At number 5 on My top ten pet hates on Fame is season 6.
It's a little difficult to be totally objective about this because I didn't get to see season 6 until a few years after it was made so I was no longer a teenager who's whole life was centred around the show. Also I didn't have to wait a week in between episodes and have that time to re-watch and savour what had happened a I watched these back to back.
However, all that said I think the other 5 seasons hold up pretty well but season 6 has very little to offer me. I'm sure most of the things that I find annoying or don't like would still be the same even if I'd seen these episodesin the same way I watched the first 4 years.
At the start of the season we've lost Sherwood, Kate and Dwight from the previous season and we get quite a few new cast members. Those first few episodes it's like we get a newcomer a week. So there's little time to get to know these people before someone new arrives. Reggie has been given a totally different personality too so she also seems like a new cast member.
Having new cast members isn't necessarily a bad thing but there seems very little that is new and unique about these new characters. Compare Gillian to Doris or Coco and she seems totally boring. Paul seems to be a copy of David and Ian is a replacement for Bruno. Ian is probably the most interesting of the characters but I struggle to like him because he's fake British accent is so bad. I read that Michael Cerveris did have voice lessons but from my point of view it still seems like a dreadful accent that at moment he'll start saying "Hello Mary Poppins" and that totally undermines the character and the show.
As the season progresses we lose Nicole which was the last straw for me and Maxie joins but again there is nothing special about Maxie. These new characters are simply just okay with Nia gone and Debbie's role greatly reduced in the early part of the season (as she was starring on Broadway at the time in "Sweet charity") there doesn't seem to be a strong leading lady in sight and the show suffers greatly for this. Up until now we'd always had strong female characters and they were some of my favourite things about the show but now sadly they are all gone or not on screen.
Also I really don't find any of these new cast members are particularly strong singers, Carrie can sometimes pull off a good song but other times she sounds dreadful. I simply don't like Elisa and Michael's singing voices. There seems to be a reduction in the number of songs compared to the last couple of seasons and the few we do have are either poor quality or poorly sung. There are no classics here, no "starmaker", no "life is a celebration" nothing and what we do have pretty much leaves me cold.
Not content with concentrating on all the new cast members, Dick Miller becomes a regular which I don't think works and isn't needed. Lou is a small part and there's no real time to expand upon it. They also add Laura and Miltie gets to do more than most of the actual cast members. To me there are way too many people and not enough time to develop them properly as well as serving the existing long serving characters too.
I feel the school itself was a main part of the show and a key element was how the Kids coped with academics as well as there chosen performing Arts subjects. With the loss of Sherwood this element seems to be lost and with 2 characters that aren't actually part of the school there are episodes were it seems the school and the hard work that goes into being a performer barely features.
Having Chris graduate and seeing life from outside the school is a nice idea but reasons for him to be involved in some of the stories seem a little contrived. However at the same time if we can see Chris it makes me question why we don't see the other characters that have left the school. I mean where's Doris wouldn't she have kept in touch with at least Danny and Leroy wouldn't she have still hung out at Lou's Lanes? Wouldn't also have wanted to perform there as a way of getting work? And why is Danny still in School?
To me the show is just a shadow of it's former glory and some episodes I struggled to watch. To this day I haven't seen all of "Love Kitten's go to High School" and "Ian's girl", the previews put me off completely and I just found the subjects irritating. Things pick up a little as we come to the end of the season with "Alice doesn't work here Anymore" and "Of Cabbages and Kings" but it seems too little too late for me.
Personally I would have ended things at the end of season 5 because season 6 has very little that interests, intrigues or inspires me. Boring characters, boring stories, substandard songs and poor singing, that's not what Fame should be about.
It's a little difficult to be totally objective about this because I didn't get to see season 6 until a few years after it was made so I was no longer a teenager who's whole life was centred around the show. Also I didn't have to wait a week in between episodes and have that time to re-watch and savour what had happened a I watched these back to back.
However, all that said I think the other 5 seasons hold up pretty well but season 6 has very little to offer me. I'm sure most of the things that I find annoying or don't like would still be the same even if I'd seen these episodesin the same way I watched the first 4 years.
At the start of the season we've lost Sherwood, Kate and Dwight from the previous season and we get quite a few new cast members. Those first few episodes it's like we get a newcomer a week. So there's little time to get to know these people before someone new arrives. Reggie has been given a totally different personality too so she also seems like a new cast member.
Having new cast members isn't necessarily a bad thing but there seems very little that is new and unique about these new characters. Compare Gillian to Doris or Coco and she seems totally boring. Paul seems to be a copy of David and Ian is a replacement for Bruno. Ian is probably the most interesting of the characters but I struggle to like him because he's fake British accent is so bad. I read that Michael Cerveris did have voice lessons but from my point of view it still seems like a dreadful accent that at moment he'll start saying "Hello Mary Poppins" and that totally undermines the character and the show.
As the season progresses we lose Nicole which was the last straw for me and Maxie joins but again there is nothing special about Maxie. These new characters are simply just okay with Nia gone and Debbie's role greatly reduced in the early part of the season (as she was starring on Broadway at the time in "Sweet charity") there doesn't seem to be a strong leading lady in sight and the show suffers greatly for this. Up until now we'd always had strong female characters and they were some of my favourite things about the show but now sadly they are all gone or not on screen.
Also I really don't find any of these new cast members are particularly strong singers, Carrie can sometimes pull off a good song but other times she sounds dreadful. I simply don't like Elisa and Michael's singing voices. There seems to be a reduction in the number of songs compared to the last couple of seasons and the few we do have are either poor quality or poorly sung. There are no classics here, no "starmaker", no "life is a celebration" nothing and what we do have pretty much leaves me cold.
Not content with concentrating on all the new cast members, Dick Miller becomes a regular which I don't think works and isn't needed. Lou is a small part and there's no real time to expand upon it. They also add Laura and Miltie gets to do more than most of the actual cast members. To me there are way too many people and not enough time to develop them properly as well as serving the existing long serving characters too.
I feel the school itself was a main part of the show and a key element was how the Kids coped with academics as well as there chosen performing Arts subjects. With the loss of Sherwood this element seems to be lost and with 2 characters that aren't actually part of the school there are episodes were it seems the school and the hard work that goes into being a performer barely features.
Having Chris graduate and seeing life from outside the school is a nice idea but reasons for him to be involved in some of the stories seem a little contrived. However at the same time if we can see Chris it makes me question why we don't see the other characters that have left the school. I mean where's Doris wouldn't she have kept in touch with at least Danny and Leroy wouldn't she have still hung out at Lou's Lanes? Wouldn't also have wanted to perform there as a way of getting work? And why is Danny still in School?
To me the show is just a shadow of it's former glory and some episodes I struggled to watch. To this day I haven't seen all of "Love Kitten's go to High School" and "Ian's girl", the previews put me off completely and I just found the subjects irritating. Things pick up a little as we come to the end of the season with "Alice doesn't work here Anymore" and "Of Cabbages and Kings" but it seems too little too late for me.
Personally I would have ended things at the end of season 5 because season 6 has very little that interests, intrigues or inspires me. Boring characters, boring stories, substandard songs and poor singing, that's not what Fame should be about.
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