Hello, everyone.

My monitor wore out and it was a while before I could secure a replacement.  I could DO things, but I couldn't SEE what I was doing. So that pretty well put me out of action for a while.

The big news, that I gather is already circulating, is that UPN is planning to bring back the series Beauty and the Beast. Who'd have thunk it? Not a movie, not a TV movie--a continuation of the series itself.

According to the online news source Zap2it, on Thursday, 11/15:

UPN Importing 'As If,' Resurrecting 'Beast'
Thu, Nov 15, 2001 11:17 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com)

UPN is close to ordering seven episodes of "As If," an American version of a popular teen comedy-drama that
airs on Britain's Channel 4, as a midseason show.

Like the British show, the American "As If" will track the lives and relationships of six teenagers in a big city. Each episode is told through the eyes of one of the group. It's being adapted by Jonathan Collier, a writer-producer on
"The Simpsons."

UPN envisions the show as a companion to "Random Years," a buddy comedy starring Will Friedle ("Boy Meets World") that has also received a seven-episode order.

The network is also developing a remake of the late-'80s CBS series "Beauty and the Beast," according to The Hollywood Reporter. UPN has given a script commitment to the series, which is being developed by Ron
Koslow, Tony Thomas and Paul Junger Witt, who executive produced the original.

Other rumor-type sources assert that the series will pick up some years after the events in The Reckoning, during the time Jacob would be a teenager (UPN's principal viewership is teenaged, I gather). Vincent by then would be leader of the Tunnel Community; Father might still be alive and present.

This seems to me in most respects the only actual NEWS I've ever reported concerning the series. I hope most of us take it for the miracle it is and are prepared to watch, enjoy, and support whatever the series proves to be--whatever stories, whatever actors. However, I'll have to miss out on the inevitable disappointments and disputes over the equally inevitable changes in the series despite the fact that Ron Koslow is heading up the writing and Witt-Thomas will be producing, as before.

I'm tired. I'm VERY tired. And this will, I believe, be my last update for the forseeable future. I am stepping back from Helpers' Network and the Hotline, effective immediately. I will keep the website up and invite anyone who would like to chronicle these exciting new developments to step forward and let me know. I will either provide a link to their website or allow them to post updates on mine, whatever seems the most sensible. If someone is willing to take on the responsibility of Helpers' Network, as I took it over from the Hartmans, I will be delighted. But more and more, these past months, I've felt that ten years is (or ought to be) enough.

Once upon a time I was a professional novelist. I want to get back to that, if stories will (please, whispered humbly) begin talking to me again.

I will never cease to love and admire Beauty and the Beast. I hope I have managed my small contribution to supporting the series and its fandom as Vincent would have wished it done. I hope to keep in occasional contact
with the many whose friendship and good humor have been the series' unexpected gifts to me, the perennial loner.

Be well and Beast wishes to you all.

Goodbye.

ndibble@fuse.net
http://home.fuse.net/helpnet