Beast Ends Season, But is the Show Over as Well?
The Beast
The Beast's season finale airs Thursday (10 pm/ET, A&E,), but whether it's also the series finale of the Patrick Swayze drama remains to be seen.
Nothing has been decided about the fate of the show, in which Swayze plays an undercover FBI agent, a series rep says. Any decision, of course, relies on the more important fate of the show's star, who has battled pancreatic cancer since early last year.
"As has been the case from day one, it is all about Patrick — in a lot of ways," A&E President Bob DeBitetto recently told the Associated Press. "It is about his condition, and when and whether he would be up for another grueling production schedule.
Swayze learned soon after the show's pilot was shot that he had the disease. But he was determined to shoot the first season, despite the physical demands of the role. Co-star Travis Fimmel told TVGuide.com in January: "He's such a man. The sickest thing about him on-set is probably his jokes."
Since them, paparazzi have captured images of the actor looking thin and tired. But his Ghost co-star, Whoopi Goldberg, recently told Us that the actor is still "busy as hell."
"He's kicking butt," she said. "And, you know, he's sick. And he, like the rest of us, doesn't know when it's going to happen — because it will happen, that he is going to go — but he doesn't know when or where."
"His attitude is, why wait for it to happen? So he's busy as hell."
