(Power Rankings sum up: Each week, we’ll pick a television show and rank the actors/actresses/contestants/correspondents/etc. based on what they’ve done after the series ended (unless we’re ranking a current series, in which case we’ll have to bend the rules). Preference will be given to more recent work, but if the work was a long time ago, but much more important/relevant, that will be factored in as well)
The Practice was one of a handful of shows I watched regularly with my parents, up until the last couple seasons when I was at college. I have a lot of fond memories of watching it, which maybe I’ll share later in another post. Today though, power rankings. James Spader and Rhona Mitra starred in the weird last season when much of the regular cast was dismissed, but they’re not here; that season was not much more than a set up for spin off Boston Legal.
8. Lara Flynn Boyle (as Helen Gamble) – She appeared in five episodes of Hank Azaria series Huff and in eight of NBC’s can’t-believe-it-was-on-as-long-as-it-was Las Vegas. She was in a couple of TV movies and in Law & Order episode Submission in which she plays a devious reporter.
7. Michael Badalucco (as Jimmy Berluti) – He’s been in episodes of Joan of Arcadia, Justice, Bones, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Monk, Cold Case, In Plain Sight and Private Practice. He was in two Boardwalk Empires, three of short-lived 2011 series Chaos, and eight of soap The Young and the Restless. He had small roles in films Bewitched and The Departed.
6. Marla Sokoloff (as Lucy Hatcher) – She was in three episodes of Desperate Housewives and co-starred in very short-lived CW show Modern Men in 2006. Sokoloff starred as the bride in 12 episode ABC show Big Day, a sitcom which takes place entirely on the day of a wedding. She showed up in episodes of Burn Notice, Drop Dead Diva and CSI:New York.
5. Steve Harris (as Eugene Young) – After The Practice, Harris appeared in Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman and co-starred in short-lived NBC series Heist about well, a crack team planning a massive jewelry store heist, starring Dougray Scott. He appeared in a Grey’s Anatomy and as the voice of Clayface in 11 episodes of animated series The Batman. He was in film Quarentine and three episodes of Eli Stone and in six in the last two seasons of Friday Night Lights as main character Jess’s father who owned a barbecue joint and played high school football growing up. He was in Takers and will be a regular cast member of midseason series Awake set to debut next winter starring Jason Issacs. He’s also the older brother of Wood Harris, best know as Avon Barksdale from The Wire.
4. Lisa Gay Hamilton (as Rebecca Washington) – She was in episodes of The L Word, ER, Without a Trace, Numb3rs, and two of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She appeared in films Deception, Beastly, The Soloist and Take Shelter. She was a regular on two season critically acclaimed TNT show Men of a Certain Age as Andre Braugher’s character’s wife, Melissa.
3. Kelli Williams (as Lindsay Dole) – She appeared on three episodes of Rob Lowe one season The Lyon’s Den and one of Hack and Third Watch each before co-starring in one season NBC drama Medical Investigation. She was in six episodes of ABC’s two season Men in Trees. She was in episodes of Law & Order; Criminal Intent, Criminal Minds and The Mentalist and she co-starred in all three seasons of Tim Roth Fox procedural Lie To Me.
2. Camryn Manheim (as Ellenor Frutt) – Manheim gets to be in the second position because she had a regular role on a non-Practice television show for longer than anyone else. She was on a season longer than Williams in Lie to Me, and although I was tempted to rate that as better than Manheim’s show, Lie to Me suffered low ratings constantly even though Fox pushed it heavily its first year. Manheim was in episodes of Strong Medicine and Two and a Half Men and four of The L Word. She played Elvis’s mother Gladys in 2005 miniseries Elvis and she appeared in a How I Met Your Mother episode (as a woman who runs a company which matches up people with a computer program) and in two of Hannah Montana. She was a regular in the last four seasons of the five season – can’t-believe-it-went-on-as-long-as-it-did Ghost Whisperer. After that program ended in 2010, she appeared in three episodes of Harry’s Law.
1. Dylan McDermott (as Bobby Donnell) – McDermott gets first because while Manheim had a more stable role on a TV show, McDermott has always been the main star of every show he’s been in, and though it will probably not last as long, the show he’s on now has already generated more buzz in 3 episodes than Ghost Whisperer did in its entire run. Immediately after The Practice’s end, McDermott co-starred in TNT miniseries The Grid (my favorite all-time ridiculous T-shirt is a The Grid shirt my dad came upon somehow). He appeared in a few minor movies and an unaired pilot called 3lbs, which aired for a mere three episodes, but featured Stanley Tucci in McDermott’s role. He got his next shot on TV in Big Shots in the 2007-08 season which aired on ABC for 11 episodes and co-starred Michael Vartan, Joshua Molina and Christopher Titus. He appeared for two seasons in TNT’s Dark Blue as the leader of an undercover unit of the LA police and now stars in FX’s American Horror Story as part of a family stuck in a haunted house in Los Angeles.
Television, the Drug of the Nation 
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