This show premiered in 1991, and the only people who remember it are me and my high school best friend. This soap aired in primetime, but was taped, so it looked (and felt) like a sitcom.

Dangerous Women (1991) was a nighttime US drama series (soap opera) about a group of women that served time in prison together. The main character that tied the show together was Faith Cronin (a mobster's wife). To leave behind her criminal record and her abusive husband, she staged her own death and created a new identity. She bought a lakefront inn not far from the prison where she was once held with her friends. One by one, as the other girls were released from prison, they eventually took refuge at the inn and strived to start their lives over together.
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Valerie Wildman (Faith Cronin/Patricia Meadows) went on to be on Beverly Hills, 90210 and Lost.

According to Wikipedia, the show only aired in New York in L.A.--strange, even for such a small, campy program. I do remember this, though: When WWOR (local New York station) tried to cancel it the first time, angry viewers took to the streets with picket signs. This was pre-Internet. Today, we'd just email the network, start a web site and create an online petition.

This show will probably never make it to DVD, but in my mind, it should.

Anyone else remember this show? Anyone?

This show aired in San Francisco also. It must have been syndicated, as it was shown there on Saturday afternoon, I think. I remember Wildman, and I can still picture the inn and many of the interior sets, but I don't recall much about the storylines.

Wiki repeats what I've seen elsewhere, that it was based on the Australian Prisoner: Cell Block H, but I don't see that, as those girls rarely got out of prison, and I don't recall this show ever having any stories based "inside." Of course, we in the US never got to see beyond the first several months of PCBH.

This show was and still is one of my great guilty pleasures. I remember it premiering in the late summer of '91 and lasted for 26 glorious weeks, finally ending in early '92 or so. It was odd in that it was first-run syndication but had *two* episodes aired weekly, so in the end it had 52 episodes.

And what episodes they were. Never a dull moment on this show, whether it be deliciously trashy or hilariously awful. I remember the show was *wildly* successful in big cities (including here in L.A.), but that it wasn't quite as big in smaller markets, and that was the reasoning behind pulling the plug. And what was sad was that it ended not only with dangling storylines, but with things really firing on all cylinders. The serial killer whom we thought was that sweet, rape victim, framed-for-babynapping Holly (who had developed an odd penchant for taking ill-timed solo walks to clear her head and wear uber-suspicious back gloves) was in fact prison warden Grayson, who as the show ended was about to plunge a knife into Maria's fellow prison guard lover (forget the character name, played by Anthony Addabbo). That was quite a surprising reveal I thought. Also, Patricia's true identity as Faith was discovered by Cissie's fed agent (or P.I.? I forget) love interest. Joe was going to leave Cedar Lake with his conveniently amnesia stricken ex (who had found Patricia's real identity before getting into a car accident that caused said convenient amnesia), but at the last minute he decided to stay and give Patricia another chance. Good stuff. A best of set of Prisoner was released here, so maybe there is a chance Reg Grundy can sell the DVD rights for this one. Considering some shows that do get released, this wouldn't be too outrageous. At the very least I hope SoapNet picks it up.

This show did have a few stories on the inside. Of course, the early stories were very inside-based, but one of the core 6 characters were always inside at any given point, not to mention the character of Maria became a prison guard, which then kept the tie there alive. (Not to mention Rita always found herself in and out due to her shenanigans) Funny, no matter where I see Casper Van Dien and his wooden acting show up, to me he'll always be Brad Morris, do-gooder son of Kath, drug-addicted inmate with a heart condition. Remember that great episode where Rita had a knife to Kath's throat or something, and Maria had to choose which one to shoot, and she shot Rita? Good times. Where are the DVD's? (or at least reruns?)

I live in Houston and I saw this show. It used to come on very late, but it still came on. And I still think about it often. I was pleasantly surprised to see a thread here because no one I talk to in my real life has ever heard of it.

She was the redhead always fighting with Patricia, right? She was so crazy.

Wow, you all have really wonderful memories of this program. I mostly remember the drama, and not being able to miss it every week. Would Patricia/Faith really be able to move on with her life?


This show is definitely DVD-worthy.

Yes. Remember how Rita and Faith hated each other. (Rita never found out that Patricia was really Faith, alas) As crazy as Rita was, remember her even crazier twin sister Roxy, who had the torrid affair with Jack Fisher and would call him "Jackhammer"? That was so nasty... but I enjoyed every minute. Rita's goody two-shoes daughter Debbie was insufferable though. She and the equally bland Brad deserved each other.

I was only ten or eleven when this show came out, but every time it was on, me and my mom enjoyed watching it.

The thing is...being so young, I barely remember any of it. I seem to remember there was one character who was kind of slutty, and then for some reason, she decided to go all celibate and where plain clothes. And I remember a young girl with really long hair.

And that's it. That's all I remember, except that I remember loving it.

DVDs would be awesome!

The slutty character would have to be Crystal Fox, the hooker. I remember having to tone herself down at one point. Was it when she was having trouble with Randy Carter, the handyman? (Speaking of whom... gotta love how early in the show's run the ladies rioted in the prison so Crystal and Randy could do the nasty in the air conditioning vents. That was awesome.)

The young girl with long (blonde) hair would be Holly Warner, the doormat/victim character. She was a babysitter, but she landed in prison after being framed for babynapping by her sleazy employer who raped her. Soon after landing in the clink Jack Fisher, the sleazy prison guard, raped her as well, leading to a suicide attempt. She was eventually cleared, and like everyone ended up with a job at the Cedar Lake Inn.

The other core 6 characters: (1) Cissie Johnson, the sensible mother hen, who was the second of the characters released, if I'm not mistaken. She was the best friend of the first to be released, (2) Faith Cronin, the horribly scarred mafia wife who, upon release, got plastic surgery with her stolen mob money, bought the Cedar Lake Inn, and morphed into Patricia Meadows (which was a carefully well-thought plan--I remember it turned out that there was a real Patricia who died or something, and Faith had the assumption of her identity all mapped out. This was revealed, I believe, when boyfriend Joe's snoopy ex-wife was digging for dirt on Patricia). Faith's prison archrival was (3) Rita Jones, the badass bitch of the group, always getting into trouble, the one character who kept on landing in and out of prison throughout the series. She had an even trashier twin sister named Roxy Lawrence. Finally there was (4) Maria Trent, abused wife who killed hubby in self-defense but was imprisoned for murder, eventually cleared when hubby's mistress came forward I believe. She eventually became a prison guard. There was a seventh inmate character that was frontburner for a long while, Kath Morris, the drug addict/dealer with a heart condition (my, her heart attacks were about the most overacted ever aired on television), whom I mentioned in an earlier post. I don't quite remember how she was written out, though.

No, I am not proud of the fact that I typed all of that off of the top of my head.

One thing I loved was how the cast list read at the end of the show. The main 6 characters were under a heading "DANGEROUS WOMEN," and then the primary 6 male characters were under a heading "THE MEN IN THEIR LIVES." That? Was so cheesily overwrought that it was awesome.

lol, it's funny i stumbled onto this post through a google search

when i come to twop, i usually only post in the 24 forum

i too used to watch this show and have been looking for it for a while, i know somebody has this, i can't even find the usual bootleg dvd's from overseas...

would be great to add this to my collection

later.

I've also been looking for copies of the show... all I have are the last two episodes on a VHS buried someplace here...

twotrey, I'm absolutely amazed by your DW knowledge. And you should be proud. Very proud!

I always felt so sorry for Cissie. It seemed she was always breaking up fights (usually ones started by my girlfriend, Rita) and being worried about Patricia. Even though this show's run was short, Cissie was definitely long-suffering.

...and of course the moment she starts to have happiness, starting a flirtation with that agent/P.I./whatever guy who knew Patricia's true identity, the show ends. I felt really bad for Cissie as well. Her family never forgave her for the euthanasia of her husband that landed her in the clink, and she was always keeping Rita and Patricia in line. I always loved how whenever she'd get especially pissed at Patricia she'd call her Faith. I always liked their relationship. I still vividly remember the scene early in the run when Patricia told Cissie who she really was--this was right after Rita escaped and Cissie gave her a job at the inn, and of course Patricia was completely pissed and told Cissie that she didn't want "that woman" around. And when pressed for an explanation, a teary Patricia, back to Cissie, said something like "You were the only one to ever see past the scars..." Given how dreadful the acting was on this show a lot of the time as a whole, Valerie Wildman, Lynn Hamilton, and Katherine Justice were always bringing their A-game. That one storyline in which Ben Cronin was released from prison due to "lack of evidence" for Faith's "murder" and Patricia had to assume Faith's identity once more was an especially good Wildman showcase, as her performance in the "Faith mask" really felt like a separate person from Patricia.

Remembering all these little bits, I'm reminded how fast-paced this show was and thus how it fit in a *lot* in its 52 episodes...

My cousin wants this show on DVD so badly that's she's taken to Googling "Dangerous Women" every few weeks. She never finds what she's looking for although she does find a lot of things she's not looking for.

OMG I totally watched this show that summer...my best friend and I were entranced by it, we were only 13. How many episodes were there? How long into it did Faith buy the house? I don't even remember the house, or maybe it's just been too long. I feel as though it was taken off before all the episodes aired?

There were 52 episodes, all of which were aired--it's just that it ended without any sort of resolution. Faith/Patricia bought the inn in week two I believe--which would be episode 3 or 4, around there. I just remember that being one of the early plot developments.

It is funny, that just glancing through this forum I found people discussing this show. I barely remember, but a few things about it, such as the multiple identity thing. I was I dont know 8 or 12 or maybe even 6 when i saw it. I was never into daytime soaps but the subconscious memory of this show, earlier behavior definitely leads to my eventual weekly Melrose Place watching. I remember watching lots of TV, Nick at Nite, the classics, Golden Girls with my mom, and straight brother and sister, and sometimes dad. I recall now, though its a distant memory, something on that show that I've seen later in Melrose Place. Someone going into someone else's apartment and finding a secret diary, was it???

I believe what you may be remembering is Joe's busybody ex-wife Karen trying to find dirt on Patricia and stumbling upon her falsified birth certificates and all that.

The first minutes of the pilot episode. My God, Kelli Van Londersele's acting is even worse than I remembered... but Katherine Justice is still the shit, and Maria Rangel is every bit as gorgeous as I recalled. Damn MyNetworkTV's new direction, as this would be a great series to revive/remake/revamp into a novela format.

Also: the infamously cheesy opening titles!

Oh. My. God. I thought I was the only person on the planet who remembered this show. I think I even have a tape laying around somewhere? I was 14, living in Brooklyn NY when it aired and my sister (12) and I were in love with its camp and sleaziness. I remember we both hated Holly and even though I guess we were supposed to feel bad for her, we just wanted more bad things to happen to her. And the acting was awful.

Yeah, Holly was a complete loser, not to mention a bore. I remember when she was able to exact some revenge on Fisher for raping her and other abuses, I was rooting for Fisher. Even when she was suspected of being the serial killer at the end of the series, she was dull (and then, of course, she turned out to not be the killer after all).