A few years back (well, maybe several years back probably) I used to follow this TV series entitled, Beauty and The Beast which starred Linda Hamilton (as Catherine) and Ron Perlman (as Vincent).
Catherine begins as the wealthy and privileged daughter of a highly successful New York lawyer, unsatisfied with her mundane life and frustrated with both her father and fiancé’s suffocating influence. Leaving a dinner party alone one evening, Catherine is kidnapped, disfigured and abandoned on the side of a road, only to be rescued and nursed back to health by a mysterious man. Her face conveniently bandaged, she forms a bond with the man, Vincent, without ever seeing his face (or crucially, questioning why he doesn’t take her to a hospital) and, by the time she is healed, they’ve formed a bond too strong for his alarming appearance to break. That was how I remembered it from 1987; the series actually ran for 3 years. One of my most loved series ever which features the song “The First Time I Loved Forever” by Lisa Angelle. What made it even more special for me is the way they have associated the poem made by e. e. Cummins “Somewhere I Have Never Traveled”.
Somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which I cannot touch because they are too near
or if your wish be to close me, I and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
(I do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands…
After several years of waiting, last 2012 they released the new series, it premiered last October 11, 2012, from the same title and with quite a few twists on the story. Catherine Chandler, a detective, witnessed her mother being shot the same night she is saved from her mother´s murderers by a supposed beast. Nine years later, a case leads her to discover that Vincent Keller, an ex soldier, killed in action during military service is actually alive. As Catherine gets to know him, she starts finding out more about her mother's murder and about who (and what) Vincent really is. At the same time a complicated relationship grows between them.
Amongst the cast of the new version of the series includes Kristin Kreuk, Jay Ryan, Austin Basis, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Nina Lisandrello.
Season Finale is set on May 16, 2013 – too bad, such a great story (for me) to be aired so shortly. Anyway, I can always buy the DVDs to keep the show alive… LOL! But kidding aside, this show is superb (again, for me) and I will keep hoping for another season…
By the way, here is the complete version of e. e. Cummins’ poem…
“Somewhere I Have Never Traveled”
somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which I cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though I have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, I and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(I do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
