In perspective, you have to congratulate CW for being more ambitious this year. They're getting a lot of shows greenlit which don't rely so heavily on books. It harkens back to when CW was WB and UPN and Veronica Mars was on and other shows that were really well written and made me want to watch. As a film student and film junkie, I can say that I respect CW for making such bold choices what with Arrow, Beauty and the Beast, and other shows. So I'm going to say here that I freakin' love this show!

I'm seeing a lot of critics are not liking this show, even a few nutjobs on IMDb, and it really makes me wonder what people expect in a TV show nowadays. I'm getting real sick of medical, cop, or anything in that vein type of shows and I think the creators did something really creative with this show. Besides having just another medical drama, they gave it a twist. Yes, I am getting sick of cookie cutter shows and I like that they have a gimmick going on here!

This show follows Emily Owens, a new intern at a hospital, played fantastically by Mamie Gummer. The whole show hinges on her playing this awkward adult who goes to intern at a hospital only to find out that it's exactly like high school. I guess I'm biased, anything with an awkward social outcast is automatically gonna stick out to me and make me want to give them a chance and this show does exactly that. Mamie does an awesome job of really encompassing how a socially outcast girl would act around their crush. Only she has the advantage of knowing him in school and then going to the same hospital to intern, but other than that, she does a really great job.

There were parts in the pilot where I definitely cringed and there were parts I actually laughed out loud which is rare in a pilot show. Mostly because they're still trying to find their footing with their characters and the pilot is the first to be shot which means even the characters aren't that comfortable with each other. That's why I give new shows a couple of episodes to wow me and if they do, I'll keep watching. And this show definitely makes me want to keep watching.



The mean girl is played by Aja Naomi King, and her character is Cassandra Kopelson. I'm glad that they have black people on this show, but I'm not happy that she's playing a mean girl. It seems the only roles a black woman could get is a ghetto, spiritual mom or mom figure, or someone's mistress, or a really mean girl. And it makes no sense. I mean, when I leave my house, I see all kinds of nationalities. It may be centralized in my neighborhood as is typical but in a hospital setting or workplace, you mean to tell me that all you have is one or two black people or asians? No, I'm not stupid.

Anyway, I like her character because she really takes joy in making Emily's life horrible. I never had a bully, thank goodness, but I like the energy Aja brings to her role. I think her character is going to have some interesting moments.


The other black person on this show is Tyra Dupre played by Kelly McCreary. I actually like her character, I think her wild hair and chill attitude is really interesting. She's like the principal's kid, the daughter of the hosppital chief. (I don't know if he's that or surgical chief. Honestly, who cares?)

I don't know if they were trying to make her gayness an important part of the show, because she just kept mentioning it. Like seriously, just state it once and let funnyness ensue. Like have a male patient hit on her and she's like you working with the wrong parts or something. That I'd rather see than anything else. There's a side story going on with her dad cheating on her mom with one of the girls at the hospital who keeps looking at her, and I don't know if this is going to directly affect her or not but I guess we'll see won't we?



The character I'm really excited about is Micah Barnes played by Michael Rady. He's just an awesome doctor who would seem like a know it all, but he's really not. He tells Emily to breathe and relax, he actually takes the time to help Emily with her mini crisis. It's so obvious that they're going to end up together, and I can't wait for that to happen. They're going to be so cute and I am just frothing at the bit for them to adress their obvious attraction. What I like is that it isn't immediate. You can tell she's never going to guess that he likes her and he's going to keep watching her and liking all her little quirks until one day, he's going to so realize that he's into her and he's not going to know what to do about it. It's going to be AWESOME!

Can you tell I'm excited for them to be together? Too much? LOL. But there's also a sad sideline with his mom getting pancreatic cancer. It's so tragic and it's obvious he's not going to tell anyone about it. Poor Micah!



I'm really hoping the execs over at CW give this show a chance and don't pay too close attention to ratings. Do you know how many shows come on at 9 on Tuesdays? A LOT! So they shouldn't base their decision to ax it or not based solely on ratings because I really want to see where this show goes. Please pray with me to the TV gods in hopes that this show has a chance to actually make it!



Seriously, give this show a chance. If you like socially awkward characters or adorkable characters, you will definitely like this show!

I'm generally an open minded person when it comes to most things. I'll give a movie or show a try if it's new or if I've never seen it before. So when Beauty and the Beast started making the ad rounds, I though huh, that's a new concept, I can see it working. There have been all kinds of fairy-tale reimaginings, old legend reimaginings, and all kinds of other stuff. And usually, the stuff people come up with is astounding!

However, Beauty and the Beast fell really short of that expectation. Basically this is just CW's way of getting a younger audience into cop procedurals and I think they chose the wrong format to try it out with. Fans of the original story would be greatly disappointed in this show.

As is CW's way, there aren't really ugly people working on the show and even when one of the title characters, the Beast played by Jay Ryan, turns into an actual beast, he's clouded in shadow, all you see is a scar here, his yelling there, but there's nothing to suggest that he was an actual beast. What I liked about the fairy-tale was that Belle and the Beast actually worked at falling in love. They hated each other in the beginning, neither could acquiese to the other's point of view and it wasn't until the Beast saved her, that Belle started to see a softer side to Beast. It was like Beast had been angry and hateful for so long, he forgot he was a civil man.



Looking at the show, it has none of those elements. Yes the beast (actual name Vincent) is locked away in a building on the outskirts of town, yes he's in the attic, but there's no rose, there's no Lumiere or Cogsworth, Chip or Mrs. Potts. I know it's their retelling of the story, but they could have kept some of the elements. I liked where they went with how he got turned into a beast. In an age where advances in medicine and technology and medical testing paranoia are the norm, I can see how that would make sense. I like that they made it modern, I thought that was very clever.

Vincent has a friend in the form of J.T. played in the form of Austin Basis, a chubby guy with glasses. I don't know if he was supposed to embody a mix between Cogsworth worrisome attitude and Lumiere's hands off approach, but I just don't understand the relationship between him and Vincent. He's like his keeper but Vincent keeps doing things outside of what J.T. cautions him to do so it's like, why are you even there?

J.T. is just this neurotic geek with a side story that he teaches at college, and his only claim to fame is that he yells, worries, screams at Vincent that he needs to stay low and stay away from Cat, played by Kristin Kreuk. But to me, J.T. is more of a narrator for the folks at home. He tries so desperately to inform the audience that there is a real danger to Cat constantly coming around, yet you don't see it. To me there's no real danger lurking in the shadows beyond FBI taking away a mysterious body, Cat's computer crashing with a serious high level virus, a semi serious attack on Cat, and Vincent's outburst in a parking lot. That's basically it. And all J.T. does is wring his hands, pull out his hair, and pace back and forth before disappearing for practically the whole show.


My main problem is with the cop procedural element. Honestly, I could have done without it. What I didn't get was how she was studying to become a lawyer and nine years later, she's a cop and searching for her mother's killer. The mommy card is a little played and cliche, but they could have switched it up with her being an obsessed introvert who makes her living doing something else. You didn't really get to see Cat solving anything for herself, because in the very first episode, Vincent feeds her clues that lead her to the killer. In a recent episode, he's the one who told her the girl was lying. Without that, I'm not sure if they would have solved the murder. I get he has super abilities, but aside from the annoying "You're doing it wrong" look he gives her, it's like she's a flailing potato.

Don't get me wrong, I see tremendous potential in this show. It wasn't that long ago that Vampire Diaries aired on the CW and that got off to a slow start as well. I was excited to see it, but it was a lot of Elena sighing and wishing for the life she used to have. And they've completely forgotten about the diary aspect. Elena always narrated the show, but they dropped it mid season and now it's nonexistent. But as the show got on, it became more and more interesting and they didn't need the diary aspect. I think it's the same with this show. It may get off to a slow start but that's only because the writers are fairly new and are trying to navigate their way with new characters and something new for CW. They're trying to take a grisly subject, and make it a little more PG-13 friendly. I mean, just recently is Teen TV tackling subjects like gay people, murder, and sex, and cheating. Everyone on ABC Family and the CW is getting used to saying bitch since it's technically, not a bad word. It just means a female dog.

I know this review sounds like I don't like the show, but that's not true. I just feel like with this concept, they could have done so much better but since Armchair Execs are looking for cop dramas and medical dramas, they latched onto the one thing they had and tried to bulldoze it onto TV without really fleshing out where they were going with this. Because considering the way things are going, where are they gonna go when Cat's mom's murder is finally revealed? They could do something like with Castle to bring in a case per week and every now and again mention something about the mom and the grand conspiracy of things. But I just don't see where they can go with Beauty and the Beast but I'm willing to give it a try because Vampire Diaries started off the same way, and now it's one of my favorite shows. I'm strictly a Damon fan because I feel like he's suffered entirely too much. But, this isn't about that show, this is about Beauty and the Beast.

Cat is an okay character. I get that she wants to find out what happened to her mom, but she just charges head first into everything and doesn't care about the consequences. She finds out that Vincent is a beast and yes she has moments where she's scared of him, but she keeps coming back for more. Okay, this is typical YA fluff. Girl meets supernatural boy, instant attraction. I just wish that they had made it more along the lines of the original. Belle couldn't stand the Beast, she locked herself up in her room but she stood her ground with him, even though he yelled at her. In the show, Cat does kind of stand her ground, but she always does it with a scared look on her face. Like come on, get a backbone! She's the one who keeps going after him, keeps pestering him, keeps literally poking the beast, and yet she wants to get scared every time that scar spreads and his claws come out. Maybe I'm just a closet cynic, but I'd like my female leads to be a little stronger than that, a little more invincible. They can show emotion, that's fine, that's what seperates us from the animals (sorry guys), and I liked the bit about her sister. Honestly, I didn't know she had one, but I liked that it was KP from Make It Or Break It.

But Cat's character just doesn't do it for me. If she's supposed to be this woman who got into police work because of her mom, I'd just like to see her more obsessed. Yes she has a board but that's about it. I'd rather see her failing to connect with anyone in her life, constantly losing sleep over her mom, and now that Vincent's in the picture, I would rather see her pestering him with quuestions. I know that if contract killers came after my mom and there was some sliver of hope of finding out the truth from a beast type of guy, (who's more of a pretty boy in my opinion) I would jump on him, beat him to a pulp until he told me the truth. Yes, he could probably tear me in two, but that's perfectly okay because then I'd be a little closer to finding out the truth.

What I also didn't like was the dynamic between Cat and Vincent. Like I said, Belle and Beast couldn't stand each other, and Beast would literally yell at her to leave him alone yet he had this urge to talk to her and protect her. I can see where they're going with that on this show, but I'm just not seeing it. It's not clicking for me. She doesn't get angry with his outburts, she's just scared. He tells her to stay away, even tries to move away, yet he keeps following her and show up whenever she calls. It's like if you don't like each other, why are you still around each other? I think it would have been interesting if he did something to really turn her off, and then he obsessed over her and when she really did need him a la the wolf scene in the fairy-tale, then they started to find a common thread to work with. But as it stands, he's solving her cases for her.

I know, I know, I know, I haven't updated in like two weeks. How lame of me, especially when I said I would update it every two days. Honestly, if you've seen the two weeks I've had of constantly being called, homework, midterms, work, and everything else under the sun, I've literally have not had time to do anything! And I'm really sorry!


Not to mention, it was premiere season of a whole slew of new shows. I barely have time to watch them all! I have roughly 40% left in my DVR for shows and I've had to delete old shows, just to make room for the new ones this year. But of course, all of this means that I have more reviews coming to you soon. There aren't going to be any music video reviews or trailers for movies for a while. But if you want me to do one, just leave a comment and let me know!

I promise, I will try a lot harder to stick to my earlier promise to deliver reviews to you no matter how tired I am or what's going on. Keep in mind, there are going to be times when there is simply no other way of getting out of not posting.

Anywho, enough sad news! Get ready for the Beauty and the Beast review!! Thanks for being so patient!