Beauty and The Beast: The Final Season DVD Boxset review
Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 03.01.2008
Now on DVD for the first time ever, the show's final and abbreviated season.
The Show
Beauty and The Beast aired on CBS from 1987 - 1990 for three seasons. The hour long drama followed the story of Catherine Chandler (Linda Hamilton), a New York attorney, who after being mugged is taken under the care of a kindly man named Vincent (Ron Perlman). But Vincent isn't a normal man, he has a face resembling that of a lion as well as beast like hands with claws and a very savage temper. Despite that, he's a quite a gentle soul, loving classic literature, poetry, and eventually Catherine as well. Vincent was found and raised by Father or Jacob Wells (Roy Dotrice). Father is the founder of an underground community called the World Below, a subterranean village of sorts that resides in a mass labryinth of tunnels beneath the city of Manhattan. The dwellers of the World Below all live peacefully with each other, and avoid being discovered by the World Above (NY), so its important their secret is kept safe.
Eventually, Catherine falls for Vincent as well, and Catherine's socialite attitude changes and inspires her to become a NY district attorney to put away scum and criminals. This gets Catherine into danger quite a bit, but the bond she shares with Vincent warns him of when she is in danger, so he is able to come to her rescue.
The show built up a strong cult following in its short-lived run on CBS that remains strong to this day. During the second season Hamilton became pregnant and wanted off of the show. So in a two hour premiere movie for the third season, Catherine was killed off after giving birth to a baby . . . which is Vincent's. With the "Beauty" of the show gone, the "Beast" needed a new one. Enter Detective Diana Bennett (Jo Anderson), a woman with a strong intuition that borders on psychic pre-cognition who discovers Vincent and his secret community, and does her part to keep their secret safe.
Season 3 for this show is only 12 episodes. Ratings were apparently mediocre and the network cancelled the show half-way through. It starts off with Catherine helping Vincent recover from a bout of madness, but she is soon kidnapped by a sinister and dangerous drug dealer, Gabriel (Stephen McHattie who you might've soon as the dog-loving gun maker in Shoot 'Em Up). Gabriel holds Catherine captive while she is pregnant with Vincent's child, and then has her killed after she gives birth. For most of the remainder of the season, Vincent pursues Gabriel and has to rescue his newborn son who is also held captive by Gabriel.
Back in the day I caught this show once or twice, and I was never a serious viewer of this program. This was really the first time I sat down and watched a single episode all the way through. That said, Ron Perlman who has built up quite a strong reputation over the years from the merit of his work as Vincent in this show alone really does immerse himself in this character. For Vincent he uses a very soft-spoken, gentle-sounding voice much different than the harder, grizzled, tough voice he tends to use for his characters these days. The biggest disappointment to fans was the death of Catherine, and Jo Anderson doesn't really quite fill the shoes well.
Following the resolution of the Gabriel story, Vincent is reunited with his son who he names Jacob to honor his [Vincent's] adoptive father. The final two episodes of the show deal with a serial killer who is killing helpers of the World Below. Helpers are those who know the secret of the underground kingdom and sometimes live there, as well as giving them food and supplies. Diana is assigned to the case, but cannot reveal the connection of the victims since that would break the secret of the World Below.
Technical Specs.
Video is presented in full screen format. The show has a slight amount of artifacts, but overall the picture and colors come off well. Almost twenty years later, the production values and look of the show holds up OK overall, but some of the special FX and execution near the end looked rather lame. Audio is available in 2.0 stereo sound only with original English language track.
Packaging and Extras
This is a three disc DVD boxset packaged in a clear plastic clamshell style case. The inside jacket cover features episode titles, original airdates, and synopses. There are four episodes on each disc. As far as extras go, there are absolutely none. Some retrospective interviews from the creators and Perlman at least would've been cool, but no dice.
The 411: Overall the third season is a bit of a disappointment since the show never got the chance to put on a formal ending for the fans. Unless you are a die hard, long time fan of this show, I wouldn't recommend buying this DVD set. Though it does have some decent drama and performances by the leads.
