Why ‘BH90210’ Isn’t Returning for Another Season at Fox

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Shane Harvey/FOX

Months after the meta-revival series BH90210 was canceled at Fox, Chief of Entertainment Michael Thorn is speaking out about why the highly-praised show won’t return.

The series, which debuted towards the end of the summer in 2019, included six episodes featuring most of the original main cast of Beverly Hills, 90210. According to the Fox boss, who spoke to Deadline, a decision was made to “let it be,” but he calls the series “ballsy.”

The premise of the series involved the stars of 90210 getting together to plan a revival for their show, essentially allowing the actors to play heightened versions of themselves in real life. “I thought it was really brave for the actors,” Thorn said. “It was really ballsy.”

“To pull something off like that is such a high degree of difficulty and I think they did a terrific job but even six [episodes] was really challenging,” Thorn offered.

(Credit: Shane Harvey/FOX)

Ultimately, it became too big of a concept to carry through multiple seasons. “The idea was to do it as a big event and it did really well for us, it did well in the ratings and was very satisfying for fans and then let it be what it was, not turning it into something it wasn’t intended to be, which is a long running concept that was not sustainable,” Thorn explained.

While fans may never know the fate of the heightened version of the BH90210 cast — their efforts to revive the show were greenlit by Fox in the finale with some tweaks — they’ll still always have the fun, season-long event to look back on. Thorn credits Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth for the show’s success, as it was their initial idea that spurred the series.

“Tori and Jenny put this idea together and they were obviously great in front of the camera but I was impressed with what they did. To pull that kind of an idea is hard,” he said.

The actresses were joined by fellow stars Jason Priestley, Shannen Doherty, Ian Ziering, Gabrielle Carteris and Brian Austin Green. Original series star Luke Perry was not part of the event even before his sudden death.