'90210' Oral Sex Episode: The 'Sarah Palin of TV Shows'?

How low will journalists go to mock Gov. Sarah Palin? TV critic Ken Tucker compared her to the updated new version of 90210 -- a series that debuted with an oral-sex scene. In his new culture column, Brent Bozell explored how the flailing, failing folks at the CW will go anywhere to sell sex:

For months, the CW network has been pushing its reworking of the old teen soap "Beverly Hills 90210." When it finally debuted, Entertainment Weekly magazine joked: "‘90210' is the Sarah Palin of TV shows – it's new, it's pretty, few people have seen it in advance...and its main purpose is to remind you of a trusty old product while adding some new vigor and soap opera to the cultural discourse."

Put aside that nasty insult aimed at the new star on the political scene. It’s the "new vigor" phrase that’s salient. The lame, recycled "90210" opened with – an oral sex scene.

Mark your clocks: that’s five minutes into the family hour, at 8:05 pm Eastern time. That’s 7:05 pm Central, when teens have just finished supper. The strategy to lure teens with adult sexual matter continues. Those teens – it is a show for teens – were introduced to the refurbished show’s brand-new teenager characters by having a girl walk up to a car in the school parking lot on the first day of school, and find her love interest in his car with a sort of panicked, yet winded reaction. Then up came another girl’s head from his lap.

Obviously, this show is high on over-the-top shock and low on authenticity if it thinks that in broad daylight, at school bus-unloading time, teenage boys are having sex in the driver’s seat of their cars. But all that matters is the shock.

Entertainment journalists suspected CW execs dropped the sex plot in at the last moment. Even worse, CW is promoting this smutty show...on school buses!

Kristin Dos Santos of E! Online was astounded at the sex plot, and confirmed the suspicion that top brass pressed to add smut. She told CNN Headline News, "I was shocked when I saw that because I had read the entire script and that was not in the original script." She said CW hadn’t finished filming yet. "So clearly, someone, a higher up at the CW, whoever it may have been, decided at the last minute that they needed to inject some sex into the show to make it more like ‘Gossip Girl,’ to create a bigger buzz."

CW knows no bounds in creating "bigger buzz," and will stop at nothing to get children to watch its smut. They marketed this ‘90210' debut with the shocking sex plot by using BusRadio – a service that broadcasts audio exclusively into school buses populated with children as young as six. The BusRadio website aggressively boosted the debut, complete with video clips touting the show: "Get ready for the two-hour event everyone will be talking about."

One critic of the relatively new bus service struck the obvious note: "BusRadio sells itself to school districts as an age-appropriate alternative to FM radio, but once again they’ve demonstrated that they don’t know or don’t care what age-appropriate means."

The show is also being promoted on such child-centric merchandise as backpacks, school supplies, cosmetics, T-shirts and sweatshirts. The CW network continues to enjoy marketing sexualized programming to children. It’s surprising there’s no word yet on whether CW will introduce its own line of promotional condoms or other sexual products.