Beauty & the Beast, the TV series

[urnofosiris]

Well this has been off the air for quite a while, but I know there are some B&tB fans out there. This was the first show I ever totally got hooked on and Catherine and Vincent were my very first ship. *sniff*

I am like the kiss of death to any on screen relationship I become a fan of. My apologies for that. Anyway, I will post more later, I just want to get this thread out there for now.

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She's so anally retentive she wouldn't sit down for fear of sucking up the furniture.

--Patsy Stone

[WebWarlock]

Funny.



I never watched this show. But during the Trevor auction some B&B items came my way and I was surprised at the level of activity this show still produces. It's "Star Trek" level really.



There are a few good lessons learned from this show.

- If you write intelligent Sci-Fi/Fantasy they will watch. If you write intelligent Sci-Fi/Fantasy with a strong romantic involvement they will still be watching those same episodes more than a decade later.

- Never, ever underestimate the female TV viewing demographic.

- Killing off a main character is not just a bad idea, your once insanely popular show will be dead in one year.



Warlock

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Web Warlock

The Other Side,
home of Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks: Available October 31st, 2003!

“Well-behaved women rarely make history.” - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich,
Professor Harvard University.

[YMKA]

ooo....it's the one with Linda Hamilton!

I saw only one episode...don't remember it much, cuz at that time I just moved to another country...didn't know language, plus I was probably either 11 or 12

The only thing that I do remember is that I really wanted to see more episodes..... Do they have it on DVD , need to research



M.

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"..I feel you, I taste you, I cannot forget, everytime it rains I get wet..." (c) Ace of Base

[urnofosiris]

I don't know if they have it on DVD. I know there are videos that can be ordered online. Linda Hamilton is quite yummie in it, despite her horrible stuffy proper boring wardrobe, but well, like Amber and Aly, she looks good in anything. I had a bit of a crush on Vincent as well, it was the deep voice and pretty blue eyes that did it. Hum. Anyway, the fact that I got hooked on this show was -this may sound cheesy but so what- the true love story that was it's center, the soulmate type of love that survived even crappy writing and terrible way in which they ended it, which like WebWarlock pointed out killed the show, but not Vincent and Catherine, not for me. Stories like that will always appeal to me, unconventional relationships in which real love beats the odds. Though it goes without saying that nothing I ever saw matches WT and nothing ever will, but I do hold fond memories at my first real ship and some bitter ones about the way it ended.

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She's so anally retentive she wouldn't sit down for fear of sucking up the furniture.

--Patsy Stone

[Rocci911]

It's unfortunate that B&B ended so badly ... someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Linda wanted off the show because she was pregnant and wanted to spent time with the baby on a full-time basis and not just in-between takes on the set.



That being said, I don't think they needed to kill her character off! It eliminated any hope of a happy ending ... I'm still bitter after all these years ... so much so that I can't even watch anything "the replacemnt" has done.



I don't know if it's out on DVD, but I do have some of the videos ... and luckily for Canadians, it's re-run on Showcase Diva!



cheers

rocci

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She has the best nipples in town and she knows it. She has nipple confidence.

L-Word

[urnofosiris]

Yeah she wanted out to take time for her family. Apparently the writers were so pissed at her they decided to kill her off in a horrible way, thereby killing the show as well. They should have just ended the show when Linda decided to leave, or recruited her twin, whatever, anything other than what they did. I never saw season 3 and I don't want to. After all this time it would not upset me, but there is no point to it. They killed the heart of the show, nothing left to watch.

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She's so anally retentive she wouldn't sit down for fear of sucking up the furniture.

--Patsy Stone

[Boudecia Jones]

I don`t think I watched much of season three after Catherine was killed off either, I kinda lost interest after that. It was quite some years ago now wasn`t it, I remember just being enchanted by it. I thought it was a great setting, NY is my favourite city, and I loved the concept of this whole other subterranean world underneath the city. Being an old romantic, I found Vincent and Catherine`s relationship quite touching plus Linda Hamilton certainly has her charms! Is it just me, or does anyone else think she has a kinda Amberish quality to her, around the mouth maybe? Whatever happened to the chap who played Vincent?

[urnofosiris]

Oh yes, the lips, I do see a definite resemblance between Amber and Linda, both certainly are very attractive women. Ron Perlman has been fairly busy after the ending of the show, no big starring roles, he does not have the smooth slick hollywood pretty boy face after all, but he did act in some reasonably well known movies. Last year he played a part in Blade II and Star Trek Nemesis. I recently bought ST Nemesis, and I recognized him despite the fact the he once again had his entire face covered by an alien mask. It's the voice and the way he carries himself that gives him away. He's an impressive dude.

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She's so anally retentive she wouldn't sit down for fear of sucking up the furniture.

--Patsy Stone

Edited by: DrG at: 9/24/03 8:04 am

[WebWarlock]

Ron Perlman has rarely been out of work. B&B might have been his big thing, butlike Garfield said, he shows up and you can recognize him. He was in "Aliens 4" (a complete waste of screen time on all levels) and he has been doing a lot of voice work for animated shows as well.



Warlock

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Web Warlock

The Other Side,
home of Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks: Available October 31st, 2003!

“Well-behaved women rarely make history.” - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich,
Professor Harvard University.

[Boudecia Jones]

Thanks so much for your response to my question

[DaddyCatALSO]

Actually the reviewers and critics said, when word of how Catherine was going to die got out, that that would kill the show. But they went ahead with it....



Can't go along with it as a fanatsy show per se; really it was about the tunnel-dweller community (which exists in NYC, admittedly not an accurate portrayal) one of whom happened to be extremely facially deformed and ahd enormous strength. It remianed a great show but the content never totally meshed with the atmosphere. And the guest stars were killed off more than was necessary for story logic.

[Scout]

Yeah, the show wasn't the same after Catherine died. Her death was a mean way to treat her fans - very Joss-like. But I will say that the characters' final dialogue...



Catherine: "Though lovers be lost...

Vincent: "Love shall not...

Vincent:"...And death shall have no dominion."



...was one of the most touching endings I've seen. Still hurts to think about it.

[WebWarlock]

Scout,



Yeah I never watched the show then and I even remember that.



Wasted potential. Sound familiar?



Warlock

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Web Warlock

The Other Side,
home of Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks: Available October 31st, 2003!

“Well-behaved women rarely make history.” - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich,
Professor Harvard University.

[SySnootles]

Well, those final lines are from Dylan Thomas' poem, "And Death Shall Have No Dominion", a personal fave of mine. A beautiful sentiment for a sucky purpose.



I was hooked on that show from the beginning. I watched the entire run, although I can't remember a single thing from the final season. One of the coolest things for me was that my proper name is Cathrine, and hearing Vincent say it as he did, well, it was really really cool for a nerdy adolecent to hear it that way. Gave me some hope, which I'm still hanging on to.

Catie



"The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make a difference that you lived at all." -- Leo Roston

[urnofosiris]

That show actually got me interested in classical music and poetry, heh, I had been never really been interested in that before. Schubert's Unfinished Symphony remains one of my favourite classical pieces to this day. I loved that part of the show and the life in the tunnels. Somehow it all seemed really believable, even Vincent himself, but I sometimes raised an eyebrow in disbelief at just how many people Vincent had to kill to save Catherine. I don't even want to guess at the average body count per episode. How realistic was that? How many assistant DA's in NY are almost getting killed on a weekly basis? If not for Vincent she would have been dead a hundred times. Anyway, I loved the show, but because I loved the idea of this unusual relationship and the soulmate love story. It was the first time I had seen and believed in that.

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She's so anally retentive she wouldn't sit down for fear of sucking up the furniture.

--Patsy Stone

Edited by: DrG at: 10/4/03 12:40 pm

[Willowlicious]

Ahh, Garfield, you truly are a man after my own heart. I loved Beauty and the Beast. I watched the first two seasons one summer when it first entered syndication in the early 90's and got swept away. Yes, the above ground plots were extremely lame, but Vincent and Catherine's lush, hopelessly romantic (and painful) relationship was truly something different. I was just in the process of coming out to myself when I watched it, and was in a prolonged painful relationship with my first girlfriend, so maybe the "love denied" aspect of it resonated with me more.



I didn't watch the third season, because the show lost its point without Catherine. I saw the episode that she died and that was it for me. And, yes, it's true that the writers got so mad at Linda Hamilton for leaving the show that they admitted they went out of their way to be mean to Catherine. I read this in an interview with one of the writers a couple of years ago, I can't remember who it was. He said that he was sorry they had done that now because they had hurt the fans and the character more than necessary out of anger at Linda and it hadn't served the story. So, yes, writers can and DO write stories just to get back at people. But we already knew that.



Amy

[urnofosiris]

Quote:

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I was just in the process of coming out to myself when I watched it

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Oooh me too! I guess I sort of identified with Vincent's situation. If it could have been possible in some alternate universe kind of way I would have traded places with him in a cold second. The world he was living seemed so ideal (this was before I had a computer and there was no such thing as the internet at the time, I would not trade places now ) and he had this beautiful woman that loved him unconditionally. I was going through all those literally hopeless teenage crushes and in lovenesses, I would have signed on in a heartbeat to have what he had. In a way this show gave me hope. It was unique television, and well, then they pissed it away out of pathetic spite. I think I am going to google and see what happened to those writers.



Edited to add today the 6th of february 2004:



I came across something that might interest Beauty and the Beast fans here: www.theperlmanpages.i12.c...cutter.htm



Looks like Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton are teaming up again. That will be a first since she left the show. I have no idea whether this will make it to the cinema or whether it will just be one of those straight to video or DVD movies that they both seem to be attracted to (for the most part, they obviously do have some big cinema hits to their name). Anyway, I´ll definitely try and watch this movie when it comes out.

Edited by: DrG at: 2/6/04 3:34 pm

[WillowPowered]

Oh I remember this show. MMMMMMM Linda Hamilton yummy. In her curvy stage too



Jill

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Willow - Say, you all didn't happen to do a bunch of drugs did ya?



My Home Page | Amber Powered



“Bite me” - the general, all-purpose response suitable for all occasions.

[ivygort]

I really wished more the Fans had given Diana a chance. She was an incredible character in my opinion.



I doubt the writers would have let the cycle of Vincent needing to kill for her repeat itself. Cathy's inability to stay out danger and Vincent being called to her, to kill for her, and the sexual release that it symbolized--wasn't appealing to me. The same old formula over and over again took away my enjoyment of the entire show ... I loved the Tunnels and watching the reruns on the Hallmark Channel I really came to love the tunnel episodes the most.



The last 12(?) episodes with Diana peeling back the layers to Vincent and Tunnels ... when she spoke about trying to imagine them ... it was one of the greatest TV moments I have ever seen.



Paraphrase here:



Diana: I try to get my mind around it. I try to imagine it....

Vincent: But there was no imagining me?

Diana: No



Or how Diana completely trusted Vincent from the beginning. She accepted him.



When she was hunting the Serial killer and she knew that Father was dead. That the killer wouldn't have stopped until his mission was completed. But then:



Vincent: Father is not dead. I would have felt it.

Diana: Then what? Gregory wouldn't leave it. Wouldn't stop...He couldn't .... Where did the cavein happen? Exactly where did it happen!

Vincent: (Tells her I've forgotten the location) Why?

Diana: Because he buried him....



Diana was an interesting and complex character that I really enjoyed.



Gabriel: You can stop me! I own nations, Diana. The child will be mine, in the end, the child will be mine.

Diana: This is Catherine Chandler's gun.



Greg: I heard she shot him ....

Joe: Straight through the heart....



Fine writing and really wonderful acting.

Edited by: ivygort at: 2/12/04 9:17 pm

[urnofosiris]

I did not care much either for Vincent killing people just about every episode. Catherine was like a homing beacon for bad guys. It was a wee bit over the top and a tad repetitive to say the least. I preferred the tunnel episodes as well. There was something so compelling and fascinating about that world that it made me wish it was real. One of my favorite episodes (not really a tunnel one) was "when the blue bird sings". I´d have to re watch it but I don´t think anyone was killed in that episode, except for that painter guy already being dead.



Edited because of inconsistent sentiments about whether or not I would ever watch season 3.

Edited by: DrG at: 2/13/04 3:25 pm

[Urn of Osiris]

This had to be one of the favorite series of my youth, right after Charlie's Angels. I loved everything about this series. The secret world, the secret love but mostly the connection between the two characters. I remember watching and holding my breath when Vincent could feel that Catherine was in danger. The episode when her father dies, Orphans, I cried through the entire thing. The Velveteen Rabbit is my all time favorite book and she quoted that story and I've never been able to read it without crying since. I wanted to be loved that way. Who wouldn't? I totally overlooked the cheesy parts. I loved the balcony scenes and their race to the tunnel edge. I knew that in those moments my heart would be alive with such joy.



What a geek.



But looking at it now I can see how well written the two characters were. I can also see how it taught to see beyond outward to get to the heart of love. There are very few shows that make you feel good about love.

Urn of Osiris

Mary Magdalene was a whore and Jesus dug her because she taught him the most sacred thing a man could ever learn in his lifetime: how to fuck. Stud that he was, Jesus knew to humble himself to this woman." Inga Muscio Cunt

[urnofosiris]

Oh yes! Orphans was a great episode. It was very moving, but I must confess that at the time I was more focused on the fact that Catherine was finally sharing Vincent´s bed, of course he was the perfect gentleman so nothing happened. Dammit.

I remember thinking back on that episode when I lost my own father a few years later. I wished so much that I could have said goodbye and seen him one more time and have the same kind of closure, obviously some things only happen on TV, but fortunately that does not include true love, or so I believe.