Byrds of Paradise

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Byrds of Paradise
Format	Drama
Created by	Charles H. Eglee
Starring	Timothy Busfield Seth Green Jennifer Love Hewitt Ryan O'Donohue Arlo Guthrie Elizabeth Lindsey Bruce Weitz
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	13 (1 unaired)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Charles H. Eglee
Running time	60 min.
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	March 3, 1994 – June 23, 1994
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Byrds of Paradise is an American television series that ran during the 1993-94 season on the ABC television network.

The show was an hour-long drama centering on a father and his three children, abruptly relocated to Hawaii from New Haven after the sudden death of the children's mother. Much of the show dealt with the titular Byrd family adjusting to their lives in an entirely new environment as they recovered from their loss, similar to the premise of the later Everwood.

Filmed on location in the state of Hawaii, Byrds of Paradise was unique in the inclusion of the local culture of Hawaii in the lives of the originally mainland Byrd family, rather than their maintaining a lifestyle nearly indistinguishable from that on the mainland with Hawaii's tropical scenery serving primarily as an attractive background.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Sam Byrd, the family's father, accepts a headmaster's position at a private school in Hawaii, which his children attend along with local students. All of the Byrds interact with local characters, some of whom speak pidgin (performed with varying degrees of authenticity) and reflect a far more realistic portrait of Hawaii's culture than usually shown in film and television depictions of Hawaii. This tendency includes the romantic interests of the Byrds, who are local characters (played by local actors) rather than mainland transplants. Topics such as teenage pregnancy and underage drinking featured as usually presented in a television show with teens as central characters.

One of the more distinctive aspects of the Byrds of Paradise was the role of Dr. Murray Rubinstein, an unpretentious beachside psychiatrist. Originally doctor to Franny, the temperamental middle child who is the most obviously traumatized by her mother's death, Murray eventually treats Sam, the children's father, also suffering from the loss of his wife. A voice of reason who counsels his patients with an unconventional bedside manner, the doctor makes significant progress with Franny and Sam.

Again in a more realistic rather than idealized representation of Hawaii, a tsunami strikes mid-season, threatening the lives of several characters. The doctor's residence is destroyed, prompting him to continue his practice on chairs in the sand while he is rebuilding his house.

While the finished episodes were not aired in their entirety on the mainland, one of the sole season's last episodes, entitled Twelfth Night o' Whatevah, featuring a school production of Shakespeare presented entirely in pidgin, was aired in Hawaii.

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Timothy Busfield	Sam Byrd
Seth Green	Harry Byrd
Jennifer Love Hewitt	Franny Byrd
Ryan O'Donohue	Zeke Byrd
Arlo Guthrie	Alan Moon
Elizabeth Lindsey	Healani Douglas
Bruce Weitz	Dr. Murray Rubinstein

[edit] References

This article does not cite any references or sources. (November 2006)
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