Published Mar 16, 2026, 4:34 PM EDT
George R.R. Martin is best known for his sprawling Game of Thrones franchise, including the book series, the HBO adaptation to follow, and all the material that has come adjacent to it. But before Martin was synonymous with high fantasy, he was a writer on a 1987 CBS prime-time series called Beauty and the Beast. The series starred Ron Perlman (Hellboy) and Linda Hamilton (The Terminator) as Vincent and Catherine. Some millennials may remember the CW reboot starring Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan. The fantasy drama series aired for three seasons, based not on the Disney movie (as that would not even come out until a year after the series concluded) but instead looking closer at the French source material, the fairy tale La Belle et la Bête by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve.
During a panel at Awesome Con moderated by Collider's Maggie Lovitt, Perlman looked back on his career, kicking things off with his experience on the CBS show. Perlman remembered it with fondness, saying, "I love that show and the variety of writers we had in that room." The series, though created by Ron Koslow, also featured Martin as a regular writer. As for working with Martin before he was the famed father of one of television's biggest fantasy franchises, Perlman told the audience:
"Ron Koslow was like Miles Davis but George R.R. Martin was John Coltrane. Like dropping acid every day. And when you get a George R.R. Martin script you go 'Oh fuck this is gonna be fun, man.'"
George RR Martin Was Responsible for One of 'Beauty and the Beast's Most Iconic Episodes
Early on in the series, the Season 1 episode "Masques" was written by Martin and took the series out of the formula it had been building, where Vincent must remain in the shadows, helping Catherine covertly. Like any good prime-time drama from that era, the series had a Halloween episode, and "Masques" was it. Perlman explains the episode was pivotal for Vincent's character:
"He's the one that wrote the Halloween episode and the Beast gets to just walk freely. It's the biggest dream of his life to be a free man in New York City. And this Halloween episode was the one time in this history of the whole show where Vincent just walked among us."
Perlman explains that for the show as a whole, there had "never been an Elizabethan character who lived in the tunnels in this Jonathan Swiftian weird world." He continues, saying: "Nothing had ever existed like that in prime-time television; there was nothing to compare it to." While Perlman says the show never achieved "behemoth" success as it was airing, the fans are "serious" about the show, which clearly shows from the applause received during the panel and the fact that the series is still talked about nearly 40 years later.
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Release Date 1987 - 1990-00-00
Writers Ron Koslow, J. Larry Carroll, M.M. Shelly Moore
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Ignatius Wolfington
Catherine Chandler
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English (US) ·