| Wherein I write, in a somewhat chatty style, about my addiction to "Beauty and the Beast." Something I am not sure I can explain, although I try; but along the way there is a little bit of BATB, as well as computer, history and a few personal opinions and observations. |
 
Before GEnie
I have always been a little bit different. It's hard to explain why. Not sure I know myself. On the surface I am pretty much like most people. But somehow I have just never quite fit in. I know it. Most other people know it; although my family, for the most part, is in somewhat of a denial. I'm just saying this in case some of them make their way over here, which I very much doubt will happen since I certainly am not going to tell them of this page's existence. They just look at me like I am crazy or ask "Different? How?" if I say anything about it, but both my sister's say I "can't be a member of this family" because my tastes and interests, ideas are so different from their's, from that of other family members.
And that's it! My tastes and interests, my opinions and the way I see things are different from those of most people; and, even when I find a group, like the Beauty and the Beast fandom, I somehow manage to be the different one in the way I look at some things, both in and outside of the fandom.
Is it any wonder that I identify with someone like Vincent? Even in a world of outsiders, he is the different one.
I have been long aware of being drawn to characters who were the outsiders and in some way different. Ever since I was a child really, but I didn't really know why until I put on a few years and put it all together. Why I liked Robin Hood (Richard Green in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" on TV was very big at the time.) He was an outlaw, like I felt I was. Why I liked Spock. He was an alien, like I felt I was.
I was, of course, familiar with the "Beauty and the Beast" Legend; but, the first I knew anything about our "Beauty and the Beast" was a short article about it in an entertainment magazine of the time which was reviewing the season's new programs. The article featured a picture of Vincent and Catherine with Vincent's hair covering his face as, I recall, all photos of the couple did before the program actually aired. I think they wanted us to see Vincent, and react to him, at the same time as Catherine did.
I didn't have to actually see Vincent's face to figure I would probably like this show. I was already well aware of my predilection for his kind of hero. I thought at the time that, most likely, I would be for a while a bit obsessed with it; and, over time, this would fade as all my other little obsessions had. Little did I know.
Curiously enough, I only vaguely remember seeing the pilot episode when it first aired. I saw all the episodes, all three seasons, the first time they aired, all except "Brothers" which I did manage to tape. I had purchased my first vcr just a short time before, and my sole purpose in buying the vcr was to tape "Beauty and the Beast" so I could rewatch the episodes throughout the week. I might have done that for "Star Trek" and "Robin Hood" if vcrs are been available in my neck of the woods at the time and if I had been old enough to buy one, but I doubt I would have taped the promos which is exactly what I did with "Beauty and the Beast."
Now, I realize I wasn't the only one; but, at this point I was feeling a bit, not exactly foolish, but embarrassed, about my obsession, and was very much in the closet. That wasn't easy because what I most wanted to do was to talk about "Beauty and the Beast," but there was no one around me I felt would understand.
I knew that somewhere out there most likely there were some "fan clubs," but I didn't know how to make contact; and didn't think I could afford to participate if I did; since, at the time, I thought of such things as a middle class endeavor and I knew that I could not afford to attend conventions, that even holding a meeting at my house, what with refreshments and all, could pose a difficulty, even an impossibility. At the time, things were hard. Buying the vcr had been a financial hardship.
So mostly I read everything I could find in the newspapers and the magazines on "Beauty and the Beast" and keep my thoughts and feelings about it to myself.
Computers were just starting to become popular, not like they are now, but a bit; and, I read in "TV Guide" about how some people used computers to communicate with each other and talk about their favorite programs. I wished I had a computer.
I kept careful watch on the rating because I knew that my favorite program was not really all that popular and in danger of being canceled at any time.
Then came the news and the rumors of what was going to happen during the Third Season. I read about the protests.
I kept an open mind because I knew my primary interest was in Vincent and I wanted the series to continue. I was willing to consider the possibility of Vincent with a new love interest, or even no love interest although yeah the name of the show was "Beauty and the Beast."
Ultimately there was even some anticipation when I heard that there would be a baby because I knew that mean't the relationship would be consumated, and I did want to see that! In retrospect, I think it would have at least been some compensation for the time and emotions I had invested in the characters; but, I never felt that I was due some kind of compensation - just that it would have been nice. I never imagined a "lava and roses" scenario, just as I had never imagined that "Beauty and the Beast" would not have a happy ending. I already had my ending in mind, had from the beginning: Vincent leading Catherine down to the tunnels to stay with him forever as "Young at Heart" with it's line "Fairy Tales can come true..." playing in the background. Very G rated, but I never expected much more from any sort of consumation much more than a kiss and passionate embrace. This was, after all, late 1980's television. Did expect Vincent to remember it however.
Needless to say I was disappointed in how that whole thing was handled, but I soldiered on; and, frankly I found much of the Third Season interesting. Even if I didn't, I am glad I saw it. I don't think I will ever understand how any "Beauty and the Beast" fan can resist at least having a peek. I want to see, read, watch everything BATB that I can.
I enjoyed the emotional intensity. I think that Ron Perlman, Edward Albert, and Jay Acovone all had some really shining moments. Roy Dotrice did what he could; but, IMO the character of Father was somewhat off during the whole season.
But there was, and still is, another bigger problem for me. I just never took to the whole Vincent/Diana relationship; and, in retrospect now, I realize I never took to the character of Diana. I have no idea why. She just doesn't do it for me.
I continued to be interesed in Vincent and the TunnelWorld however, so watched it all until the very end. Even the episodes cut out when BATB was abruptly canceled which were finally shown during that following summer.
Next year... times became a little better. I came into a little money and decided to buy a computer. I made that decision: first because I could see that computers were going to become very important in everybody's life and I figured I needed to learn how to use one; but, also because I still needed to talk about "Beauty and the Beast" and I remembered that TV Guide article I had read a while back.
This computer cost nearly $2000. It had 512 KB memory and a 20 MB hard drive. No Windows. Everything was operated by DOS. It didn't come with a modem either. I had to buy that separate. $149 for a 2400 bps modem.
If this was not all exactly state of the art, and as far as I knew it was, didn't know much about computers back then, it was still better than most people had at the time, and more than capable of getting me online as online existed back then.
There was no Internet as we know it today. Just what they called "Online Services." Compuserve. Delphi. GEnie and Prodigy. A few others, but those were the big four.
I chose Prodigy because at the time it was the only one I knew of that charged a flat rate. $15.95 per month, best I recall. Most other Online Services charged by the minute; and, I knew that it would be hard to impossible to keep my expenses down under those conditions; and, even if things were a little better, I was still a poor girl. When you don't have much money, you really need to know what your expenses are going to be, down to the penny. So Prodigy it was.
I don't remember where I got the disk. I think I made a call, signed up over the phone, and they sent it to me. Not sure, but I know it was on a 720 KB floppy disk. The higher storage, 1.4 MB capacity, ones had not yet come out yet.
So I followed the instructions on the disk and installed the program. Then I tried to get online. There was the loud sound of a telephone dialing out, this was definitely in the days of dial-up, no dsl or broadband, then a loud sound of static, that always happened back then, and then I was connected! I thought that was the most amazing thing!
It wasn't long before Prodigy was to lose its way, much as GEnie did a few years later; but, in its day, Prodigy was a leader and and a early pioneer of the virtual world. The first to charge a flat rate, instead of by the minute, and the first to have a Graphical User Interface, GUI, as compared to the DOS text based interface found on other Online Services at the time.
Looking back there is not a whole lot I remember about Prodigy itself, just a sea of blue and yellow. It's GUI was very colorful. There was a lot of censorship. Not just the usual stuff, but anything remotely critical of Prodigy and its services was quickly removed. We could be pretty abusive to each other though and sometimes were. And the whole thing closed down between 4 and 7 A.M.for maintenance. Also, as mentioned previously, the Internet as we knew it did not exist back then, so it was not possible to send e-mails to anyone but those who were on the same Online Service as ourselves. We could only send 30 e-mails per month and the e-mails could only be so long and contain only so many characters, so we developed distinctive abbreviations to avoid using any more characters than we had to. One of those abbreviations was BATB for "Beauty and the Beast." Others were P* for Prodigy, OTOH for "on the other hand," and IOW for "in other words." We also made the first emoticons by making little smiley faces turned on their with our keyboards. :-)
We were making Internet history, even if most of us had never heard the word - yet!
Guess I wasn't there on Prodigy all that long, just a little over a year; but, during that time, I was very active on the Beauty and the Beast Message Board which I found almost immediately when I first signed on, and walked right smack dab into the "Third Season Wars," about which I guess the less said the better. Not that I was ever one to heed such good advice.
Looking back upon it all now, it seems to me to have involved a lot of "bitching." There is no other word which best describes it. "This person, this fan, did this, did that, said this, said that; not that she doesn't have a right; but this fan said this, did that..." They were mostly talking about what we today call "Third Season" or "All Season" fans, since the message board was dominated by "Classic" fans as are most BATB discussion groups today.
I would get frustrated at this, as well as the absolutism, something I have always had trouble with as concerns anything. I don't like absolutes. This sometimes resulted in me saying things in retospect, I wish I had not said; but, in truth, I did not say anything worse than anything anyone else said and I always said it to their face, whereas most of the chatter concerned people who were not even on the message board.
But occasionally, we really did get around to discussing "Beauty and the Beast." All seasons. I do not recall anyone ever saying that they could not discuss the Third Season, that it made them ill, or anything like that.... I will always insist that whole thing came later which is a good part of what makes me skeptical of this claim by some fans today.
I kept hearing of other fans on other Online Services, GEnie in particular. A number of people on Prodigy were also on GEnie and I was considering checking it out since it cost only $4.95 a month, even I could squeeze that out, especially with enough incentive and more BATB discussion was a lot of incentive. At the time, I intended to keep my Prodigy account and GEnie would be extra; but, then Prodigy started to raise rates from $15.95 to $19.95; and next came the announcement that they would soon start charging by the hour just like all the other services which would soon be charging a flat rate, but Prodigy went in the opposite direction by deciding to start charging by the hour. Does this rate as one of the smartest business moves of all time? NOT. GEnie |
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