The Beast (2009 TV series)

The Beast
Genre	Crime drama
Created by	Vincent Angell William Rotko
Written by	Vincent Angell Mark Goffman Raymond Hartung William Rotko Wendy West
Directed by	John Badham Sanford Bookstaver Jeremiah S. Chechik Michael Dinner Ken Girotti Charles Haid Christopher Leitch Christine Moore Lisa Niemi Steve Shill Tom Verica Michael W. Watkins
Starring	Patrick Swayze Travis Fimmel
Theme music composer	W.G. Snuffy Walden
Composer(s)	W.G. Snuffy Walden A. Patrick Rose
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	13 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Vincent Angell Cory Concoff Allan Loeb Steven Pearl John Romano William Rotko
Producer(s)	Lynn Raynor
Editor(s)	Bill Johnson Rob Seidenglanz Debra Weinfeld
Cinematography	Roy H. Wagner
Running time	43 min
Production company(s)	Sony Pictures Television
Distributor	A&E Television Networks
Broadcast
Original channel	A&E
Picture format	480i (SDTV), 720p (HDTV)
Original run	January 15, 2009 (2009-01-15) – April 23, 2009 (2009-04-23)
External links
Website

The Beast is an American crime drama series starring Patrick Swayze and Travis Fimmel. It debuted on the A&E Network on Thursday, 15 January 2009 at 10 PM EST. On June 15, 2009, Entertainment Tonight announced that the show was canceled due to Swayze's pancreatic cancer. He died three months later. The Beast was Swayze's final acting performance.

Plot

FBI agent Charles Barker applies controversial techniques in his attempts to bring criminals to justice, which often border on illegal and unsettle his uninitiated partner, Ellis Dove. Over the course of the first season, Barker is investigated by fellow FBI agents for alleged misconduct. Dove's loyalty to his partner is challenged when internal affairs agent Ray Beaumont (Larry Gilliard) approaches him to gain information. Shortly thereafter, Dove learns of darker secrets in Barker's past.

Main characters

Charles Barker (Patrick Swayze) is a veteran FBI agent, and an expert at going undercover, gaining the confidence of criminals and setting them up for a long hard fall in prison. As skilled an actor as he is a cop, Barker has a rookie agent under his wing, Ellis Dove, and Barker acts as Ellis's acting coach, trainer, and mentor. However, he also displays a limited patience for these roles, and his relationship with Ellis is a bludgeoning one. Apparently a patriot whose loyalty should go unquestioned, and his superiors think he has been seduced by the dark side. In the pilot episode, it is revealed that he is fluent in Russian and that he is being investigated by the FBI.

Ellis Dove (Travis Fimmel) is a rookie FBI agent and Charles Barker's trainee in the undercover trade. Under intense pressure from Barker to become a chameleon, Ellis never knows when Barker will send him on some impossible little test, some on-the-spot improv that may or may not cost him his life. Stressed, tense, under impossible performance pressure, Ellis needs a break. However that's not the worst of it. An Internal Affairs team is trying to recruit Ellis to spy on his mentor Barker whom they feel has gone rogue.

Harry Conrad (Kevin J O'Connor) appears to be Barker's control agent at the FBI, and he's supervising Ellis as well. As a seasoned professional, he knows Barker well enough to speak to him in terse personal code—but for newbie Ellis, he needs to spell things out, including his deep respect for Barker's work.

Rose Lawrence (Lindsay Pulsipher) is Ellis's neighbor, with whom he shares a romantic relationship. A law student, she is sharp enough to spot something odd about Ellis (who keeps his job a closely guarded secret) and takes the relationship slowly.

Ray Beaumont (Larry Gilliard) is a fellow FBI Agent who is investigating Charles Barker. Sly and sneaky in his ways, he attempts to use Ellis to get information to help make his case that Barker is dirty.

Episodes

Main article: List of The Beast episodes

Reception

Alan Sepinwall writes "... you watch Swayze in The Beast, and you realize that this is the best performance of his career—that the opportunity to play a part like this, and to play it as well as he is, may be fueling his ability to keep fighting against the cancer. And you realize, in an odd silver lining, that the cancer may, in turn, be fueling the performance". The New York Times reported that "Patrick Swayze's performance... is impressive for its resistance to cliché...".

Suzan Young of RealNetworks stated that, "Patrick Swayze gives the performance of a lifetime as the hard-edged FBI agent Charles Barker in A&E's The Beast".

In his review, Ray Richmond of The Hollywood Reporter stated that, "Beast has a far grittier feel and look than one would suspect from a show starring Swayze—not to mention one on A&E. The action often is energetic and intriguing but is sometimes brought down by Fimmel's uneven performance. …What's unmistakable is the killer work of the star. May the man somehow beat the odds and fight defiantly on".

Kelly West of Cinema Blend reported that, "For an original series, I think A&E has something great on their hands. The Beast is definitely drama series with an edge, showing the darker, grittier side to FBI undercover work".

Ken Tucker writes that the lines said by the "antihero" and main character "[were] old when Clint Eastwood was Dirty Harry". Tucker adds that the co-star (Travis Fimmel as Ellis Dove) gives "inexpressive line readings; he's here because he's young and pretty (Fimmel was a model), and he fits A&E's desired viewing demo. Ellis is the newbie who earns Barker's respect...". Overall, Tucker grades the program as a "C".

DVD release

Sony Pictures released the series on Region 1 DVD in the United States on August 18, 2009.

External links

• The Beast at AETV.com
• The Beast at the Internet Movie Database
• The Beast at TV.com
• The Beast at epguides.com