AllMovie

The original movie and TV-series versions of Fame were fictionalized accounts of life in a professional training school, patterned after New York's High School of the Performing Arts. Debbie Allen starred in both the film and series as the school's demanding but compassionate dance teacher, Lydia Grant. Although Allen was still on hand for NBC's 2003 revival of Fame, the new series bore little resemblance to its predecessors. In place of a weekly drama with actors pretending to be students, this incarnation of Fame was a reality series in which 24 show-business hopefuls, age 16 and up, were trained and groomed for a grand prize as bestowed by a panel of celebrity judges. Allen's mission was to train these aspirants in singing and dancing: "My job is to take them apart and put them back together." During the series' ten weeks, the original 24 semifinalists were narrowed down to a single winner, ostensibly a star of the future. Hosted by *NSYNC's Joey Fatone, the "reality" version of Fame premiered on May 28, 2003.