News-Record.com

...yeah, I'm ashamed of myself for that one too.

But as many of you are no doubt aware one of my generation's defining television melodramas is being resurrected tonight at 8 p.m.

That's right - Beverly Hills, 90210. Like a bizarre zombie stripper, its been resurrected to shake its old, dead ass for a sweaty fistful of dollars. On the CW.

What we remember:

The new look:

This is the show that gave us the outrageous teenage soap opera long before teachers were bedding students on Dawson's Creek, young girls were doing Maxim photo shoots on One Tree Hill or parents were doing coke on Gossip Girl.

It was a magical show full of characters who were unlike anyone we'd actually meet in high school, played by actors who were far too old to be there anyway. They faced problems that were ripped from the headlines and pumped full of steroids until they were almost completely unrecognizable as anything relevant to the lives of its young audience -- and oh, how we loved it.

As you quiver with anticipation or revulsion for the first episode of the re-make, I bring you links to tide you over:

USA Today has an interview with Shannon Doherty, the wide-eyed teen who moved to Beverly Hills 18 years ago, stole our hearts and eventually became such an awful shrew no one wanted to work with her. She's chilled out a bit since then, apparently. Better living through chemistry.

There's also a West Beverly High yearbook to get you up to speed on all the characters and actors. So that you don't actually have to watch the show or follow the story.

The New York Times has done a giant oral history (pun not mine but probably intended) of the original show. The lede suggests that some regard Brenda losing her virginity to Dylan as a defining moment of the 1990s. Which, sadly, I cannot refute.

And if you missed the original series or just barely remember it, you can catch up with streaming episodes online at CBS' site for the old show.

As I cannot think of even one television show that has ever been successfully revamped with a new cast under the same name, I'm predicting a crash and burn. Which would, no doubt, please all of us who watched the original to no end. Both because we are bitter and heartless and because we realize the culture has moved so far beyond being scandalized by "Are they gonna do it?! Is she pregnant?! Did he drink and drive?!?" that this iteration of the show will almost certainly seem like just another in a sea of teen exploitation dramas.

What do you guys think?