Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast
I chose to watch Beauty and the Beast on the CW at 9:00 p.m. on Thursday the 31^st. The show falls into the category described in the book as a drama. In this episode, Cat, the main character, who is police officer is healing from a recent gun shot, and her “boyfriend” Vincent who is also a werewolf like creature due to genetic altering and testing while he was in the army; are experiencing a little bit of tension since Alex, Vincent’s ex fiancé is back in town and they have rekindled their old love and life together. Cat for the majority of the episode is busy investigating another case regarding the death of a Forbes billionaire’s wife whose skydiving rope was cut before their jump. Cat also periodically throughout the episode sees a therapist, required after being shot as a precautionary to insure she didn’t suffer from PTSD. Vincent spends the majority of the episode with Alex being his old self and not hiding from anyone like he usually does. They spend time together laughing and enjoying each other’s company and Alex even helps Vincent start practicing medicine again in the back of an Asian market for people who can’t afford health insurance. All is going well with the two until they get caught at an ice skating rink after hours and are asked for their names and Vincent refuses to give the officer his name. Why? You may be asking. Well, after Vincent escaped from the army he was legally pronounced dead by choice and went to hiding so the government couldn’t track him down and kill him. Alex is confused because in order to save their old life together Vincent doesn’t tell her his secret and the monster he has become. He calls Cat for help and she comes to bail him out and is mad (within reason, I might add). In the mix of it all Cat and her partner Tess solve the skydiving murder; it was the secretary like woman, who was the financial advisor and also the prior girlfriend! There’s a huge shock. The show leaves on a cliff hanger after the therapist helps Cat to uncover her true feelings about Vincent and she tells him she’s in love with him but she understands that she can’t force him to choose between her and Alex but she refuses to push away her feelings and she will fight for him.
      Here are the stars of the show, Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan as you can see Ryan is sporting the beast eyes and the infamous scar that was leftover from his military debacle.  
The main actors in this show are Kristin Kreuk, Jay Ryan and Max Brown. All actors I was not familiar with before the show. Kristin has starred in other CW shows such as Smallville but their real “claim to fame”was this show, in its second season but first year it’s a new show proving to be pretty successful. The creator and one of the writers for the show is Ron Koslow ironically enough was the creator of the 1987 Beauty and the Beast TV show. The directors are Rick Bota known for House on Haunted Hill (The 90's version) Steven A. Adelson, know for Fantastic Four and Batman Begins. The third director is Bradley Walsh best known for his contribution to the famous teen love drama, One Tree Hill. Beauty and the Beast has been tried on TV before with the 1987 series. Which is exactly like the 2012 series.
The Ads that were shown were: Previews for the movies Warm Bodies and Hansel and Gretel, shampoo and conditioner from Treseme and Pantene, Windows phone and tablet was on 2 of the 5 commercial breaks, same with Honda accord and Progressive insurance. The most frequent ad show was Maybelline, products like lip color and eye shadow. There were T Mobile ads and Verizon ads. Ad’s for shows on the CW such as The Carrie Diaries, Hart of Dixie, Cult and Nikta. There was one Safeway ad, one nightly news ad. Two JcPenny’s ads and two Turbo Tax commercials one H&R block commercial and one EHarmony commercial.
The attitude of the show is new age and fresh I suppose I would say, it has young actors, most likely no one looks over forty five or fifty. It is sleek and a little glamorous as far as style based on how the main characters dress, they’re very professional looking at all times but even for casual wear they’re dressed nicely and look very “New York City” modern and like people of importance. They talk informally but not inappropriately I didn’t hear much swearing not even a “hell” or “damn” which usually can be aired on T.V. It’s filmed on location but I do believe there is bit of a set, but mostly it’s filmed on location. It’s similar to other shows in the sense that it has a mystical creature and it came out right around the time of all those other fairytale spinoff shows so that’s definitely a similarity but it’s also really different because instead of being a vampire or werewolf, Vincent has a more realistic reason for becoming the creature that he is, and he’s not always that creature, so that definitely sets it apart from other T.V. shows on today.
The producers avoid stereotypes by having the main character play a female cops, she’s small and attractive and thin, something you don’t typically see from a police officer. Also, the medical examiner isn’t an older, creepy man he’s an attractive Australian. I think the biggest thing is that instead of Vincent always protecting Cat she’s always protecting him and keeping him out of trouble which is a total role reversal. I think the target audience is females anywhere from ages 15 to 40 but probably in the younger range. Definitely not men, it seems to be more of a “chick flick” but show not movie. The commercials most definitely reflect this target audience, there were lots of phones, hair products, make up, insurance. Not a lot of car commercials, or expensive car commercials, but there was sensible car commercials but no sport products or things being promoted by sports figures like I see when I watch a game with my family. I think if I was visiting from another country I would be a little scared the show portrays New York as a dangerous city mostly because the main character is a cop so she has to work cases, but also that the citizens are interested in mystical creatures.
The show has a lot of different strengths and weaknesses. It doesn’t reflect real-life because it has a mystical creature so it has more of a SiFi feeling to it, it’s more of a spin-off on a childhood classic than a real life drama. It’s strong because although similar to other shows on television right now, it’s not really like all those; it changes up characters so as to not be the same. I didn’t think it was very entertaining but I also had never seen it before. I think it’s worth talking about because it’s different and my friends might like it but I’m not one for SiFi type shows, except for my one vampire show. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/cws-beauty-beast-tv-review-378092 This is the link to a critic of the show which is must more harsh than what I said but I can definitely see where he’s coming from. He says “who is -- wait for it -- impossibly hot and dangerously thin. When the two of them walk into a crime scene, it looks like they’re coming down a fashion runway.” When talking about Cat and her partner. He not only knocks the show but he does give credit where credit is due he notes that “Kreuk is a good actress who deserves better material” which I agree with. The show seems to treading this line of reality and SiFi and it just doesn’t seem to work in the CW’s favor.
I have never seen this show before but a couple of my friends watch it so that’s why I decided to do it for this project. I’m not a fan on Facebook but I do frequent the CW site to watch full episodes of other shows. Something many people might not know is that the actors are not from America, they’re from Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. I also added http://www.cwtv.com/ the link to the CW site because if you are interested in any of the shows they have you can watch full episodes on the site which I think is awesome.
I learned about the show, I also learned how spot on the commercials target their audience. I never really realized how specific the ads are. The show was surprising to me because I thought I would enjoy it but I didn’t at all so that was disappointing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spnz-QNhUcE This is a trailer for the show from when it first was on the air.