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[Overstreet]

Deadline Hollywood:

Quote

After ordering Once Upon a Time to series for this fall, Disney-owned ABC is staying in a fairytale mode by putting Beauty and the Beast in development for next season. Written by Jericho co-creator Jonathan E. Steinberg, the drama project is described as an epic fantasy re-imagining of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale.

[BethR]

Ron Koslow & George R.R. Martin, your copyright is calling.

I confess that I adored the 1980s B&tB when it first aired, partly because there was nothing else like it on TV, partly because I was a romantic. But rewatching it not too long ago when DVDs finally became available, one thing I noted is that it suffers now from a complete lack of irony, or at least from a complete lack of humor. (Hmm...sort of like Twilight.) Probably its strongest features were the creation of the community of misfits "below" New York, led by Roy Dotrice as "Father," and Ron Perlman's performance as the Beast, his first major role.

The show still has a lot of die-hard fans though, most of whom hate the third (final) season, in which Linda Hamilton, the original heroine, was replaced by Jo Anderson. In terms of story/through-narrative, season 3 is actually the best, but lacks the swoon-factor of seasons 1-2.

Edited by BethR, 14 February 2012 - 11:08 AM.

[BethR]

And now the CW also has a Beauty and the Beast series in the works. Given the network's reputation for suds and this synopsis, it doesn't sound good. According to this story from io9, the CW version was supposedly a reboot of the original Ron Koslow/George R.R. Martin series, but it's gone far away now, with a little Moonlight, a little Batman, Hulk, and whatnot, plus 9/11, thrown in (complete pilot synopsis from Moviehole).

They try to compare it to Buffy, but they'll need more than monsters-of-the-week and a mismatched romance to make that work out. To quote Willow, "The only Buffy that's really Buffy is--Buffy."