Season Two Overview
Also Michael Thoma, who guest starred as drama teacher Greg Crandall, was now too ill to continue working on the show. He later died from cancer in September 1982. During the initial episodes of the season the character was referred to but never seen. Then in the December 12th episode "A Tough Act To Follow" the character was killed off having suffered from a heart attack and the episode served as a tribute to Michael.
Morgan Stevens joined the cast from the start of the season as David Reardon, who was also a drama teacher. It seemed strange that the previous season had ended with an episode about reducing the teaching staff only for the school to increase it's staff at the start of this season. Although it was referred to that Reardon was new we never saw his arrival on screen.
David Greenlee also joined the show as semi regular Dwight Mandenhall. It was never made clear if Dwight was actually a new student at the school or just someone who been there but never seen by the audience before.
A number of changes had taken place between Season One and Season Two; most notably the departure of PR Paul, who played Montgomery. U.K. press stated that PR had decided to leave to do other projects as he didn't want to become type cast. However Michael Hoey's "Behind the Scenes" book indicates that PR was let go from the series, as the producers felt his vocal talents were minimal and he was over shadowed by the other cast. Whatever the truth no reason was given on screen for Montgomery's absence. He was referred to in the episode "Relationships" but only in terms of he was Julie's first friend when she came to the school.
The 22 episodes of "Fame" Season Two went into production at MGM studios in Culver City, California in July 1982 and premiered on NBC on Thursday 30th September 1982 at 8.00pm. The cast flew to New York for a weeks location shooting for scenes for the first few episodes and then returned to soundstages 26 and the newly acquired 28 to continue shooting. The new soundstage became the home of the new Auditorium set that was required to cut down the costs of having to use theatres on location.
Much was made in the U.S. publicity that the show had won 5 Emmys in order to boost the show's profile and to improve ratings. At the start of production the first season had only been airing for a few weeks in the U.K. so the cast and crew were still pretty unaware of how popular the show was becoming on the other side of the Atlantic.
A number of the dancers including Bronwyn Thomas, Stephanie Williams and Michael Delorenzo were also given increased roles on the show too.
NBC had decided a good way to increase viewing figures was to have a large number of guests stars appear on the show, including Glynn Turman, Jimmy Osmond and Marge Champion. To me it certainly felt that at times the guest stars were taking over. In my opinion this hurt the show more than helped it as it felt people were being brought in for the sake of it. One example was with Brenda Vaccaro, who appeared in the episode "Blood, Sweat and Circuits" as herself to talk to the kids about being a performer. This added nothing to the plot of that episode and to me took up valuable air time. The increased guest activity meant that some of the cast were very underused this season, particularly Lori Singer as Julie.
By the end of 1982 the popularity of the first season and the record releases in the U.K. meant that the Holiday break in December saw the cast flying to Britain for a series of live concerts. The cast were in the U.K. from December 26th 1982 to January 2nd 1983 and then had to be back on set for January 4th to recommence filming, which continued through until March 4th 1983. After a brief break the cast then flew back to the U.K. at the end of March for a second concert tour, which also visited Netherlands and Israel. A special additional episode, presented by George Burns, was aired in the U.S. following the cast's preparations for the first U.K. tour and this was the highest U.S. rated episode of the season.
Season 2 was very Lydia, Doris and Bruno heavy, while Erica Gimpel was missing from a number of episodes as she wanted to do some studying. Lee Curreri worked particularly hard not only appearing in all but one of the episodes but also writing songs and musical interludes as well as writing the episode "Blood, Sweat and Circuits." Judy Farrell, who guest starred on the show as Julie's mother wrote an episode as did Albert Hague's wife Renee Orin. Rumour had it that both Lori and Erica were also working on episodes but neither made it to the screen.
"Fame" executive producer William Blinn, admits in Michael Hoey's book that the writers were feeling burnt out as the end of the season approached. Someone spotted "A Wizard of Oz" poster and made a suggestion that they do an "Oz" episode to help meet the episode quota.
The second season began airing on BBC TV in the U.K. from 21st April 1983 through to 21st September and rumours started to fly that the show had been cancelled in America as ratings failed to increase. The situation was that NBC had decided not to renew the show for the 1983/1984 TV season and as the last episode of the season finished production the cast and crew were unsure if they would be back. As the cast toured Europe, The BBC, along with an Italian TV company started talks with MGM to find a way to continue the series for a third season. Eventually a deal was done and the BBC ordered two more seasons and the show went into first run syndication on American TV. Ironically by the time the deal was agreed the rating for the second season had begun to fall in the U.K. and the record sales also started to dry up as the shows popularity waned. Thankfully the money had already exchanged hands and new episodes were planned.
For me the problems with season 2 stemmed from the episode content. The writers and produces seemed to fail to understand what grabbed the audiences. Certainly in the U.K. we loved the energy and excitement and the belief that we could make dreams come true. However in season two that energy fades a little, as episodes are taken over by the recurring storyline of death. Some of these episodes are very good drama but too many stories revolve around a chararcter dealing with someone dying and that feel good ending is missing. By all means have some of these stories but spread them across the seasons a little. Also, virtually all the kids experience some kind of self dount during this season. Yes it makes for drama and is realistic but again these stories needed to be spread across the seasons because it comes across as too much doom and gloom. This along with a dip in the quality of the music had audiences turning off.
The Season 2 opening credits:
