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Beauty And The Beast 1.06 "Worth" REVIEW
THE ONE WHERE Vincent is concerned about his recent blackout. Catherine is concerned about Vincent standing her up. Everyone is concerned about who Catherine is dating and a convoluted crime happens.
VERDICT We’ve been complaining for weeks that this show needs to decide what it is and we think that it’s finally decided that it wants to be a soap opera. The Vincent/Catherine relationship has more ups and downs than anything in Days Of Our Lives and the rest of the characters are all completely obsessed with who Catherine is or isn’t dating.
Like the last episode it’s all relationship drama again this week. The crime investigation just seems to be something for the characters to do when they aren’t having relationship angst or gossiping about who’s dating who. Vincent and Catherine barely get any time together for the first half hour of the show. We see barely five minutes of Vincent in the first 25 minutes and the two spend all of three minutes together.
What little time they do get is played far better than anything they’ve had before. The discussion about Catherine kissing creepy ME guy and Vincent standing her up sees the two actually seem like they could be a couple. But it still reeks of forcing obstacles in the way of true love and confusion as to why these people don’t just talk to each other and be honest. At least they manage to be a little more honest with each other in the episode’s closing moments, but knowing this show they’ll just backtrack again next week.
What we do get this week is the Police Partner fishing about in Catherine’s love life again. Vincent does some brooding. Catherine pouts a bit. Creepy ME guy isn’t taking no for an answer after last week’s drunken snoggage and Catherine is giving him mixed signals. Even JT has started cautiously dating a work colleague.
Since the show started we’ve heard mention of Catherine’s dad and his upcoming wedding and here we meet the bride-to-be. And of course it’s all the soap opera drama tropes in one package... Of course Catherine’s dad is marrying a woman half his age, of course she has a shady ex in her past, of course everyone has an opinion about it... And of course she ends up giving relationship advice to Catherine.
This week’s crime is a silly convoluted mess about art galleries and prostitutes and a prostitute falling in love with an artist. But hey, at least it gives our heroes an excuse to attend a high class party under the guise of “investigating” the case. The boys from The Bill would love a case like that.
The resolution to the crime seems so uninteresting and pointless; we just don’t care about the crime or the people it affects. The crimes on this show feel more and more like something the characters need so that they can have the “what we learned about each other as reflected by the crime this week” conversation. And, Oh God, the totally unsubtle subtext as Catherine and Vincent discuss the dead painter’s girlfriend at the episode’s end. Yes, we get that you’re not really talking about the crime. You’re talking about yourselves. We get it!
Creepy ME guy spotting Catherine sneaking off with Vincent could have led to something interesting but Catherine manages to fob him off with a lame excuse about Vincent being a witness.
The most interesting thing is Vincent’s blackouts. Not much is said about them; Vincent is obviously concerned but can’t see anything wrong with himself. JT hits an all-time low point by trying to blame Vincent’s mysterious blackouts on jealously over his feelings for Catherine.
Since Vincent wakes up at episode’s end covered in blood with no memory of what might have happened, hopefully this subject will be to the fore next week. We just hope it can counter the relationship drama overload that the show is becoming and maybe give us a balance between the soap and the more sci-fi elements which this show seems to be doing its best to ignore or bury.
Overall, this is another below average episode and sees everyone pretty much end the episode in the same place they started having learned nothing and not moved forward in any way. This show really needs something big to happen to kick it up the arse and get things moving. Maybe they could kill two thirds of the characters and start again...
BEST BOTTLE DROPPING When a girl finds the dead body she drops the bottles of wine she’s carrying. Do people really do that? It seems to happen all the time on TV. Here the dramatic effect is somewhat lessened by having said dropped bottles and their resulting mess suddenly disappear from the crime scene half way through the sequence.
STALKER BEHAVIOUR OF THE WEEK Vincent appears in the mirror behind Catherine as she gets ready for her not-date with creepy ME guy. Awkward. He also later spies on her getting ready for her date with Creepy ME guy.
STALKER BEHAVIOUR OF THE WEEK 2 Is creepy EM guy agreeing to come to dinner and being a big tease supposed to be funny? The guy drunkenly kissed Catherine last week and she wasn’t happy about it. Now he’s being a tease about her fancying him. The guy manages to come across as a smarmy creep rather than potential boyfriend material.
BEST-INFORMED NEWS VENDOR IN NEW YORK While trying to find out more about this week’s crime Vincent goes to talk to a local newspaper seller and the guy knows everything, even Vincent’s family.
MURDER DEATH KILL A murder in an art gallery leads to prostitution and… hang on… what? People go to the gallery and buy a painting only they’re not really buying a painting they’re buying a high class prostitute. Why? What the hell is the reason for such a complicated way of selling sex?
BEST LINE
Short Man: “How tall are you? Six feet in those heels? ”
Police Partner: “Six one. But who’s counting?” *looks at short man* “Oh, I guess you are...”
Steven Ellis @Steven Ellis
Beauty And The Beast has been picked up by Watch in the UK for broadcast early next year
