So… some people were so turned off by Kristin Kruek in Smallville that they vowed not to watch her in anything else. While her character Lana annoyed me to no end on Smallville, I actually liked her in Earthsea and Chuck. Because I personally think the actress is awesome, I gave CW’s Beauty and the Beast a chance. I like it so far. It’s not my favorite show but I love the girl power, buddy cop feel of the relationship between Catherine Chandler and Tess Vargas. Catherine is a great lead but she does this thing with her voice after she asks a question that is so grating it could kill my desire to watch the show. I’d like for them to develop Tess’s character a bit more.
The lead man, Vincent Keller as The Beast, is sexy and handsome but not spectacularly so. Vincent is less a hero and more like a broody vampire. He became The Beast as a US soldier who was subjected to genetic alteration to enhance his performance in combat. Something went wrong with the process, the soldiers became too aggressive and all of them were exterminated but Vincent. He escaped and has been living in secret, on the run for years. Government agents or a shadow organization is hunting for him. While evading capture, he helps Catherine on her cases while nursing a budding romantic relationship with her.
The story is moving just a bit slow and is too heavy on the romantic sap. It needs to pump up the action and dig into the mythology/mystery more. I haven’t heard any cancellation rumors and tvbythenumbers.com says that the total viewership is up from week to week.
Beauty and the Beast airs Thursday 9/8c on CW. It also streams for free on cwtv.com and Hulu.