The first season of 90210, an American television series, began on September 2, 2008. Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah are executive producers for the first season, after original producer Rob Thomas dropped out to focus on other projects. The series premiered to 4.65 million viewers, and broke records for The CW at the time, becoming their highest rated premiere in viewers and in Adults 18–49 with a 2.6 rating.^[1] On September 22, 2008, after airing just four episodes, the network gave the series a full-season order of 24 episodes.^[2]

Season one regular cast members include Rob Estes, Shenae Grimes, Tristan Wilds, Jessica Stroup, Dustin Milligan, Ryan Eggold, AnnaLynne McCord, Michael Steger, Lori Loughlin, and Jessica Walter. Along with special guests from the original series, Jennie Garth, Shannen Doherty, and Tori Spelling. In the thirteenth episode, Walter left the series and Jessica Lowndes was promoted to a series regular due to "financial reasons". The CW also hired Rebecca Sinclair to re-tool the series as head writer.^[3] She took over completely as executive producer by the end of the season, after Sachs and Judah resigned.^[4]

The season finale aired on May 19, 2009, and was seen by 2.00 million viewers.^[5] The season averaged 2.24 million viewers and a 0.9 rating in the Adults 18–49 demographic.^[6]

• ^Note 1 : Jessica Walter is credited as a series regular up until episode 13. From episode 14 onwards she is no longer credited.
• ^Note 2 : Jessica Lowndes is credited as a guest star from episodes 1 through to 13. From episode 14 onwards she is credited as a series regular.

On March 13, 2008, it was announced that The CW was developing a contemporary spin-off of Beverly Hills, 90210, which first aired on Fox from October 1990 to May 2000. The project was put on the fast track by the network, and an order of the pilot was expected by the end of the month.^[29] The Beverly Hills, 90210 creator, Darren Star, was announced not to be involved with the project, as well as producer Aaron Spelling, who died in 2006. The only surviving element from the original series was the Creative Artists Agency, the talent agency which masterminded the spin-off idea.^[30] A detailed breakdown of the pilot written by Thomas was released on March 17, containing information on the plot and characters of the series. None of the characters were related to the original series; however, the series' featured a similar premise: a family with two teenagers who recently moved from the Midwest to Beverly Hills. To reflect the situation at the Beverly Hills school, where around 40 percent of the students were from Persian descent, a student named Navid Shirazi was created.^[31] Thomas intended to introduce The Peach Pit, the diner from Beverly Hills, 90210, but noted that it would not be featured in the pilot. The writer considered giving the siblings a job at a movie theater, as he did not want them to use their parent's credit cards.^[32] On April 14, Thomas announced that he was leaving the series to focus on his two pilots for ABC. Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah were hired as the new executive producers and wrote a new version of the script in late April. Sachs said that although Thomas had a "great script", their version of the script was edgier.^[33]

On May 11, one day before The CW's upfront presentations, the network officially picked up the series for the 2008–2009 television season.^[34] The CW gave the series a full-season order after airing just four episodes.^[2] After disagreeing with the network executives over the series' storylines, Sachs and Judah resigned as writers. The CW wanted the series to have a female perspective and focus more on money and glamor; however, Judah and Sachs were more comfortable writing for men. Instead, Judah began working on postproduction, including editing and music supervision, while Sachs ran the production on set. The CW hired Rebecca Rand Sinclair to retool the series as head writer.^[3] In late February 2009, Sinclair took over as executive producer.^[4]

Filming for the series usually took place in numerous high schools in Torrance and El Segundo, although several scenes were filmed in Torrance High School because of its large auditorium.^[35]

The series debuted to 4.7 million viewers and a 2.6 Adults 18–49, winning the night in all key demos, to become The CW's highest rated premiere. It also matched the highest 18–49 numbers set by America's Next Top Model.^[1] The season averaged 2.24 million viewers and a 0.9 Adults 18–49 rating in the United States each week.^[6] The show also debuted strongly for E4 in the UK, with 468,000 viewers tuning for the pilot episode.^[46]

The first season holds a 46/100 rating on Metacritic, indicating generally mixed reviews.^[47]

In New Zealand, 90210 debuted on TV3 on October 15, 2008, at 7.30pm then on November 12, 2008, the show was shifted to Four.

The DVD release of season one was released after the season completed broadcast on television. It has been released in Regions 1, 2 and 4. As well as every episode from the season, the DVD release features bonus material such as deleted scenes, gag reels and behind-the-scenes featurettes.

90210: The First Season
Set details			Special features
24 episodes 960 minutes (Region 1); 951 minutes (Region 2); 951 minutes (Region 4) 6-disc set 2.35:1 aspect ratio Languages: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround) Subtitles: English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian and Spanish (Region 1) English, Arabic, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, English For The Hearing Impaired (Regions 2 and 4)			Audio commentaries: "A Day in the life of Ryan Eggold" "Fitting In: The Fashion of 90210" "The Music of 90210" "Codes of Conduct" "Set Tours: The Mansion, The Peach Pit, West Beverly High" "The Revival of a Classic: Making 90210"
Release dates
United States	United Kingdom	Australia
August 11, 2009	August 17, 2009	July 4, 2011