Television series

Beauty and the Beast

Name: Beauty and the Beast
Genre: Drama, Crime, Fantasy
Released: 1987
Cast: Ron Perlman, Roy Dotrice, Linda Hamilton

Other titles called Beauty and the Beast: the 1946 film, the 1991 film, the 2017 film.

A romantic fantasy-drama about a Manhattan lawyer who discovers a gentle, leonine man living in the tunnels beneath the city. What could be pulp becomes something quietly profound: a meditation on isolation, inner worth, and whether love can bridge impossible divides. Deliberately paced, surprisingly moving, and genuinely strange in the best way.

TVMaze rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like fairy-tale romance played straight, with a lonely city hiding a secret underworld and two leads who carry the melodrama with real sincerity.

Skip it if you find sincere, sentimental storytelling hard to sit through, since the romance is earnest to a fault and the tone rarely lets up into irony or wit.

What it asks of you: An hour per episode, three seasons, and plenty of moody, unhurried scenes where the romance unfolds slowly and sincerely.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Moonlighting1985

A will-they-won't-they romance anchored by crackling chemistry and genuine wit. Like Beauty and the Beast, it understands that the slow burn matters more than the destination, and that banter can be deeply romantic.

But The fourth and fifth seasons lose their footing badly. By the end, it feels like the show doesn't know what to do with itself anymore.

The X-Files1993

Two people from different worlds—skeptic and believer—developing trust and something deeper across years of investigation. It has Beauty and the Beast's patience with character development and its willingness to make the emotional truth matter more than plot.

But Early episodes are genuinely uneven, and the later mythology gets bewildering. You might need to skip around.

Remington Steele1982

A con artist and a wealthy woman forced into partnership. Like Beauty and the Beast, it's about two people from opposite worlds learning to see past surfaces and finding unexpected tenderness beneath the banter.

But It's very much of the 1980s in ways that can feel dated. Some plots are thin and the tone wavers.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Beauty and the Beast

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Night Stalker1972

Both are CBS supernatural dramas about solitary men moving through urban darkness, written with genuine affection for their protagonists despite their strangeness.

A reporter investigating supernatural crimes in Chicago, narrated with breathless urgency. It shares Beauty and the Beast's love of lonely outsiders, underground worlds, and the sense that something extraordinary is hiding just beneath the city's surface.

But It's a procedural where the procedure is thin. Episodes are uneven and some monsters are transparently cheap. It can feel repetitive very quickly.

Poldark2015

A wounded man returning from war finds love with a woman from a different class. Both share Beauty and the Beast's romantic fatalism—the sense that some bonds transcend circumstance, even when circumstance makes everything impossible.

But The pacing is glacial by modern standards. It's a commitment, and not everyone has patience for that kind of television anymore.

Sense and Sensibility1995

A film about seeing beneath surfaces to find true character. Like Vincent and Catherine, Austen's lovers must navigate worlds that don't understand them, and the quiet moment when someone truly sees you becomes everything.

But If you don't respond to period drama or Austen's particular brand of restraint, this will feel slow and cold.

The Elephant Man1980

David Lynch's meditation on deformity, humanity, and the hunger to be seen. It has the same moral core as Beauty and the Beast: appearance is nothing, the interior life is everything, and dignity is something you claim.

But It's bleak and difficult. Lynch doesn't offer comfort, and the loneliness is suffocating.

Dark Shadows1966

A soap opera about a cursed vampire and a woman who loves him anyway, set in a Gothic mansion. Wildly melodramatic but genuinely strange—it understands that the best love stories have genuine stakes and genuine darkness.

But It's daytime television from the 1960s. The production values are threadbare and episodes are repetitive. You need a certain tolerance for camp earnestness.

Penny Dreadful2014

Dorian Gray, Frankenstein, and the Creature coexist in a London of fog and moral ambiguity. Like Beauty and the Beast, it's interested in monsters who are more human than the humans around them, and in the transformative power of being truly known.

But It's baroque and sometimes overwrought. The second season especially loses focus, and some plots collapse under their own weight.

Road to Perdition2002

A crime film about a man and a boy navigating a dangerous world together. Like Beauty and the Beast, it's interested in grace, redemption, and whether love can survive in places built on violence.

But It's elegiac and slow. If you want action or catharsis, you'll be disappointed. The ending is quiet and sad.

Shrek2001

A complete tonal inversion of the same narrative: instead of tragedy and yearning, it's comedy and acceptance. Both say the same thing—monstrosity is a matter of perspective—but one makes you grieve and one makes you laugh.

An ogre and a princess escaping the world that despises them. It's a Beauty and the Beast structure played for laughs, but with real warmth underneath—two outsiders finding home not in a castle but in each other.

But It's an animated comedy for children. If you're looking for the romance to carry tragic weight, you'll find it undercut by fart jokes and pop culture references.