CLASSIC IMAGE: "BEAUTY AND THE BEAST"

A love that knows no bounds. Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman in the classic BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. All images: CBS.

It may not have have had much of a TV airing in the last few years (especially on UK TV), but Ron Koslow's excellent re-imagining of the classic love story BEAUTY AND THE BEAST proved to be incredibly popular in its original transmission run of three years from 1987 to 1990, and still retains a very large and devoted fan following today. The series, launched on the CBS channel, made an instant star out of then jobbing actor Ron Perlman, resulting in him becoming an unlikely but deserved sex symbol worldwide. His character of Vincent (named after the hospital in which he'd been abandoned by his unknown parents), choosing (but ultimately forced) to live underground with his adopted Father (Roy Dotrice), and an odd but highly likable assortment of outcasts within a labyrinth series of tunnel dwellings, showed strength, courage, eloquence and nobility beneath his lion-like facial features (originally provided by make-up expert Rick Baker), which were intriguingly combined throughout the series with his constant need to restrain his savage aggression and keep his strong of sense of humanity intact, part of a constant story thread well realised and maintained by Koslow and Script Editor/writer George R.R. Martin (whose epic GAME OF THRONES series, based on his books, will shortly be showing on HBO and the SKY ATLANTIC channels). And then, of course, there was Vincent's relationship with New York Assistant District Attorney Catherine Chandler (played by Linda Hamilton, who, a few years earlier, had launched her career in an excellent way with her performance as the future warrior heroine Sarah Connor in the first TERMINATOR film), a gutsy and compassionate, intelligent woman whom he saved from death and nursed back to health in the series opener, who totally understood and accepted him, and loved him, for who and what he was, and with no conditions. Ultimately, it was that romantic element of the show which attracted the audience, especially the ladies, who liked the lead actors and saw that their on-screen chemistry really clicked and struck a chord, resulting in the shows episode ending love sonnets to Catherine by Vincent being very popular (many of these, though, were cut by the UK's ITV channel when it showed the series in its first run, mainly for time reasons) and led to their released as a very successful compilation album, with additional material read by Perlman, a short time later.

Title sequence and music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeUhrLoMIYo

Catherine and Vincent's romance lives on in fans hearts worldwide...

With imaginative, well written scripts that blended romance, horror, drama, morality and action, the storylines introducing the evil Underground cast out scientist Paracelsus (played by Tony Jay), who wanted to use Vincent for his own evil means, and have him sever his ties to Catherine, would prove to be particular stand outs with their intriguing forays into very dark territory emotionally and dramatically.

Incredulously, despite all this time, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is one TV classic not available on DVD in box set form in the UK (we assume due to copyright problems), but US and Australian box sets are out there, as well as several VHS tapes of selected episodes from places like AMAZON which also command high prices on EBAY. Let's hope someone in the UK gets a chance to remedy this poor situation and show the uncut episodes once again very soon...

They say love never dies, and neither will BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

The new UK sleeve art for the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST complete series box set, from CBS PARAMOUNT.

UPDATE: 27/7/2011. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST fans can rejoice with the great news that the entire three season run is now available in both a complete box set or by single season box sets. Well done, CBS PARAMOUNT for making this fine series finally available in its uncut entirety in the UK.