Now back at West Beverly and teaching drama—what else? —the new 90210's Shannen Doherty opens up to Radar about her phobias (germs, sharks, tabloid reporters), her obsessions (Manolos, Choos, Louboutins), and the secret to her success (a higher power... and it's not Aaron Spelling).

This article is from the October/November issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here

CLICK HERE for a photo tour of Brenda Walsh's all-time best tantrums.

CLICK HERE for more photos and outtakes from Radar's interview.

The CW billed its launch of the new 90210 as "the most anticipated event of the year," a boast that, given the Beijing Olympics, the presidential election, and the Cheech and Chong reunion tour, might have smacked of promotional overreach but for one salient detail: After a 14-year hiatus, Brenda was back.

For a passionate segment of the TV viewing public—not only in America but also in the 90 or so countries that aired the original series—Doherty's comeback was monumental, Callas barnstorming into La Scala for one last turn as Medea. La Divina retorna!

Premiering in October 1990, the compellingly hokey series about well-to-do if absurdly attired teens navigating a seemingly endless series of issues didn't just stabilize the young and wobbly Fox network, rescue Aaron Spelling from professional oblivion, and launch the blessed career of Sex and the City creator Darren Star. The show was also one of the first pop offerings to woo the elusive and finicky Generation X. Despite the barbs of boomer critics like the Washington Post's Tom Shales, who called it "a vacuum, a perfect void, a black hole in the already vast and empty TV schedule," at its peak Beverly Hills, 90210 pulled in more than 17 million viewers. It was one of the key cultural touchstones of the '90s, giving us the sideburn, the high-waisted jean, and, most indelibly, the impetuous, raven-haired Minnesota transplant Brenda Walsh—the pluckiest Minneapolis native to hit TV since Mary Richards.

"I've worked for 27 years, steadily, thanks to very loyal fans. What's the one way to say thank you? To play a character that you thought you'd never play again in the one show they want to see."On paper 90210 was an ensemble show; in practice, not so much. Never mind the stridently self-serious if dreamy Brandon, the button-nosed little-rich-girl-next-door Kelly, and the rehabbed rebel Dylan, with his amazing washboard Forehead of Angst. Forget spear carriers Donna, Steve, and David. And that uptight editor chick with the glasses who was, like, 46 in real life? Banish her from your mind. Brenda was the heart and soul of 90210. Brenda was the one we tuned in for, the one we couldn't quite figure out, the one who somehow always just demanded attention. Shark-jump plot machinations aside, many of the best episodes were carried along on the blustery jet stream of her moods, which tended to start out chirpy and sarcastic before building to a fit of pique and climaxing in a punishing emotional shitstorm, which then inevitably gave way at the last possible moment—and here was the key point—to warm Brenda sunshine and smiles and hugs all around. Sure, the show ran six seasons after she was packed off to study in London, but the party, for all intents and purposes, was over.

Sitting outside under an arbor of bougainvillea in a favorite restaurant, Taverna Tony, located in a upscale strip mall a few minutes from her well-appointed Malibu dream house, the actress allows that some of the characters on the original series seemed uncannily responsible and sober-minded for their age, "except for Brenda, which is why I liked her. Brenda was realistic. She was normal. Not many 16-year-olds are so morally correct, you know? She had her moments where she was a great girl, and her moments where she was a bitch and you wanted to kill her, times when she was completely peaceful and times where she would bitch-slap Dylan in the face and never talk to Kelly again. She had those extremes."

When the CW first came a-calling, Doherty was dubious. "As an actor, to go back and play a character that I had already, in my opinion, exhausted ... like, what's the challenge?" she says. In the end, she relented. For the fans. "I've worked for 27 years, steadily, thanks to very loyal fans. What's the one way to say thank you? To play a character that you thought you'd never play again in the one show they want to see."

That may smack of noblesse oblige (Eva Perón couldn't have said it better), but it's also undeniably true. Buzz about the show, which had been simmering throughout the summer due to an extraordinary promotional push by the network, boiled over with the announcement that, in addition to Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth, Doherty was coming back to school to give a master class, of sorts, in thea-teh. As if suddenly clueing in to who their real star was, the CW then rushed out a spot featuring Doherty delivering the deliciously coy come-on "Miss me?" Wild-eyed partisans of the old series were thereby mollified, declaring almost unanimously on the various fan forums and message boards that, okay, fine, they'd eagerly tune in for Shannen ... but only for Shannen.

When Spelling subsequently withdrew amid reports that she'd been offered a lower salary than her classmates ($10,000-$20,000 per episode, reported Hollywood bloodhound Nikki Finke, as opposed to the $35,000-$50,000 Doherty and Garth were getting), the chatter went into overdrive. The operatic backstage drama that plagued the original series—and arguably deepened and enhanced it—was back. Yay, intrigue!