Battle Of The Catastrophic Campouts

Which pretext for a camping trip is less contrived?

Whereas Nick is moved to force all the girls on a camping weekend after a fellow rich businessman -- the owner of a sporting-goods company -- unknowingly shames him into noticing that Nick is an absentee father (and a pretty shitty parent in general), he has one of his every-other-episode spasms of guilt over having bitten off more than he can chew by adopting five near-adult orphans. The Bev Niners just want to go to Yosemite before their second pass through the eleventh grade.

Winner: Beverly Hills, 90210.

Which campers are surrounded by more impressive guest stars?

In terms of faces you'll recognize, Rags takes this one easily: as the episode starts, Nick's just returned from a weekend in Mexico with fellow feckless playboy Jack, who's played by Terry Kiser, the titular Bernie of Weekend At Bernie's; the sporting-goods magnate, Tom Honkerson (...I don't know), is played by John Bennett "Matthew's Father" Perry; and when Nick and the girls arrive at the national park where they intend to camp, they're greeted by a ranger played by Steven "Ted McGinley Jr." Eckholdt, killer of basically every show he was ever on except when he was Rachel's cute co-worker on Friends.

BUT. Okay, so the Bev Niners bunk in a cabin next door to newlyweds Neil and Allison. The latter is played by a Gina LaMond or Eugenia Buerklin (.....I really don't know -- Witness Relocation Program? That would explain why her credits dry up just five projects after this one). But the former, credited here as Peter Marc, is Peter Marc Jacobson, who was Fran Drescher's husband for a while, before coming out. So even if you don't remember many or any of his other acting credits, maybe you remember that.

Winner: Rags To Riches.

Which trip gets off to a less (avoidably) annoying start?

Beverly Hills, 90210 is definitely larded with high jinks: they get to their cabin in a driving rainstorm; to make room for last-second addition Dylan, Brenda has to dump out the bag that for some reason she's sharing with Brandon and leaves his hiking boots in her bedroom at home; Steve wants to try to buy beer even though he doesn't have a fake ID; Donna has to admit to the whole crew that she needs to buy [gasp] tampons. But none of that -- save, perhaps, the weather, since Steve admits that he read a forecast of rain but didn't believe it (guys, I DON'T KNOW) -- is as stupid as Nick showing up at a national park without a campsite reservation and then trying to throw his weight around with the aforementioned cute ranger. This is why most people take more than a day to plan a camping trip, you boob. Leave Steven Eckholdt out of your drama: he's going to have enough of his own when he tries to have a career.

Winner: Beverly Hills, 90210.

Which characters are actually roughing it more?

The 90210 crew is sleeping in a cabin and not a tent, but while the Foleys are tenting, they also brought their butler.

Winner: Draw.

Which trip has a less tiresome middle?

This should be a tough one to call: Rags To Riches has all this business with a bear ransacking the meal Clapper has (idiotically) laid out on the table and then abandoned to go shoot up or something, and then there's all this nonsense where Jack and the floozies show up at the nearby lodge and Nick sneaks out to meet them, only to run into the girls who've also snuck out. Also: there's Mickey, ostentatiously making a show of being the only one who's prepared to have fun, and just generally Mickeying around.

And yet, the Beverly Hills kids are forced to take a break from their own bickering when a tearful Allison comes over and asks whether she can sleep at their cabin. Even though, when Brandon and Andrea went by to mooch some of their dry firewood, Neil and Allison were all over each other -- I assume you're raising your own eyebrow here, given Peter Marc Jacobson's real-life backstory -- he just said something about not wanting to have kids and she's falling apart because, surprise, she's already pregnant! "Isn't that a conversation they should have had before they were married?" Yes, and they did -- there's a weird throwaway line about Allison having been diagnosed with an unspecified infertility -- and when Allison very maturely locks herself in the kids' bathroom to cry, they all take the opportunity to fucking lecture Neil about marriage. I gather that they, like all dumb teenagers, think they know everything, but in this case they're especially insufferable since half of them have lived through one or more of their parents' divorces, and it's exactly the sort of conversation topic that causes Kelly to make her cat butt mouth.

"Ew, worst." Well, you'd think. But then Allison and Neil reconcile, Neil saying he's pretty sure he'll come around on the idea of fatherhood, whereupon Dylan whines, "I know what it's like to grow up being constantly reminded that you are a mistake, and if you're not prepared to love that baby or give it up, you might as well have an abortion right now."

"Oh, come on, no he doesn't." OH, BUT HE DOES.

Winner: Rags To Riches.

Which show's imperiled camper is snatched from the jaws of more certain death?

In this episode, Marva is dating college boy Jeff. "Isn't the fact that a fifteen-year-old is dating a boy in college the biggest proof that Nick has checked out as a parent?" Yes, and yet, this is Jeff.

And YET, continuing this show's apparently secret mission to make sure every girl in pre-William Kennedy Smith-era America knows that even clean-cut preppie boys are sexual predators (that is, unless they're totally sexless poindexters like the one who was tutoring Rose in Chem last week), when Marva sneaks away from the tent to meet up with Jeff for his sophisticated college party...Jeff turns out to be a sexual predator! And Marva runs away from him, slides down a hill, and ends up face to face with a literal snake, in a writing decision that will delight fans of metaphor.

Nick & Co. are right there, though, and get Marva away from the snake -- I mean, even further away from the snake; it's really not clear how close she is.

On Beverly Hills, 90210, Dylan and Brandon go out for a hike -- really way further into these woods than they should given that Brandon, as you'll recall, doesn't have his hiking boots and is just wandering around in Nikes, and that they don't tell anyone else where or even that they're going -- and when they get to the top of a cliff, duh, he slips and falls. Now, if you're looking at him from Dylan's perspective, the situation looks bad.

(But no matter how bad the situation looks, you'll note that Brandon's hair is perfect. Maybe Brenda would have had room in their bag for his boots if she'd taken out the bucket of Dippity-Do he packed.) But when we cut to Jason Priestley's stunt double in the long shot, it kind of looks like if he'd just flailing around, his feet could get purchase on the ledge and Dylan could go get help?

But assuming that Brandon can't keep his shit together -- a safe assumption under most circumstances -- then if he were to fall, he would almost certainly die. That snake would have to notice Marva for her to be in any real danger.

Winner: Beverly Hills, 90210.

Verdict

Look, Steve could have set an entire forest of old-growth Redwoods on fire in this episode, only for Jim Walsh to appear and put it out by smothering it with a blanket made of his back hair. It still wouldn't -- and couldn't -- get outflanked by anything involving Mickey.

Winner: Beverly Hills, 90210.