As a loyal Beverly Hills 90210 fan, I’ll give anything a try that has any of the alums from this show. So, when I saw that ABCFamily had written a show with both Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling, I knew I had to watch it; until I watched it.

 

Spelling and Garth play Holly Hamilton and Charlie Contour (respectively), two aging actresses that once starred in a hit televisions show, Mystery Girls, but now run a private detective agency of the same name. Yes, it is exactly as silly as it sounds.

 

Spelling overacts in her role as Holly, the vapid, fame-obsessed ditz, who is desperately trying to hold on to her prior success at all costs. While I don’t like to speak meanly about anybody who played such a role in my teenage years, Spelling is not at her finest. Pulled tight and dressed like a neon bar sign, she grates in every scene she’s in, and dials the histrionics up to code red. Its hard to watch.

 

Garth, playing Charlie, the level-headed, married, business minded partner, is less distressing, yet far from doing her best work. She plays the straight-man to Spelling’s cooky antics and sometimes it looks like she is just above it all. Which she is, in my opinion.

 

The volume is turned up way too much for me for this show, and even though I wanted to like it, I just can’t. ABCFamily has delivered some really great programming this year, but I am afraid they missed the boat on this one. It is my one, great TV-wish, that the stars of the greatest show on Earth (90210) will all find vehicles worth of their potential.

 

Alas, Mystery Girls, is no such vehicle, and if you can make through the first episode, good for you. Otherwise, you will probably wind up turning it off because you feel angry at the world that such a thing exists.

 

For more of my thoughts and opinions about the shows I watch, visit my blog at Entertainment Weekly’s The Community