If you are living a life that is beautiful, things just have a way of working out. That's where we find a little family as this series begins.
The Kerrs - Mom, Lynne (Daphne Zuniga, veteran of "Melrose Place") her brainiac younger daughter Sophie (Sarah Foret), and Sophie's lovely and popular eighteen year old sister Karen (Torrey DeVitto) were residing in a small town in New Mexico, when they ran into a problem. Dad decided to ditch his marriage and parental responsibilities to run off with Karen's bestie, leaving the three women to figure out what to do now that they're on their own.
Let me state that a different way: the father of this family abandoned them for his teenage daughter's best friend. That's devastating in several different ways all at once, but hey, let's not dwell on it.
In better news, Sophie got accepted for a scholarship to an elite school for gifted students in New York. These Kerrs needed to get out of town anyhow, but this meant that Karen suddenly had an opportunity to go to New York to pursue her dream of being a fashion model. And that also meant that Lynne could finally see if her long deferred dream of becoming a designer might come true in The Big Apple!
When you're three fish out of some backwater New Mexico town and are hitting the biggest spotlight in the nation, of course there are going to be problems. The first is finding work. I mean, sure, there's a decent alimony settlement, but it's New York in 2005. Both Lynne and Karen need to get jobs to cover their costs as they move toward their eventual fashion goals. And Karen, in her haste to get in good with the people who can help her, might be sliding into a lifestyle that isn't so healthy, like needing to diet to lose weight, and taking drugs to help. See also, 373's "The Agency" for source material from an actual Model house that inspired that storyline.
Let's not forget younger Sophie, who though she loved the concept of this school on paper, suddenly sees the shortcomings of the personalities involved, most especially her classmates and their parents, who were elitist snobs and disparaging bullies. Those ugly cretins are, in fact, the "Beautiful People" of the show's title! How's THAT for a twist?
New York played a part because it's the super wealthy of the school board making demands of their kids and not letting Sophie in on their Reindeer Games that provide drama. One of Sophie's classmates, we're told, is from the family that owns the Empire State Building! And the ever-present fashion world is always an appropriate backdrop for any series set in NYC. Plus that more sinister world of nightlife, parties, clubbing, with controlled substances aplenty, that "low road" that many end up traversing, is continually is a threat.
But lets remember that ABC Family was where you could watch, so those threats were mostly exactly that. Also, there were so many women in this series, it was a real boon for actresses at the time, quite a bit like "Gilmore Girls" which was concurrently running with this show.
In the end, "Beautiful People" was perhaps just a little too light on the drama and not as much fun as it could have been, as they tried to shoehorn the soap opera elements into the plots and make things about those snobs at the school. Maybe this would have worked better with more comedy, like "Gilmore" displayed, since there were far more moments where a lighthearted tone would have fit better?
Conversely, a show like this one might have helped inspire (or at least gotten network execs to greenlight) a different drama with many of the same themes, that being, "Gossip Girl."
