These are difficult times for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in the world Above.
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| Title: | These are difficult times for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in the world Above. |
| Creator: | Barbara L.B. Storey |
| Date(s): | February 1990 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Beauty and the Beast (TV) |
| Topic: | |
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These are difficult times for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in the world Above. is a March 1990 essay by Barbara L.B. Storey.
It was printed in Once Upon a Time...Is Now #19 in the midst of fannish turmoil regarding the direction and future of the show Beauty and the Beast (TV).
Some Topics Discussed
- fan power, or lack thereof
- the reminder that the show is business first, and appeal to profits, the power of syndication
- letter campaigns
- are strong fan opinions wrong and/or dangerous
- fan entitlement
- MUCH reported "insider" information from Jay Avocone
- detailed opinion about Storey's unhappiness with how TPTB treated Catherine Chandler's death and Vincent Wells' characterization
- being disappointed with Catherine's death, but also what Storey felt to be increasingly bad writing
From the Essay
These are difficult times for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in the world Above, what with cancellation by CBS (who never really appreciated the show, in my opinion), and the disturbing thought that Vincent and Catherine's fate has been and continues to be in the hands of a bunch of "suits" who don't seem to have a romantic or idealistic bone in their bodies. But... over and over again, I see in the pages of OUT...IN the same thought being expressed — the dream will survive. And that is truly the most important thing to remember right now. No matter what happens to our show, whether it ever comes back to television or the big screen again, Vincent and Catherine's dream has touched our hearts in a way that none of us is ever likely to forget.
But — a dream is both fragile and strong; there are things it can endure, and things it cannot. And it is our privilege, having received the dream, to work to insure its survival — not only on the screen, but within the community we have found with each other as fans of the show— with great courage and care. Now, more than ever, we need each other, and each other's support. It doesn't really matter if you like or dislike the third season, or Diana, or the love scene/lack of love scene. The bottom line is that we are all BEAUTY AND THE BEAST fans, and there is room within that community for a great diversity of opinion, if it is calmly, rationally, and tolerantly discussed. That was the other thing I enjoyed most about the last issue of OUT...IN. A gamut of emotions/reactions/thoughts was being expressed — everything from grief, pain, disappointment, and anger, to joy, acceptance, hope, and even humor. And that range of expression gives me great hope for our fandom; our world, as does that of the tunnel-dwellers, maintains a rare and special balance that requires all our cooperation in order to survive. And survive we will (you better believe it, CBS!) — as will Vincent and Catherine's dream.
But there are some concrete things that need to be done. Republic Pictures, who own the rights to BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, are actively working right now to bring our show back to us, and they deserve all the support we can give them. Write to Republic Pictures [...] and let them know that you want BEAUTY AND THE BEAST back. These people are now in negotiations to do just that, but we need to assure them — in a calm and dignified manner — that we are all still out here waiting. That may sound silly to you, but aside from Witt-Thomas and Republic's feelings about the show itself, this is still a business venture, and they need to know their market is still there.
When you write to any of these people, along with telling them that you'd like to see B&TB back, don't be afraid to express an opinion about what you've loved about the show thus far, and what you'd like to see in the future. Word is going around that we shouldn't dare to express those opinions to the powers-that-be, for. fear that it will jeopardize the return of the show. I suspect that this fear comes from those who feel that asking for the return of Catherine Chandler is a futile effort that will only annoy those who are trying to make the decision. Of course none of us have the right to make any demands on Witt-Thomas, Republic, the writers, the actors; etc. Demanding that we have some sort of control over their creative process is not only rude and unreasonable, but also pointless. They are the ones who have the power to make the show,, and they will ultimately do what they feel is best — for the viewer, for their bosses, for their shareholders. Whether we agree with them or not is neither here nor there when it comes to making those decisions; it is their decision to make.
BUT... there is nothing wrong with offering a polite, calm, sincere opinion about what you'd like to see. They have to know where to start from, don't they? And what some may not realize is that— regardless of whether we return to television or the big screen — we will be starting over again from scratch when it comes to the writing staff. The only writer who had not already left the show or was not definitely planning to leave the show if it had been renewed was George R.R. Martin. Now that we're talking about a new beginning, even his involvement is something that has to be renegotiated. And his feelings, as he expressed them to oe, are that although he would like to return, because he loves the show, he would need to know the new parameters before he could agree to anything — parameters like format, budget, production values, and who the cast would be. Understandable and necessary concerns for a writer, certainly. And no less for us, as fans of B&TB. I believe that we all love the show too much to be willing to sacrifice its integrity and quality just to get it back on the air in any form. Demands are out of the question; opinions are not.
And speaking of Catherine's return . . . it's not as impossible a dream as you might think. Certainly we fans have come up with a dozen different ways of dealing with her death/faked death — most scenarios are variations on one theme, which is that she was not "really" dead, but in a coma, and is now in either a witness-protection program or in the care and custody of the FBI, who is after Gabriel. More than one of the producers has indicated to me that they have tossed around a scenario of a more "fantastic" nature that is totally in keeping with the feeling — not to mention a past episode — of the series' unique nature.
There is a tendency right now to get very excited every time a new rumor surfaces, but we have to be patient and calm and wait for the facts to surface, which will happen eventually. I know right now we all feel as if we're on an emotional roller coaster (I've taken to calling it "The Beast"), but things will settle down eventually. In the meantime, keep writing those letters—I know, I know, we've written thousands of them already, but it is part of the job description of being a fan — and keep supporting each other through this hard time, no matter what our different views on the third season are.
I pray you haven't given up hope. The dream will never be over as long as we carry it in our hearts and nurture it in each other. I find great comfort in losing myself in episodes from the first two seasons — although many fans I know find them almost impossible to watch now, and that gives me a great deal of pain. I hope that that reaction is one that will fade in time, and that they will soon be able to go back and enjoy the beginnings of the dream again. At our Winterfest party here in New York, we went back and watched the pilot; most of us found it very therapeutic. I will admit that there is an (almost uncanny) emotional knife in every episode I've gone back to watch.
[...]
I know it's hard, but I do hope people will try to go back, and work through their pain. Your fellow fans — here in the pages of OUT...IN and elsewhere — will be with you.
By now you've probably guessed my feelings about the third season; I have to say that, on the whole, I was deeply disappointed in it. There were certain episodes, certain moments that still rang true: "Walk Slowly" helped all of us, not just Vincent, grieve; "Beggar's Comet," to me, ranks with George's finest writing. But "Though Lovers Be Lost" was so poorly done, it left me speechless. I had expected to be upset over Catherine's death. I did not expect to be disappointed in the quality of the episode itself—insufficient rising action and absolutely no emotional catharsis for the characters at all being two of the major problems. I don't care if it was just the first part of an arc — you need to have some degree of wholeness to each of the parts.
And then there's the subject of Catherine's torture, which we were assured amounted to "only a shot of sodium pentathol." I don't believe that you need to have estrogen in your body to understand that a woman cut off from an intense emotional connection that's been a part of your life for over two years, pregnant for the first time and separated from the father of your child, reduced to vomiting in one corner of a room and hallucinating in another, deliberately isolated from all human contact for six months with nothing but a clock to stare at, treated as nothing more than a vessel, crouching under a CCTV monitor to hide your labor pains because you know you're going to be killed as soon as your baby is born and you won't be there to protect it...I could go on... is being tortured. Was all of this really necessary? Killing Catherine is one thing, but they could have given her death some meaning, let her go with some dignity — protecting her baby, protecting Vincent, something! The whole scenario smacked me in the face as being about as anti-woman as you can get — and this from a show that had given me and many others the best female role model I've ever seen on TV.
And then there's the change in Vincent: once we had a gentle, sensitive man whose guilelessness and remorse over his darker side made him an archetypal hero. Now we have a cynical, world-weary, emotionally scarred man whose innocence has been totally lost. The portrayal of this change was excellently done, due to Ron Perlman's inimitable talent, but it was a change and a Vincent I didn't want to see. Someone said to me that there would be no tension if Catherine came back now, and all they could do was settle down in the tunnels in happy domesticity. I'm sorry — this man is more screwed-up now than when Catherine first met him. They're going to have to start all over again, baby or no baby. And about that baby: How many of us really believe that Vincent and Catherine had sex? Not a chance!