Yes, Persephone, you're right: This is, essentially, a rehash of Fox's Beverly Hills, 90210, which ran from 1990-2000 and gave us the likes of Melrose Place, Shannen Doherty and sideburns. No, the original show wasn't in black-and-white: You'll learn more about those archaic times with Mr. Bilmore, in 5th period history. Beverly Hills, 90210, like this retread, was in vibrant, living color—all the better to catch the sunlight reflected off the student-owned Porsches in the West Beverly Hills High School parking lot.

The new CW show focuses on the Wilson family, who relocate from Kansas to Beverly Hills. Harry Wilson is returning to alma mater West Beverly as school principal. His children, Annie and Dixon, attend classes there. Awkward? Yes, but not any more awkward, Brandon, than if I fling your iPhone out the window. Put. It. Away!

Where was I? Oh, yes. Pop quiz time. Ready? What? You haven't watched the show? Consider yourself lucky. Besides, the answers are easy.

1. In 90210's ethos, Annie and Dixon Wilson are the obligatory good, moral kids at West Beverly—and are therefore treated by other students as exotic rarities. "You guys go to church or something?" asks one curious comrade. How does the program show us they're moral?
a. They come from Kansas.
b. They drive into town in a beat-up minivan.
c. They participate in an ancient tradition called "family night."
d. They act in an ethical manner.
Answer: a, b and c. It is definitely not d. In the premiere episode, Annie sneaks out of the house to attend a "Not-So-Sweet 16" party and flies off to San Francisco with a guy she's just met. Dixon—against his father's explicit wishes—arranges a massive, property-obliterating prank on a rival school. It involves pigs, poop and the school's cafeteria.

2. Where did the pigs in Question 1 come from?
a. A nearby farm.
b. The family minivan.
c. eBay.
d. The set of a porn film.
Answer: d. Turns out, the father of a West Beverly student is a porn director. Students walk on his set and chat with a handful of bathrobe-clad actresses before absconding with the oinkers.

3. When Annie and Dixon are punished for misbehavior in the premiere, how do they react?
a. Express regret.
b. Promise they will never, ever do anything bad again.
c. Beg and plead for their punishments to be rescinded.
d. High-five each other.
Answer: d. Dixon says that participating in the prank and then taking the blame for it was "the easiest decision I've made since I've been here."

4. Before the premiere's first commercial break, what do audiences see?
a. A bikini-clad Annie, lounging by the pool.
b. Dixon telling Annie that he remembers seeing their actress/grandmother on Showtime, in the nude. "Full frontal," he says.
c. A West Beverly student apparently receiving oral sex in the school parking lot.
d. All of the above.
Answer: d. The scene referenced in "c" brought down the wrath of the Parents Television Council, which declared that "The CW network has openly, wantonly and eagerly violated every business tenet of the broadcast industry."

5. What would be the most egregious problem in 90210, from a family-friendly standpoint?
a. Its sexuality. Most of the show revolves around sexualized relationships, and it includes scads of crude references to sexual acts and body parts—not to mention the skimpiest outfits this side of premium cable.
b. Its language. Episodes regularly contain words such as "a--", "b--ch," "h---" and "p---."
c. Its behavior. Students lie, cheat, steal, drink, use drugs, betray, connive and cyberbully. And most parents aren't that much better.
Answer: This one's a trick question. There's no one way to universally prioritize this type of content. Didn't we learn that in the first day of class?

6. Critics have blasted 90210 for:
a. Its blatant materialism.
b. Its gratuitous sexuality.
c. Its super-skinny actresses.
d. All of the above.
Answer: d.

Heather Havrilesky from Salon slammed 90210 and other CW shows for their glorification of wealth, and she even wondered whether The CW stood for "Coveting Wealth." "TV writers have abandoned the notion that heart and spirit might win out over money in the end, instead choosing to show us just how many things money can buy," she writes.

TV Guide gave 90210 a hearty thumbs down in its "Cheers & Jeers" section for its deliberately obnoxious filth: "Like teenagers desperate to shock the 'rents, it keeps talking (and sometimes acting) dirty. An implied oral-sex scene here. Gratuitous uses of the words "vagina" and "penis" there. And an a-- fixation that would make Sir Mix-a-Lot blush. It's almost like the CW was hoping 90210 would get condemned by the Parents Television Council (which it did)."

Several reviewers have pointed out just how frighteningly skinny the show's actresses are. A whopping 87 percent of online TV Guide readers said that they were too skinny (and suggested the CW "feed them now.") Entertainment Weekly fretted that the show encourages girls to consider behavior that leads to eating disorders: "Everyone says television adds five or 10 pounds," a Hollywood insider who works regularly with young starlets told Entertainment Weekly, "so if you're watching and someone looks like they haven't eaten in forever, what must they look like in person?"

Granted, 90210 takes pains to show that its worst-behaved kids are in need of some serious parental love and guidance. And, while students may mock the Wilsons' quaint "family night," most of them secretly—or not so secretly—long for such things themselves.

But can that message effectively compete with all the show's other messages? The bling? The behavior? The slim beauties and porn-set pigs?

Think about that and turn in a 500-word essay on the subject by Friday—and Brandon, you'd better not text it to me this time. I want hard copy.

Class dismissed.