BEAUTY AND THE BEAST COMPANION
By Peter J. Formaini, USA

Special Episode Information (click here for contents)
Extracts from His Major Companion

Origins of a Cultural Archetype

In 1740, Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villenueve spent the greater part of the year composing a fairy tale titled "The Story of Beauty and the Beast". This rather lengthy saga detailed the events in the live of a beautiful French maiden named Beauty and her devotion, love, and sacrifice for here Father and for her eventual benefactor, the Beast. Written in a time of economic collapse, the tale was not written for children; instead, it was meant to reflect the proper values and morals which should guide the ideal Frenchwoman of the day, and carried on a tradition of grounding the ethics and morality of adults in a world of unwordly beings and incredible situations one would not likely encounter in life.

The length of the story proved difficult for the average citizen of the time to accomodate, so in 1757 Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont fashioned a shorter retelling of the same basic story, leaving aside much of the background of the Beast's childhood and the lengthy explanations of the motives and actions of his family and supernatural benefactors. This version of the tale of sacrifice and devotion for one whom one has seen with the heart and not the eyes enjoyed wide popularity. Beaumont, one of the few children's writers of the period, culled the most important lession from the original tale and produced a timeless masterpiece for all ages.

The first film version of the classic fairy tale was made in Fance by Jean Cocteau in 1946. Starring Josette Day as Beauty and Jean Marais as the hideous Beast, the film was a magnificently crafted translation of the Beaumont version of the tale. Faithful to the original work, the atmosphere of the film is dark, foreboding, disquieting to the eyes and ears -- but the words of the honest Beauty and her kind-hearted Beast fill the screen and our minds with their magic.

Hollywood discovered the fable in 1972, CBS producing a made-for-TV version of the tale starring George C. Scott as the hulking beast. Though less powerful than the French film and more modern in its approach to the story, the film nevertheless presented the fairy tale with power and style.

In 1985, Faerie Tale Theater, a Showtime series of updated and modernized renditions of classic fairy tales and fables, brough us John Saxon and Rebecca DeMornay as the main protagonists. This version was lacking in charm, subtlety, and performance quality. The experience left this viewer longing for the time when fantasy television was young, for craftsmen who could have told the story the way it was meant to be told -- with voice and words matched to the depth of the story and its message. Sadly, the time when such craftsmen had last been commonplace in television was a quarter century earlier. It is to that time that we return to discover the seeds of modern fantasy television.

The 1960's - Fantasy Television Emerges

Before the decade of the sixties, television was basically a cacaphony of quiz shows, comedy series, and occasional Naturalistic dramas dotting the electronic landscape. Fantasy and science fiction were left for the B-movies of the era and the Saturday afternoon movie serials. The use of strong fantasy elements in the medium of television did not occur on a regular basis until one visionary had the skill, determination, and creative genius to forge a new pathway for television drama.

That man's name was Rod Serling.

In 1959, Rod Serling brought his child, "The Twilight Zone", to the small screen. Novel in approach, captivating in its creativity and production, unafraid to test the limits of the medium; "The Twilight Zone" emerged as the television series with the greatest cultural impact and greatest longetivity of any program of its day. Other series had higher ratings, others were around longer -- but those series have faded from public memory and public discussion. "The Twilight Zone" continues to fascinate, to evoke questions, to explore the human condition and seek limits of the human mind's capacities for good and evil. Through the use of fantasy and the stretching of the scientifically-accepted limits to reality, Serling and his production company broke new ground in providing his characters with circumstances that heretofore were not permitted by a cold and unremitting reality.

Immediately after the demise of "The Twilight Zone", science fiction and fantasy television found new expression in such mediocre series as "Lost in Space", "Voyage to the bottom of the sea", "Land of Giants", and "The Time Tunnel". All these series suffered from a common set of problems -- poor writing, ridiculous conflicts offering no moral or ethical choices, predictable and cardboard characterizations, and a general lack of attention to creativity and chance-taking.

Then, in 1967, two new series which brought fantasy and science fiction television back to levels approaching its former glory days were brought to the airwaves, and the future of fantasy television was sealed.

The first of these special series was "The Outer Limits", an anthology of hour-long dramatizations whose "Twilight Zone" roots were apparent in the opening and closing monologues as well as in the excellence of the writing and the generally excellent productions values.

The stories dealt with human conflicts and character tests of ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances -- and as such, most of the episodes were only secondarily linked or determined by their fantasy or science fiction elements. Despite network hostility and mismanagement of its scheduling, the series managed to last through one and one-half seasons before bowing to network monetary concerns. The series remains alive today in syndication and a special videocassette library. Many of its episodes stand up against any dramatic hour of television offered in the intervening quarter century.

The other fledgling series in 1966 was "Star Trek", a program that, despite many glaring weaknesses and flaws in its execution, managed to capture the public imagination -- though not until it had been yanked from the airwaves by the same myopic network executives who had mismanaged "The Outer Limits". The slow path of "Star Trek" from the bottom of the rating pile to one of the most widely syndicated television series in the world (only "Beauty and the Beast" is syndicated to more foreign countries) marked the emergence of a continuing demand from the viewing audience of the world that dramatic forays into the world of fantasy and science fiction were a welcome addition to their viewing schedules.

Late in the 1960's, another series drew a fine line between reality and fantasy -- although its British production home and espionage backdrop would not qualify it for direct comparison with any of the series listed up to now.

"The Avengers" offered us a pairing of a sophisticated British gentleman and his urbane and beautiful sidekick. Their antics often bordered on the fantastic and the surreal, with scientific reality stretched to the limits of credibility. The fantasy elements of the series, along with the relationship of John Steed and Emma Peel, swept us along into accepting the premise in order to get to the conclusion we found satisfying -- Steed and Emma together at the end of each hour, usually in a situation which leaves us believing they are retiring to the bedroom or a shared bathtub. The humor (or humour) was tongue-in-cheek from the beginning, but the outcry from outraged British and American viewers of the series proved completely unexpected when the show was cancelled in 1970. What had been meant as dry English farce had been lapped up by fantasy-hungry viewers as believable drama.

The 1970's - The Wasteland

The decade of the 1970's marked, in many ways, the beginning of one of the most sterile, uncreative, and generally lackluster periods of quality for American television. While comedy reigned supreme for half of this decade, serious dramas of any quality were few and far between, and fantasy or science fiction offerings on a plan with the classics of the 1960's were nonexistant.

On the dramatic front, only the British series "The Prisoner" provided anything remotely resembling fantasy or science fiction programming - and this series lasted a mere 17 episodes, bogged down by the creative struggle between the creator George Markstein and the series star Patrick McGoohan. Eventually, McGoohan prevailed, and the story lines suffered to such an extend that the line between fantasy and reality became undetectable, with the result that no one could decipher the final programs of the series. Creativity having been replaced by the wish to be daring and unconventional merely to shock and discombobulate; the final shows were a ridiculous mishmash of reality, science fiction, renaissance drama, religious oratory, science run amok, and drug-induced fantasy - culminating in a finale that left the switchboards at the production company jammed for days with calls from irate viewers demanding explanations where none were possible.

Back in the states, silly and childish offerings such as "Manimal", "SuperTrain", "The Greatest American Hero", and "The Invaders" filled the airwaves, but none save the last two provided the least entertainment, while only "The Invaders" offered anything in the way of true dramatic conflict or character development. For the most part, fantasy remained alive only in reruns of the classic programs of the 1960's, often on minor television stations in the wee hours of the morning. "Twilight Zone", "Star Trek", and "The Outer Limits" found their way in reruns onto televisions across the nation, and young people began to watch them regularly. It remained for one of these classics to be resurrected as a steppingstone to the remergence of fantasy television.

"The New Twilight Zone" appeared in September of 1985. Bringing a host of creative talents together each week with familiar and established performers and seasoned veterans, the series continued in the vein of its noble parent. Features by Harlan Ellison, Stephen King, and Theodore Sturgeon were interspersed with new offerings by fresh, young, creative writers who derived their inspiration from the classic fantasy programs of their youth. The result was, more often than not, rebirth of the questioning, confrontational dramatic dilemmas faced by earlier visitors to the zone. Though the series did not last two seasons, it helped spawn a new generation of fantasy programs. The series also gave many of the production craftsmen who would later come to work on "Beauty and the Beast" an important opportunity to hone their skills.

In 1987, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the original "Star Trek", brought to the screen "Star Trek, The Next Generation". Critically predicted to be a fiasco, the series has just completed its third season -- and remains the most successful series in the syndication marked for non-network programs. Drawing on the best elements of the original, while eliminating the weaknesses, the resurrected Star Trek demonstrates the perpetual desire for quality science fiction and fantasy programming in people of all ages.

This same year saw another fantasy television series appear, but never in the history of television had a series tried to blend fantasy, science fiction, and classic literature. The program was to be based upon an Eighteenth century French folk tale, but the setting was to be contemporary New York City. The title of the series was "Beauty and the Beast".

September 25, 1987 - Once upon a time is now...

Peter Formaini
June 1990