TVSquad

It's tough being Tori Spelling. She's spent better than a decade living under the spotlight and having every mistake magnified. Granted, she brought a lot of it on herself, but I think she has probably taken more than her fair share. It's just so easy. But given all that, I think she gains a lot of points for being able to make fun of herself, because when you get right down to it, that's what so noTORIous is all about. Laughing at the absurdity that is her life.

I think that those years of bad press and bad jokes may have been the biggest problem that this show had. One that it faced before they ever shot a scene, and one that they were never really able to overcome. A lot of people simply dismissed the show for no other reason than it was starring Tori Spelling as herself. And that's too bad, because I'm here to tell you that they made a pretty funny sit-com.

Maybe no one realized this yet. Or, maybe no one really cared. During the 2005-06 television season, seven alumni of FOX's Beverly Hills, 90210 have appeared or will appear in a regular series.

Do you doubt me? Do you think it isn't true? Do you think I have way too much time on my hands? Well, the last may be true, but that's not the point.

Click on, dear reader, for the proof that you seek.

Some people love it, some people loathe it, but VH1's block of CelebReality shows must be doing pretty good ratings-wise for the channel, because they are constantly adding new programs to the lineup. While I do enjoy Best Week Ever and the occasional episodes of Hogan Knows Best and Surreal Life, I can't say that I'm really hooked on any of the shows, Lord help me, until now.

The newest addition to the VH1 family, So NoTORIous, stars Tori Spelling as Tori Spelling and is an odd little blending of sitcom and reality. She pokes fun of herself, her life, her insanely powerful father and eccentric mother non-stop, and I loved every second of it. I have a soft spot in my heart for celebrities that don't take themselves seriously and have no problems with making fun of themselves (David Hasselhoff, William Shatner, Pamela Anderson, etc).

There was news recently that Tori's parents are considering suing her in real life because of her jabs at her mother's eBay addiction on the show, so one could probably assume that this is probably hitting a "little too close to home." It's been a while since I've kicked back with Aaron Spelling, so I'm not sure if he's still that way, but I'd venture to say yes. I do know that I'll be tuning in every week to see how the former Beverly Hills princess fairs out in the real world.

I'll admit it: I've never taken Tori Spelling seriously. She just seemed like that girl who was the daughter of Aaron Spelling, on a TV show (Beverly Hills, 90210) that lasted way too long, and star of many lame TV movies, including one with the great title of Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? But now she's back with a new show, So Notorious, on VH-1, and it looks like she's poking fun at herself non-stop.

True, it might be one of those situations where, at this point in her career, the only thing she can do is do a show where she mocks herself. But still, I'm going to check it out (it premieres this Sunday at 10). Are you going to watch?

VH1 picked up a comedy series starring Tori Spelling as a fictionalized version of herself. Previously, NBC passed on the show. It's the most expensive project VH1 has taken on but network execs say "it was a risk we were happy to take." Tori created the show because she got tired of going on auditions for parts that were all very similar to her character, Donna, on 90210, or similar to her real-life story of riches. So, she decided to embrace her real life and even poke fun at it a little. In the pilot of her new show, called So NoTORIous, Spelling moves out of her family mansion and into a condo, which happens to be next door to Farrah Fawcett. Yes, the real Farrah appears in the pilot. And so does Loni Anderson, who plays her mother. So NoTORIous premieres on VH1 on April 2.