Original cast members of Beverly Hills, 90210, Jennie Garth, Tori Spelling, Jason Priestly, Ian Ziering, Gabrielle Carteris, Brian Austin Green and Shannen Doherty are returning for Fox’s reboot, BH90210. According to People, the characters will play a “heightened versions of themselves in a brand-new serialized drama – with a healthy dose of irreverence – that is inspired by their real lives and relationships.”
“It’s about the characters behind the characters,” Jennie Garth tells EW. “It’s inside the lives of people that lived in those shoes for those 10 years, and it’s about them coming back together.”
Luke Perry, who played one of the main characters, Dylan McKay, on the original series, passed away in March 2019 due to a stroke. Perry’s long-term absence was even more painful for the reunited cast.
“The timing was something that seemed horrific, but in a weird sort of universal way it was a way for us to be together during an incomprehensible, painful time and I think that that was really good for all of us,” said Garth. “He was with us every second of the time.”
Shannen Doherty’s character, Brenda Walsh, and Perry’s character, McKay, played each other’s love interest in Beverly Hills, 90210. Doherty had no intentions to return for the reboot until after Perry’s death.
“It was nothing against the show, I just didn’t want to go back there,” Doherty said. “Luke passed away and it came back around to me and I just felt like, ‘Wow, we created so much together on 90210, our characters and our relationships, that love between the two of us,’ that it felt like the right thing to do.”
Standing in the same room with all of her co-stars, except Perry, was a mixed feeling for Doherty.
“It was surreal — all of us together again and sort of realizing that you’re missing a key component. That you’re missing some heart,” she said. “Luke was all heart and all humility and beauty and grace and humor and just grounding, earthy human being. So he was missed sorely, for sure.”
Perry played Archie’s father, Fred Andrews, in The CW’s Riverdale. The season four premiere on October 9 will be a tribute to Perry and his character on the show. Doherty will be playing a pivotal role in the Luke Perry tribute episode.
“I can tell you that I read the script and I bawled my eyes out,” said Doherty. “I’m so beyond honored that they asked me to do this and Luke had been wanting me to join Riverdale for a really long time. He sort of was harassing the producers, probably to the point where they were like, ‘No. Absolutely not.’ It’s a beautiful episode that is nothing but a tribute to his character, Fred, on it and to Luke himself.”
BH90210 will also pay its respects to Perry.
“We didn’t want to do anything big that would take away from the horrible thing that happened just to do it, so we wanted to do it in a nice way,” said Spelling.
BH90210 will premiere on Wednesday, August 7 at 9 p.m. on Fox.