11 replies to this topic

[WhitneyWhit]

I hope it's okay to start this, I searched and didn't find a topic.

Did anyone ever watch this? I didn't catch it's first run back in 95-96 but a website I stumbled across about 10 years ago had every episode and I loved it. I actually thought it was better than Melrose Place and always thought if it had been on FOX instead of CBS it may have had a chance at lasting longer.

[vb68]

I watched the first season with Mariel Hemingway with it first aired. I agree it didn't seem like a CBS show.

[Black Knight]

There was a second season?

I know I watched the first season, but I remember virtually nothing about it at this point, except that it made the same mistake that the Melrose Place reboot did, that of having the lead male be totally bland and uninteresting and really so pathetic that he just drags down the women fighting over him. In this show's case, you had Madchen Amick and Mariel Hemingway turning themselves inside out for whatsisname the struggling pathetic writer, like in MP's case they had Katie Cassidy's Ella being crazy for Jonah the struggling pathetic director (at least on that show, the other woman involved was pretty bland herself).

I do remember Amick's character telling him near the end that she had never actually read his Great American Novel, which semi-redeemed things since it meant that all her gushing over his amaaaaazing talent was just so much bullshit.

[Knots Landing]

Central Park West was largely well cast and well written in that first season. I LOVED Kylie Travis being added to the cast and really think the only thing they needed to remove was Mariel Hemingway. The reboot was terrible, poorly written and styled and poorly cast. I HATED the lack of Michael Michele, why keep her on and never use her? They also neglected Kylie Travis and did a poor job writing for Amick. The replacement characters (including Rachel Welch) were terrible.

Such a shame such a good show was on the wrong network because I agree it could've outdone Melrose Place.

[jetty]

I never bought Mariel as a high-powered editor of a Vanity Fair type magazine. If her character had been a little more edgy, that would have helped. Madchen Amick was really the only fun thing on the show.

I enjoyed Raquel when she came on, but her character was a poor Alexis clone who got a good zinger every now and then, but without much real purpose.

[SloanRanger]

I saw some of it on a set of old VHS tapes my sister had. And all I can say is...

John Barrowman was very, very yummy.

[vb68]

He was a good guy in this, right? I think it was more sinister in Titans, but I could be confusing the two parts.

[WhitneyWhit]

He was a good guy in this, right? I think it was more sinister in Titans, but I could be confusing the two parts.

For the most part he was a good guy. He ended up trapped in a marriage to a psycopath who faked a pregnancy complete with faked miscarriage and during a fight she fell on a knfe and died. He then dumped her body in the river and went on the run with the help of his step-father.

He was definitely more evil on Titans. Interesting though, both characters were named Peter.

[TudorQueen]

I always thought that on CPW he was meant to be John F Kennedy Jr. He really looked a lot like him and had that whole 'golden boy in a tragic family' thing going.

[vb68]

I always thought that on CPW he was meant to be John F Kennedy Jr.

Yes! I remember thinking that as well. IIRC there was some press at the time about the show to support that as well.

[TimWil]

Black Knight, it was technically one season but it felt a bit like two seasons because it was yanked off-air for at least a few months to be re-tooled and then returned with Raquel Welch and Gerald McRaney added and Mariel Hemingway and Tom Verica subtracted..

Edited by TimWil, Jun 17, 2011 @ 11:46 PM.

[twotrey]

Actually, Tom Verica was around when the show resurfaced as CPW and a huge gap of episodes was skipped over; the entire exit storyline for Hemingway never aired in the U.S. However, Verica's character (and Melissa Errico's, for that matter) were turned into raging psychos in the retooled version. Errico was killed a few episodes in (with John Barrowman's character being written out not long after, running away to avoid a possible murder rap), but Verica lasted until the very last episode; he was stalking Madchen Amick's character, and their last scene had him shot in a struggle with her. One thing I give Darren Star credit for with this show (which I found underrated on the whole, I must say--both versions of it) was that it brought all of its storylines to a fair amount of resolution in the end with some dangling threads/seeds that could be picked up for future exploration should the longshot renewal have happened.