US TV

In the US: Thursdays, 9/8c, The CW
In the UK: Acquired by E4
In Canada: Thursday 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT

You know, if I hadn’t just tried to watch Nashville, I would have described this as the most painful new drama on TV this season. But I have, and since Nashville was like having bleach poured into both ears while having my eyeballs scrubbed with an electric sander, I’m going to be relatively charitable to Beauty and the Beast, even though it almost certainly doesn’t deserve it.

For those with long memories like me, Beauty and the Beast isn’t just a Disney movie*. It’s also a 1980s CBS TV series starring Terminator‘s Linda Hamilton as Catherine (aka The Beauty) and Sons of Anarchy‘s Ron Perlman as Vincent (aka The Beast). Thorny gender politics to one side for a moment, what was interesting about the series was that it asked the question: can you truly love someone who’s just downright ugly? Okay, Vincent looked like a fluffy lion crossed with Jon Bon Jovi – and they’d have been better off leaving Ron Pearlman au naturel if they’d wanted to really go for the beast angle – but bestiality isn’t exactly the flavour of the day now any more than it was then:

25 years on, CBS is remaking its old show at The CW’s behest. Not such an eccentric idea – in fact, ABC was considering making a live action version of the Disney movie this year, too, but eventually decided not to.

But a quarter of a century later, ethics and aesthetics have moved on. Twilight has come and is just about to go. Manscaping has arrived, moisturiser is everywhere and any man who hasn’t had a protein shake in the last two days isn’t a real man. So the question is, can a show in which a woman falls in love with a man who isn’t hunky, smooth and glittering but because he has a nice personality, possibly get off the ground?

The CW asked the computer, the computer said ‘No’, and lo and behold, for the modern day Beauty and The Beast, we have something a bit more Twilight – a man who turns into a bit of an animal when the adrenaline flows but otherwise is king of the pretty boys beyond a bit of a scar on his cheek. 

Beast? More like an 8, maybe a 9.

Here’s a trailer:

Continue reading “Review: Beauty and the Beast 1×1 (The CW/E4)”