Beautiful People

Naturally, I feel compelled to tell you about my love for an amazing actress named Daphne Zuniga, the main head-liner of this nice show. Years ago, try twelve or thirteen, Zuniga was a young photographer named JoBeth Reynolds on the critically acclaimed drama, "Melrose Place". She was, herself, beautiful, witty, tough, and deep, as well as surrounded by beautiful people all over. Now, in this new drama, "Beautiful People", she returns to the prime-time dial, but with a new breed of beautiful people.

With Jo Reynolds a fond memory, Daphne is now the lovely Lynn Kerr, a newly single mother, trying to provide a warm, sharing, and loving world for her two daughters, portrayed by Torry Devitto and Sarah Foret. Zuniga never fails to satisfy, and as Lynn Kerr, I see new depths to which she can dive into, especially now as other Melrose alumni are resurfacing as well. (Marcia Cross and Doug Savant in "Desperate Housewives"). The two new actresses Foret and Devitto are cute, and even amusing in this family based drama, but obviously, Zuniga helms the project with force and experience to which the younger stars are lucky to work with. The rest of the cast is okay too. Ricky Mabe takes the cake among the co-stars as a non-conformist, straight-forward, honest , but good-hearted outcast, stealing the scene as he spits his words about the truth concerning the "BP'S" (Beautiful People). The show has soft touch for familiar development, but just as the 'beautiful people' it introduces, looks are always deceiving.

I can also say, that this show is truly misplaced on the ABC-Family channel. It does deal with a mother, and her two daughters in their new life, and the concern for safety and love in the big apple, but there are some touchy situations this show touches base with. I have no problem with a single part of this show, but the surprise is the channel it airs. I know it would seem fairly normal on the normal ABC station, but Family is a bit risky, as Daphne even said in the beginning about the program. I didn't completely believe it myself, but it's true. The Kerr family meet people who take drugs, teenagers who have sex, in hot-tubs for that matter. An adult male, speaks his mind on the basis of his homosexuality, and other kinds of chaos ensues.

I am all for risk, and to that I can say I hope to see more of this show around. It's about time we see Daphne Zuniga in the spotlight again, and she is, without a doubt, having a great time like the rest of the cast. I know only as much as the next viewer about the eight episode run for an opening season, but I hope much more will come! A good Welcome Back to Daphne Zuniga, and an even bigger good luck to the show! It's a fun show to watch.

If you are living a life that is beautiful, things just have a way of working out. That's where we find a little family as this series begins.

The Kerrs - Mom, Lynne (Daphne Zuniga, veteran of "Melrose Place") her brainiac younger daughter Sophie (Sarah Foret), and Sophie's lovely and popular eighteen year old sister Karen (Torrey DeVitto) were residing in a small town in New Mexico, when they ran into a problem. Dad decided to ditch his marriage and parental responsibilities to run off with Karen's bestie, leaving the three women to figure out what to do now that they're on their own.

Let me state that a different way: the father of this family abandoned them for his teenage daughter's best friend. That's devastating in several different ways all at once, but hey, let's not dwell on it.

In better news, Sophie got accepted for a scholarship to an elite school for gifted students in New York. These Kerrs needed to get out of town anyhow, but this meant that Karen suddenly had an opportunity to go to New York to pursue her dream of being a fashion model. And that also meant that Lynne could finally see if her long deferred dream of becoming a designer might come true in The Big Apple!

When you're three fish out of some backwater New Mexico town and are hitting the biggest spotlight in the nation, of course there are going to be problems. The first is finding work. I mean, sure, there's a decent alimony settlement, but it's New York in 2005. Both Lynne and Karen need to get jobs to cover their costs as they move toward their eventual fashion goals. And Karen, in her haste to get in good with the people who can help her, might be sliding into a lifestyle that isn't so healthy, like needing to diet to lose weight, and taking drugs to help. See also, 373's "The Agency" for source material from an actual Model house that inspired that storyline.

Let's not forget younger Sophie, who though she loved the concept of this school on paper, suddenly sees the shortcomings of the personalities involved, most especially her classmates and their parents, who were elitist snobs and disparaging bullies. Those ugly cretins are, in fact, the "Beautiful People" of the show's title! How's THAT for a twist?

New York played a part because it's the super wealthy of the school board making demands of their kids and not letting Sophie in on their Reindeer Games that provide drama. One of Sophie's classmates, we're told, is from the family that owns the Empire State Building! And the ever-present fashion world is always an appropriate backdrop for any series set in NYC. Plus that more sinister world of nightlife, parties, clubbing, with controlled substances aplenty, that "low road" that many end up traversing, is continually is a threat.

But lets remember that ABC Family was where you could watch, so those threats were mostly exactly that. Also, there were so many women in this series, it was a real boon for actresses at the time, quite a bit like "Gilmore Girls" which was concurrently running with this show.

In the end, "Beautiful People" was perhaps just a little too light on the drama and not as much fun as it could have been, as they tried to shoehorn the soap opera elements into the plots and make things about those snobs at the school. Maybe this would have worked better with more comedy, like "Gilmore" displayed, since there were far more moments where a lighthearted tone would have fit better?

Conversely, a show like this one might have helped inspire (or at least gotten network execs to greenlight) a different drama with many of the same themes, that being, "Gossip Girl."

I don't understand why a show as good would stop , I really hope whoever made this series can continue . I just love love this show and am very sad that i had to watch my last episode last night . This is one of the best shows to me ever . I would like to see more shows like this one made so that me and my 3 girls can continue watching great shows together . The show has great family views and good values on how a good mom fights for her children even when the father screws them all up , but the best part of how i see this show is how the daughters are see how strong the mother is and they are happy to admit there mom is strong and want to be like her , a good mom movie show is a strong show for anyone .

I'm sorry, but this is not a very good show. The dialogue is bland, the events are predictable, and it feels like we've seen the insignificant plot lines a million times before.

The characters are extremely one-dimensional and over-dramatic to the point where it's annoying and/or frustrating to watch them interact. But this itself wouldn't be much of a problem if not for the fact that their 'interacting' is difficult to swallow and the script could use a hell of a lot more work.

Also, the chemistry between a lot of the characters is zero. This is a pretty bad thing considering much of the show centers around their relationships. Skip this show if you tend to dislike chick flicks. Because this is basically just a really bad chick flick disguised as a television series.

Lynn Kerr (Daphne Zuniga) moves from small town New Mexico to New York with her daughters Sophie (Sarah Foret) and Karen (Torrey DeVitto). Karen is an aspiring model. Sophie gets a scholarship to a fancy private school and rubs elbows with the Beautiful People.

This is a functional teen drama from ABC Family. It lasted 1 season and not really worth much more than that. The actors are cute and mostly likable. There's good chemistry but the production looks second rate. The stories aren't well written and the supporting actors are weak. So as much as I may like the leads, there is nothing here to keep me watching.