History Series / BeautyAndTheBeast

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[[redirect:BeautyAndTheBeast]]

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[[caption-width-right:250:Once upon a time in New York...]]

->''"This is where the wealthy and the powerful rule. It is her world...a world apart from mine. Her name...is Catherine. From the moment I saw her, she captured my heart with her beauty, her warmth, and her courage. I knew then, as I know now, she would change my life...forever."''

->''"He comes from a secret place, far below the city streets, hiding his face from strangers, safe from hate and harm. He brought me there to save my life... and now, wherever I go, he is with me, in spirit. For we have a bond stronger than friendship or love. And although we cannot be together, we will never, ever be apart."''
-->-- Vincent and Catherine, opening titles.

''Beauty and the Beast'' is a [[TheEighties 1980s]] Creator/{{CBS}} TV series, loosely inspired by [[Literature/BeautyAndTheBeast the fairy tale of the same name]] but set in modern-day UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity. The series lasted from September, 1987 to August, 1990. A total of 56 episodes in three seasons.

The premise was simple. Catherine Chandler (Linda Hamilton), a lawyer, is abducted, beaten, slashed and left to die in Central Park. She is then rescued by Vincent (Creator/RonPerlman), a leonine member of [[WainscotSociety a secret community of outcasts living in tunnels under the city]] ("The World Below"). The series then focused partly on the attraction between the two characters, and partly on the cases Catherine encountered in her new career as an assistant district attorney, facing crime drama situations that affect both her world and his.

Many of the episodes were penned by none other than GeorgeRRMartin, now famous for his ''ASongOfIceAndFire'' series of novels.

A remake/reinterpretation of this series, starring Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan, premiered Fall 2012 on TheCW. [[Series/BeautyAndTheBeast2012 Its page can be found here.]] All tropes for the new series should be placed there.

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!!This series provides examples of:

* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: Sometimes it's the sewers. Sometimes it's the storm drains, and sometimes it's an abandoned section of the subways. The implication is that all the systems link together through walled-up, forgotten areas.
* AlmostKiss: In practically every episode Vincent and Catherine start to engage in a kiss, but at the last moment they always wince and just hug each other instead.
* BeastAndBeauty: Obviously. But not uncreatively -- although she's the beauty and he's the beast, a lot of the time it's ''him'' bringing out the best in ''her''.
* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Inverted: Vincent is kind and sweet, and his appearance doesn't change, in the beginning Catherine was shallow and petty and Vincent's kindness gave her something more to live for.
* BeneathTheEarth: "The World Below", an elaborately gothic underground colony secretly constructed long ago and connected with the sewers and subways of New York.
* {{Big Damn Hero|es}}: Vincent.
* BlindAndTheBeast: Catherine has her eyes covered with bandages when she first meets Vincent, and has fallen in love with him by the time her eyesight has been restored.
* CantHaveSexEver: It's strongly implied that Vincent's passions would sufficiently overpower his will such that, combined with his great strength and claws, he could well seriously injure or kill anyone he has sex with.
** Averted by the end of the series; Vincent & Catherine have sex [[spoiler: and she has his child. She dies soon after giving birth, but not due to the birth itself, and it's never stated or even implied that sex with Vincent harmed her]]. To be fair, most of the previously mentioned implications were made by Vincent, who was never very good at believing the best in himself.
* CerebusSyndrome: The show takes a very serious turn in Season 3 when [[spoiler:Catherine dies]].
* CometOfDoom: A comet was blazing in the sky the night billionaire Elliot Burch was murdered by operatives of his rival, Gabriel. Father marks the occasion by quoting the line about comets from ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar''.
* DeathByChildbirth:
** Vincent's mother dies (still leaving it unexplained as to how the hell Vincent came to be.)
** Devin's mother, which keeps Father from acknowledging Devin as his son until he becomes an adult.
** Hell, even [[spoiler: Catherine]] suffers this by the end.
* FirstTimeInTheSun: The ''moon'', actually, was the first thing Vincent saw when he ventured above ground.
* ForHalloweenIAmGoingAsMyself: Vincent gets to wander around in the episode "Masquerades", and he and Catherine [[UnresolvedSexualTension almost kiss]] at dawn, until they are spotted by a jogger who comments, "Halloween was last night, man!"
* GentleGiant: Vincent is by nature very kind and sweet. [[BewareTheNiceOnes Just don't get on his bad side.]]
* GoldFever: In the episode "Fever", the underground tunnel community discovers a buried treasure ship, and starts to violently fracture over the question of what should be done with it.
* HeartbrokenBadass: Vincent, after [[spoiler: he loses Catherine]].
* {{Homage}}: Vincent's appearance resembles that of the Beast in [[Film/BeautyAndTheBeast Jean Cocteau's 1946 film version]] of the fairy tale.
* IAmAMonster: Vincent
** YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Catherine
* TheLoad: In far too many episodes, Catherine's only role is to get in trouble, thus forcing Vincent to risk all by rescuing her. But despite this....
* {{Masquerade}}: The existence of the World Below is a secret.
* MindlinkMates: Vincent and Catherine could usually tell when the other was in trouble. When the mind-link broke, it almost drove Vincent crazy.
* MrFanservice: Despite his appearance (or perhaps because of it) Vincent is ''dead sexy.''
* OpeningNarration: Paired voiceovers from Vincent and Catherine describing their love for each other. [[spoiler:Until Catherine is killed, after which Vincent gives a solo voiceover.]]
* RescueRomance: Vincent and Catherine first met when he brought her home after she was attacked and left to die in Central Park.
* RiddleForTheAges: Vincent's origin is never definitively revealed and likely was never meant to be.
* RomanticFalseLead: Wealthy developer Elliot Burch is briefly this for Catherine.
* RunawayFiancee: One episode has Catherine and Vincent helping a young Chinese woman escape an arranged marriage. Unfortunately, the man she was to marry was the son of a high-ranking member of a Triad which knew all about the World Below.
* SignedLanguage: Laura in "An Impossible Silence" and "Sticks and Stones."
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Catherine fell in love with Vincent while unable to see, and constantly stresses to him that he is a good man, not the monster he thinks himself to be.
* StarCrossedLovers: The underlying premise of the series; Catherine can't live in Vincent's world without giving up her job and her life, and he can't live in hers at all.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Diana Bennett replaces Catherine Chandler in the final season after [[spoiler: she is killed in the season opener]]. In the new dynamic, Vincent has no romantic bond at all with Diana, while her budding attraction to him is mostly just suggested by her having a recurrent dream about him.
* TeenageMutantSamuraiWombats: A somewhat grown-up version, with just the one not-conventionally-human hero.
* UnstoppableRage: Vincent, particularly when Catherine is in danger.
* UrbanFantasy: A low-key but definite example.
* WainscotSociety: The denizens of the "World Below" have their own society but also interact occasionally with surface dwellers.
* WorthlessYellowRocks: In one episode, one of the tunnel dwellers unearths a cache of gold objects. They come to Vincent and Catherine's attention. When questioned, said tunnel dweller answers that he found them. He adds that when melted down, they make good wires.
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* TeenageMutantSamuraiWombats

The premise was simple. Catherine Chandler (Linda Hamilton), a lawyer, is abducted, beaten, slashed and left to die in Central Park. She is then rescued by Vincent (Creator/RonPerlman), a leonine member of a secret community of outcasts living in tunnels under the city ("The World Below"). The series then focused partly on the attraction between the two characters, and partly on the cases Catherine encountered in her new career as an assistant district attorney, facing crime drama situations that affect both her world and his.

* UrbanFantasy

* AlliterativeName: Catherine Chandler.

* TheLoad: Catherine, oh so Catherine. The woman's only purpose for existence is to get in trouble, thus forcing Vincent to risk all by rescuing her. But despite this....

* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: Sometimes it's the sewers. Sometimes it's the storm drains, and sometimes it's an abandoned section of the subways, the show wasn't very consistent about this.

* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: Sometimes it's the sewers. Sometimes it's the storm drains, and sometimes it's an abandoned section of the subways, the show wasn't very consistent about this.