Makeover Fails to Make ‘Beast’ Rating a Beauty

Despite efforts to revive “Beauty and the Beast” by roughing up the romantic fairy-tale with more action, adventure and violence, CBS said Friday it had canceled the low-rated show.

The last “Beauty and the Beast” episode will air Jan. 24. In its place, CBS will introduce “Grand Slam,” a series starring John Schneider and Paul Rodriguez.

Described as a comedic action show about two modern-day bounty hunters who are arch-rivals, “Grand Slam” will receive a special preview on Sunday, Jan. 28, after the network’s coverage of the Super Bowl, before moving into “Beauty’s” 8 p.m. Wednesday slot.

“Beauty and the Beast” is the second series to be axed by CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky since he was hired Dec. 18. Earlier he had canceled “Snoops,” a lighthearted detective series starring Tim Reid and Daphne Maxwell-Reid.

The network had no comment on the latest cancellation.

“Beauty and the Beast,” the brainchild of Sagansky’s predecessor, Kim LeMasters, tracked the offbeat romance of socialite attorney Catherine Chandler (Linda Hamilton) and Vincent (Ron Perlman), a half-man, half-beast inhabiting an underground fantasy world in the New York sewer system. Although the chaste romance won a strong cult following, particularly among women, it never won broad acceptance and was put on an extended hiatus last spring after its second season so writers could add more action and write out Hamilton, who was leaving the show to have a baby.

“Beauty and the Beast” finally returned Dec. 12 with a two-hour episode in which Catherine gave birth to a child fathered by Vincent and then was killed by kidnapers. Although the premiere garnered slightly higher ratings than last season’s average, subsequent episodes faltered. “Beauty and the Beast” ranks 63rd out of 86 prime-time shows this season, attracting an average of 17% of the available audience.

Paul Witt, executive producer of the show with Tony Thomas, said Friday that the show failed to draw audiences this season because of its 8 p.m time-slot, rather than its aggressive new tone.

“The calls and letters we got on the first few episodes were really terrific,” Witt said. “They were staggeringly in favor of the re-tooling we were doing; everything was coming together.

“It was a difficult time-slot. It never should have been on at 8 o’clock; it was really a 10 o’clock show. But we did get two-and-a-half seasons, and we can look back on doing some of the best work that’s ever been done in dramatic television . . . but it feels bad, it always does--whether you go for 2 1/2 years or seven episodes.”