The other night I was trying to find something to watch on Friendly but there wasn’t anything on. Then I ended up on Tubi and found Beautiful People but then it ended and after googling the show I found out it was on the Roku Channel. After downloading the app I settled in to watch the show and I am glad I did.
One of the things I love about going back and watching older television shows is discovering something I didn’t know the first time around. Sometimes it’s a familiar face and for me that was the mom in the show. An actor who went on to become much more famous. And sometimes it’s finding out that one of the actors or actresses was in one of our favorite shows and somehow you completely missed it. That happened to me while watching Beautiful People.
Let’s start with the person whose face looked familiar but I couldn’t figure out why. Daphne Zuniga plays Lynn Kerr, the mother of the family. And if you watched television back when I did, you may recognize her for a completely different reason. She was Jo Reynolds on Melrose Place. Which I can’t wait to go back and rewatch to see her on it.
Melrose Place was one of those shows I watched during the same era when I was watching Beverly Hills, 90210. I was a single mom watching those teen dramas, and Melrose Place was the more grown-up version of that television world. So seeing Daphne Zuniga in Beautiful People immediately brought back that connection for me.
But Lynn Kerr is a completely different kind of character. She’s a mother who has packed up her life and moved her daughters to New York from New Mexico after her marriage falls apart. She’s trying to start over while raising two daughters who are entering very different stages of their lives. And I think Daphne Zuniga makes that transition believable. She’s not just playing “Mom.” She’s playing a woman who is trying to figure out who she is now.
Then we have Karen Kerr, played by Torrey DeVitto. Karen is the older daughter, and she’s determined to become a model. She was my favorite character in the show. I knew the actress looked familiar, but here’s where I have to admit something: I did not watch Pretty Little Liars. I didn’t watch The Vampire Diaries either. And I didn’t watch Chicago Med.
So when I read about the other shows Torrey DeVitto became known for, I didn’t have that same immediate connection other viewers might have. But that’s actually one of the fun things about researching an older show. You get to see where people started before they became known for something else. For me, Torrey DeVitto is Karen Kerr first. And watching her in Beautiful People makes me curious about how her career developed afterward.
And Then I Found Out About Gilmore Girls! Now this one made me stop. Sarah Foret plays Sophie Kerr, the younger daughter. And when I started looking up the cast, I discovered that she had appeared on ** Gilmore Girls **. Okay. Now the question is. How did I not know this? Anybody who knows me knows that Gilmore Girls is one of my favorite shows.
I watched Gilmore Girls. I know Stars Hollow. I know Lorelai and Rory. I know that feeling of finding a show you can come back to again and again. And somehow I never knew that Sarah Foret had been on it. That was probably my favorite discovery while putting this post together. It also makes me want to go back and find her Gilmore Girls appearance just to see if I recognize her. Because that’s one of the best parts of watching older television — discovering these little connections years later.
Sarah Foret also appeared in shows including CSI: NY, Moonlight, The Mentalist, and Criminal Minds. Now, I have to be honest about those too. I didn’t watch CSI: NY. CSI was actually one of my father-in-law’s favorite shows, which is part of the reason I never really watched it myself. I didn’t watch Moonlight. I didn’t watch The Mentalist. But ** Criminal Minds?** That’s one I do watch.
So that gave me another little connection when I was looking through her credits. It may not be the same experience as recognizing somebody from one of the huge teen dramas of the 2000s, but for me, that’s exactly what makes looking up the cast interesting. We’re all going to recognize different people for different reasons.
The cast of Beautiful People isn’t interesting to me simply because some of the actors went on to bigger shows. It’s interesting because of the connections I can make looking backward. Daphne Zuniga takes me straight back to Melrose Place. Torrey DeVitto reminds me that actors can have careers that stretch far beyond the show where I first discover them — even if I didn’t actually watch those later shows.
Sarah Foret gave me the biggest surprise of all when I discovered her Gilmore Girls connection. And then there’s Criminal Minds, which gave me another show I actually know. That’s the fun of revisiting television from another time. We’re not watching these actors with the same eyes we would have had when the show originally aired.
We’re looking backward. We’re connecting the dots. We’re realizing that the person we know from one show may have been quietly appearing in another show years earlier. And sometimes we discover something that makes us say: “Wait a minute. She was on Gilmore Girls?!” Yes. That was me.
And now I have to go find that episode. Because apparently even after all these years, Gilmore Girls still manages to sneak its way into my television conversations. And honestly? I’m perfectly okay with that. Have you watched Beautiful People? Did you recognize any of the actors from another show, or did you discover a connection you didn’t know about? Because now I’m curious how many other Beautiful People surprises are hiding in this cast.
Grateful. Thankful. Blessed.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates