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The frantic phone call from my friend Kim went like this: "Turn on Fox. You will die." It was 1990. I was 17. And the Beverly Hills, 90210 pilot episode was on.

Sprawled across my parents' king-size Serta, I watched as a pasty Minnesota family, the Walshes, left the Midwest and moved to the sun-kissed Babylon of Southern California. The show was a fantasy world of beach parties, sideburns, and little black dresses, and I, for two blessed hours, got to forget about being a gay teenager.

Though critics lambasted the show, my classmates mid I kept tuning in, thrilled that 90210 treated us like the worldly beings we knew ourselves to be. Granted, the Hillsters drove convertible BMWs, but at heart our problems were the same. Brand, in busted Steve for using steroids. Dylan dealt with inattentive parents. Donna bombed the SAT.

I graduated. So did the Walshes. I went to college and cane out. They followed--well, sort of. And then, like high school friends who vow to keep in touch, we went our separate ways.

Years later the frantic phone call from my agent went like this: "Aaron Spelling signed off. You start on Thursday." I was 25. Beverly Hills, 90210 needed new writers. My writing partner and I had the job. We stayed for two years.

Some say that 90210, which celebrated its final episode on May 17, has had a profound effect on gay culture and vice versa. Jason Priestley and Luke Perry exploded as the heartthrob pinup boys of the early '90s. And perhaps you could say that Donna and Kelly were the stuff of drag queens' dreams. I'd like to think, however, that the stories we told had the most impact.

Before Friends and Frasier, before gay and lesbian characters were simply plot-point twists or quirky best friends, 90210 tackled many topics important to gay people. We did coming out in high school, gay adoption, and gay bashing. In the past two seasons Steve's mother declared herself a lesbian and Kelly quit a job over the issue of gay student clubs.

Did we ever flex our high-camp muscles? Sure. My writing partner and I helped create Gina, Donna's spiteful, figure-skating cousin. We also had the pleasure of scripting a seminal fashion-show episode. The problem with camp, though, is its ultimate soullessness, and our show was anything but soulless.

90210 was about friends--friends that millions of viewers brought into their living rooms on a weekly basis. Soon those friends will be gone, left to reruns and weekend marathons. Soon I'll forget the flint time I saw Tori Spelling, racing around the set with a bag of Cornnuts. And Jennie Garth, getting her makeup done in her pink-and-white bathrobe. And Ian Ziering and Luke Perry, laughing at a read-through when they liked a script.

In television job security is a foreign concept. Shows die after one episode. Writers come and go. It's the reason my mother still wants me to become a doctor. And though I often think about my career ending with a failed pilot or a Barbara Eden movie-of-the-week (Barbara, I'd work with you anytime), I always try to focus on the perks--like being an extra in our two-hour finale.

If you tuned in on May 17, you may have spotted me and my writing partner dancing behind Tori in a party scene. We were the ones who looked terrified and a little too shiny in the T-zone, but I didn't mind. I was still sprawled out on my own king-size Serta as fans across the country shared in one last moment of Wednesday-night bliss. Ten years. Not a bad run, as far as I'm concerned. Not a bad run at all.

Harberts is a television and feature film writer who resides in Los Angeles.