Previewing The 90's: The Last Great Decade?

After the success of The 80’s: The Decade that Made Us, the question was not if there will be a sequel, but what would be the subtitle. The National Geographic Channel decided on The 90’s: The Last Great Decade? and after watching last month’s VH1 special I Love the 00’s it is clear they could dump the question mark at least for now.

The mini-series follows the same macro take on the decade as the 80’s sometime time take ten to fifteen minutes on a segment tying in multiple decade touch points together (Roseanne Barr manages to take credit for the Clinton presidency) and show how those major milestones still effect us today. Many people may not have known Osama bin Laden’s name in the 90’s, but he is brought up multiple times during the miniseries as he spent most of the decade building up his terrorist network with smaller attacks.

Much like the 80’s, the 90’s is again narrated by Rob Lowe. He is still a solid narrator but it gets a little weird when he starts narrating himself as a talking head during The West Wing segment. Lowe is not the only one that gives new commentary, joining him are entertainers like Matthew Perry, Ice Cube, and Neve Campbell, politicians Newt Gingrich, Tony Blair, and Colin Powell (who explains his Macarena dance), the only in the 90’s celebrities Vanilla Ice, Jerry Springer, and two original cast mates of The Real World, the infamous Monica Lewinski, Christopher Darden, and Tonya Harding. They even get interviews from names you may not recognize but were at the middle of some of the biggest events of the decade like the man who helped Reginald Denny to safety during the L.A. riot, someone who worked at the federal building that was bombed in Oklahoma City, and the principal at Columbine High School.

Looking at those last two sets of interviewees does make you question if The Last Great Decade really that great at all especially when the miniseries spend a lot of time also talking about the first Gulf War, Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, Lorena Bobbitt, Jeffry Dahmer, and Kurt Cobain’s suicide. And those are just from the first episode, there are still four more hours left to talk about Waco, Black Hawk Down, the untimely deaths of 2Pac and Princess Diana, the rise of prescription drugs, the World Trade Organization riots, and Y2K.

With all the darker sides of the decade it is hard not to get behind a retrospective that starts off with the sounds of Unbelievable. If you enjoyed The Decade That Made Us, you will definitely want to carve time out in you television watching schedule for The Last Great Decade? And that is even considering that the best part of the 90’s, Beavis and Butt-head only get one full second of screen time.

The 90’s: The Last Great Decade? premieres Sunday at 9:00 and continues Monday and Tuesday.