to 90210.

When 90210 first hit the airwaves I was 13 years old, only two

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