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BH90210 is Wes Craven's New Nightmare without the death, so why not combine them?
The new Beverly Hills 90210...reboot? update? — whatever, it exists outside of your conventional human categories — premiered last week. BH90210 follows the original 90210 cast as fictionalized versions of their present-day selves as they attempt to launch a reboot of the show. In the process, things go wackily awry.
If your version of "wackily awry" includes supernatural murder (I know mine does), you'll find this is the exact same plot as the 1994 film Wes Craven's New Nightmare.
New Nightmare was the seventh film in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and followed Wes Craven and the original film's stars Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, and John Saxon starring as themselves and suffering the wrath of a real-life Freddy Krueger while making a new Nightmare installment. Much like in BH90210, former teen star Langenkamp's purportedly real-life-but-not-really child and husband are drawn into the wacky misadventures/death and dismemberment, and both feature behind-the-scenes negotiations with actors — things everyone watching at home in the flyover states cares about! (Please show us more agents and contracts and maybe even the thrilling world of craft services, oh won't you, shows designed for my entertainment; trust me, they're fascinating.)
I mean, the first episode even features an actual new nightmare.
Throw Ian Ziering into that Krueger movie and I don't know how you expect me to tell the difference.
Look, I guess it's not exactly the same. BH90210 also features in-jokes about Tori Spelling's money troubles, Jennie Garth's divorces, and the whole cast's career struggles through the years, gently mocking themselves while also attempting to engage in their own primetime soap within a soap, or perhaps surrounding a soap? Soapception? Essentially, BH90210 has plenty of the pieces needed to tell this very specific type of tale, except one: Freddy.
Yes, that's right. My suggestion is that, like the Spice Girls foretold, 2 Become 1. They're already the same thing, so let's make them the actual same thing.
Picture it. Sicily. 1922. The Peach Pit. 2020. BH90210 returns for Season 2. Everyone is expecting more hijinks and dare I say the occasional shenanigan. No one is expecting Freddy Krueger. And that's when he shows up.
Summoned by Tiffani Thiessen, whose Valerie was a stellar addition to the original program but who is rumored to have a long-standing feud with creators and stars Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth, Freddy Krueger arrives on set of the new 90210 reboot, haunting the dreams of the cast. Brian Austin Green wakes up being smothered by his puffy jackets from his ill-fated rap career. Tori Spelling's nightmares find her dodging paper cuts while running through Candy Spelling's infamous giftwrap room. Ian Ziering dreams there was no Sharknado. *gasps, clutches chest* Wow, that one was too scary even for me.
Shannen Doherty is fine. Freddy leaves her alone. She's been through enough.
Over the season, Freddy terrorizes everyone, but then guess what? Like Kelly did for Dylan, Jennie Garth sees through his bad-boy demeanor ("bad boy" here admittedly means child murder ghost — look, we'll figure it out in the writer's room, I don't have all the answers just yet) and they develop a will-they-won't-they-will-he-sleepkill-her rapport that builds until finally — ready your tissues — she invades his dreams and they share their first kiss. It probably looks like this:
God, I love romance.
BUT JUST THEN, Ian Ziering, thinking he's rescuing Jennie Garth, unleashes a curse on Freddy, casting him out of this mortal coil! It probably looks like this!
Cue the tears, cue Sarah McLachlan's "Full of Grace," cue a million more seasons. You're welcome, everyone.
Look, it's hard to capture an audience's attention these days. We're beyond peak TV; we're stuck in a TV ball pit. Mere nostalgia isn't enough — you need to bring in the big guns. Or, rather, the big pointy knife nails. Give us the crossover we truly need. Freddy + Beverly Hills = 9021-Oh hell yes.
