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She-Wolf of London, also known as Love and Curses, is about American grad student Randi Wallace, who travels to England to study with mythology professor Ian Matheson. While on a solo research trip out to the moors, Randi's attacked by a werewolf and turned into one herself. The duo then place a classified ad in the paper, advertising their services as occult investigators in the hopes that some case will lead to a cure for Randi's condition.

It was produced by Universal as part of their syndicated Hollywood Premiere Network, an attempt to create an ad-hoc TV "network" that got cancelled after the 1990-91 season (and in turn was the genesis of the Action Pack Universal created a couple years later).

The first 14 episodes were a US/UK coproduction, filmed on location in England. After that, the English backersnote  dropped out, and the show was retooled and relocated to Los Angeles.

Has no relation to the 1946 film of the same name.


This series provides examples of:

  • Acquired Situational Narcissism: In "Can't Keep A Dead Man Down", a Hollywood studio's interest in Ian's book immediately goes to his head. He even goes so far as to believe the university would willingly get rid of the library to give him a bigger office. His ego is deflated when the head of his department arrives and tells him he'll no longer be getting a salary because she doesn't approve of it.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Elizabeth from "Bride of the Wolfman". When Dr. Pretorious admits that transferring her fiancé's brain into Randi's body might complicate their relationship, she just shrugs and says they'll "make it work".
  • Artistic License – Space: "Don't worry, there won't be another full moon for months!" says Randi, the werewolf. Making it more confusing, Ian correctly states that Randi has four weeks until the next full moon earlier in the same episode.
  • Back from the Dead: Ian twice in "Can't Keep A Dead Man Down". First as a zombie, then his normal human self.
  • Big "NO!": Randi lets out one in "Wild Hunt" when she wakes up with rabbit's blood on her hands and believes she's killed Ian.
  • Can't Have Sex, Ever: As Randi and Ian find out the hard way when they finally try to consummate their relationship, getting too...excited triggers Randi's transformation.
  • Circus Episode: In "Big Top She-Wolf", Randi feels strangely attracted to Caleb Wakefield, the ringmaster of a rundown circus.
  • Circus of Fear: The Wakefield Circus in "Big Top She-Wolf", which is a front for its ringmaster, Caleb, to lure in people he can talk into selling their souls to his "boss".
  • Denser and Wackier: Post-retool the supernatural threats became a lot less grounded in mythological roots, and a lot more comedic in nature. For instance, the first retool episode featured cave-dwelling trolls turning themselves into humans with a chamber made of nuclear-powered copy machine parts so they can live above ground simply to get better TV reception.
  • Digging Yourself Deeper: A minor Running Gag in the Love & Curses episodes is Randi attempting to talk the villains out of their plans, only to inadvertently give them an idea that puts everyone in more danger.
  • Dirty Old Woman: Aunt Elsa.
  • Failure Is the Only Option: Since the series hinged on the hunt for a cure for Randi's lycanthropy, it's a given that any potential cures will be yanked away at the last minute.
  • Forced Transformation: In the episode, "Mystical Pizza":
    • Three obnoxious young businessmen are turned into catfish, Skip slowly turns into a human/rat hybrid and a woman becomes a potted palm tree before the trio of witches responsible are Hoist by Their Own Petard and turned into cockroaches.
    • The end of the episode plays it for laughs when Ian's tinkering with the witches' magic gets him and Randi turned into rabbits.
  • Formula-Breaking Episode: "Beyond The Beyond", which takes a sharp turn away from horror and into a closed-circle murder mystery at a convention for an In-Universe Star Trek Expy with no supernatural elements, to the point that Randi's lycanthropy isn't even mentioned.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: Dr. Pretorious' obsession with achieving this (no matter who ends up actually flipping) drives most of the plot of the titular movie in "Bride of the Wolfman". His original intent is to transfer the brain of Wolf Man Thomas into his Frankenstein Monster to cure him of his condition, but when Randi questions how that's an improvement, he decides to perform the switch on Thomas and Randi. Finally, after a last second intervention from Ian, he successfully swaps Thomas and Boris.
  • Genre Shift: After the move to Los Angeles the show became much more comedic in tone.
  • Greasy Spoon: Ian and Randi stop at one for lunch after their car breaks down during a trip in "Wild Hunt". Notably, they sell a house specialty cheeseburger with sliced up hot dog in it.
  • Horror Hunger: The zombies in "Can't Keep A Dead Man Down" have the standard craving of human flesh, which Ian is forced to deal with when he becomes one.
    • Downplayed with Randi, who begins craving rare red meat in the days leading up to her transformations, despite expressing a distaste for it before she is bitten.
  • Hotter and Sexier: More than once In-Universe.
    • First, Ian and his aunt Elsa rework his dry book on mythology into an erotic novel to get it published.
    • Then, Ian starts writing a screenplay about his life, but to make it more appealing to Hollywood executives, he reworks Randi into a big breasted blonde and turns their Unresolved Sexual Tension into a full-on Teacher/Student Romance. Randi promptly tears it up in disgust.
  • The Igor: Boris from "Bride of the Wolfman".
  • Jerkass: Skip Seville, Ian's sleazy, self-centered boss in the "Love & Curses" episodes.
  • Kill It with Fire: Ian uses the fact that enbalming fluid is extremely flammable to send Dr. Stevens hoard of zombies up in smoke.
  • Last-Second Joke Problem: Became a Once an Episode thing in Love & Curses. Ian and Randi stop a trio of witches who have been inflicting random transformatons onto anyone who's the slightest bit rude to them? The episode ends with Ian messing around with their magic and accidentally turning them both into rabbits. They escape after being sucked into a monster movie that never made it through its first screening by helping it play out to the end? They get sucked into a TV show that lost its ending due to a technical malfunction.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Randi and Ian leave for California "for a few weeks" in "Curiosty Killed The Cravitz", Ian's mum begins crying after getting a feeling that they won't be coming back. They don't, as the episode marked the start of the series Retool and move to LA.
  • Mad Scientist: Dr. Pretorious from "Bride of the Wolfman", who, despite taking his name from the Bride of Frankenstein character, has more in common with Dr. Niemann from House of Frankenstein.
  • Monster of the Week: Aside from Randi being the titular she-wolf, each episode had the main duo dealing with a new supernatural creature in hopes that something will lead them to a cure for lycanthropy.
  • Mood-Swinger: Randi becomes one (with just a tinge of Jekyll & Hyde) in the last episode. When a lunar eclipse disrupts her transformation, she begins flip-flopping between a demure, polite Randi, and a violent, aggressive Randi who sometimes appears to be on the verge of transforming.
  • No Ending: Because it only lasted one season, the show ended before Randi could find a cure for her condition.
  • Retool: After the British side of the international coproduction pulled out, the setting was shifted to Los Angeles with a completely different supporting cast, and the series was renamed Love and Curses.
  • Separated by a Common Language: Randi discovers in the first episode that introducing herself with a brief "I'm Randi" to the group of British men who found her naked in a public shower gives them the wrong idea really quick.
  • Sex Sells: The way Ian manages to get his mythology book sold to a publisher is enlisting his aunt's help to rework it into a trashy erotic novel called "Satan's Sex Slaves".
    • Skip's one and only plan to bring viewers to KBLA is "women in skimpy outfits, and lots of them".
  • Shout-Out: Dr. Stevens, whose first name is Samantha.
    • In "Bride of the Wolfman", Randi lists Pottsylvania as a "sight" she's seen staying inside watching monster movies all day.
  • Slipping a Mickey: Charlie slips Randi a sleeping pill at the end of the first part of "Can't Keep A Dead Man Down" so he can get her on a plane back to California. Ian's family calls it as such by name in the second part.
  • Succubi and Incubi: There are Succubus escorts in "Nice Girls Don't".
  • Teacher/Student Romance: Downplayed. Ian and Randi don't officially become a couple until after Ian loses his job at the university.
  • Trapped in TV Land: "Bride of the Wolfman" sees Ian and Randi getting pulled into a fictional Universal Horror movie of the same name to help finish it because it didn't make it through its first screening. Then, the end of the episode has them pulled into a TV show that lost its ending due to a technical malfunction. They both then promptly decide to find something else to do with their night.
  • Two-Faced: Dr. Stevens gets a severe facial burn similar to the Trope Namer after Ian pulls the aforementioned Kill It with Fire.
  • The Undead: First the titular monster in "The Bogman of Letchmoor Heath", then a whole gaggle of standard zombies in "Can't Keep A Dead Man Down".

Alternative Title(s): Love And Curses

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