Created by Darren Star, the show was originally called Class of Beverly Hills, and at one point, Star, who based the show loosely on his own high school experience in Potomac, Md., used the working title Potomac 20854 before its now-iconic title was settled on.
While Beverly Hills, 90210 would go on to become one of the most popular TV shows of the ’90s and be largely responsible for launching the teen soap genre, the Fox show was a dud when it first debuted in 1990, ranking No. 118 in the ratings (going up against NBC’s Cheers didn’t help).
But after the season one finale, featuring Brenda and Dylan’s first time, started gaining buzz, Fox smartly ordered new episodes for the summer, providing some much-needed teen angst and drama in what used to be the TV off-season.
“We filmed all of our risqué summer episodes at the beach and aired those at the time when the other shows were in reruns,” Jennie Garth told the New York Times. “So we caught a huge teen audience, kids that were home from school. And then it just went crazy.”
From there, 90210 went from low-rated guilty pleasure to cultural phenomenon and the mostly unknown stars became some of the most famous people in the world.
“In just a matter of weeks, we went from being just another generic ensemble cast of any old prime-time drama to being…superstars,” Garth wrote in her memoir. “I don’t think any of us were prepared for the stardom that was thrust upon us in this way.”