Power Rankings: Law & Order, Order edition, Part 1

12 Dec

(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)

We’re going to take on a major challenge this week in Power Rankings.  We’re raking just the actors (and actresses) who who have played detectives on the “order” section of Law & Order.  Because the show lasted 20 years, some cast members have had more time to build up their resumes since their tenure ended, so we’ll do our best to take that into consideration but it will still be admittedly unfair (ie. Jeremy Sisto is not expected to have done as much as Paul Sorvino to get the same rankings).  I’ll make note of what seasons every character was on.  Eventually, we’ll return with the attorneys.  Sadly, Jerry Orbach died shortly after he left the show, after he had just filmed a couple of episodes of short-lived spin off Law & Order: Trial By Jury.  He won’t be included formally, but will get a special shout out.  We begin.

11.  S. Epatha Merkerson (as Anita Van Buren, season 4-20) – She was in 391 episodes, more than any other cast member.  Unfortunately, since she was on until the end, she hasn’t done anything since the show’s finale.  It’s rough and kind of unfair, but hey, I don’t make the rules.  She’ll be in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln next year.

10.  Jessie L. Martin (as Ed Green, season 10-18) – He cameoed in A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa and he co-starred in NBC’s one season The Philanthropist, about a billionaire playboy who decides to devote his fortune to helping others.  He was in the Shakespeare in the Park Central Park productions of The Winter’s Tale and The Merchant of Venice in 2010.

9.  Anthony Anderson (as Kevin Bernard, season 18-20) – Just out of L&O, he was in Scream 4 and The Big Year and an episode of Shameless.  He’s lined up to be in Scary Movie 5.

8.  Milena Govich (as Nina Cassady, season 17) –  Govich portrayed the only female detective, and by far the most irritating detective in Law & Order’s 20 year run, and not because of her gender.  Cassady was in four episodes of K-Ville with fellow Law & Order detective Anthony Anderson and was in 16 episodes of Rescue Me as a con-woman and prostitute.  She was in one episode of Psych and Body of Proof and two of The Defenders.

7.  Paul Sorvino (as Phil Cerreta, season 2) – He spent the ‘90s with steady TV movie work, with the titles including A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Wicked Wives, Parallel Lives, The Art of the Cigar, Escape Clause, Houdini, The Championship Season, and best remembered by me, Joe Torre: Curveballs Along the Way, in which he played Joe Torre.  He was in movies Nixon, Romeo + Juliet, Money Talks, Most Wanted, and Bulworth.  For two seasons starting in 2000, he starred in CBS drama That’s Life alongside Ellen Burstyn.  He was in four episodes of Still Standing.  He’s been in The Cooler, Hey Arnold: The Movie, Mr. 3000, Repo! The Genetic Opera and a host of smaller projects including a TV movie with the fantastic name Mafia Doctor.

6. Jeremy Sisto (as Cyrus Lupo, season 18-20) – He’s basically only been done a year and in that time he’s hooked up with ABC surprise hit Suburgatory which has been picked up for a full season.  Sisto plays dad George Altman who moved his daughter from the city to the suburbs after finding condoms in her drawer.

5.  Dennis Farina (as Joe Fontana, season 15-16) – He was in What Happens in Vegas and in lesser known films The Grand, You Kill Me, Bottle Shock, and The Last Rites of Joe May.  He’s currently the host of Unsolved Mysteries on Lifetime and will be co-starring in Luck on HBO with Dustin Hoffman where he’ll play Hoffman’s character’s driver.

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Fall 2011 Review: Boss

10 Dec

Boss wastes no time in its pilot.  Its first scene is a doctor letting the titular “Boss,” Kelsey Grammer’s Tom Kane, current mayor of Chicago, know that he has a degenerative brain disease, which will slowly deteriorate his higher and then lower mental functions.  Eventually he will barely be able to function and will need full time care.  He takes the news, reminds the doctor that the report is confidential and moves on with his day.  He makes a speech on behalf of the current gorvernor, but we soon learn that even though he’s nothing but kind in person, he’s looking to unseat the governor with a young state treasurer.  He offers to put his support behind the treasurer in exchange for favors later.  A find of Indian artifacts in a graveyard throws off his big legacy project, an expansion to O’Hare and Kane engages in a variety of different hardcore old-style political maneuvering to get his airport expansion back on track.  This includes paying off the Indians with building contracts, tacking on an amendment to give him all decisions over the Indian artifacts to a necessary trash bill, and violently assaulting the alderman responsible for the contractor who discovered the Indian artifacts and talked about the discovery on TV.  The airport expansion seems like his most important legacy and he’s willing to do absolutely whatever it takes to get it done.  That of course entails telling no one about his medical condition and more than that having an associate of his associate violently threaten the doctor about not revealing any confidential information.

We see a little bit of his family as well.  His wife is seen at a school dressing down a contractor who was supposed to bring the schools up to some minimum condition.  It’s clear that she’s a veteran of playing old-school political games as well.  At home, it seems like things are strained between them but there’s obviously some respect.  We meet Kane’s daughter as well who has the strangest plot of the episode.  She is working as a medical clinic and after helping a young African-American and his uncle, tracks down the kid for some drugs which she then throws away.  Also, she appears to not be so close with her father; they talk briefly, but he doesn’t have her cell number.

There was also a gratuitous stairway sex scene between the state treasurer and Kane’s advisor that I don’t exactly understand the purpose for, but okay.

Overall, Boss used its first episode fairly wisely and ended up being a much more interesting pilot than I expected.  It helped us learn a fair amount about our main character, and enough to make some bigger guesses at character relationships while setting several plot strands into motion.  These strands seem likely to crash into one another at one point in the future.

Kane has the making of a fascinating character, struggling to do good both for himself but also for his city, while willing to cross many lines to do it.  Like Walter White in Breaking Bad, this is all complicated by a premise of a disease which is a ticking clock, limited his time to get things done.  The political arena is ripe for a character drama.  Kane is old school and hard and certainly no Jeb Bartlett from The West Wing, nor Tommy Carcetti from The Wire, though maybe he’d be more similar to Carcetti’s predecessor Clarence Royce if we ever saw a drama about him.  The first episode was a chance to see Kane display the full range of his political tactics and watch them work so we can understand why he’s both a respected and feared mayor and so we have a baseline for when situations inevitably go less smoothly as the season goes on.  There’s a host of relationships to be explored, between Kane and his wife and daughter as well as between Kane and his long time staff members.  He’s going to have to continue to maneuver to keep his airport project on track as well as push his favored candidate for governor from behind the scenes.  Honestly, I think the show sounds intriguing even without the looming medical condition.

Will I watch again?  I’m not sure why I expected to not like the show at all, but I didn’t, and I was pleasantly surprised.  It’s earned at least a couple more episodes.

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Fall 2011 Review: Hell on Wheels

9 Dec

The first episode of Hell on Wheels left me intrigued but not excited.  The pilot gave me just enough to make me want more but not enough to draw me in immediately like Homeland did, for example.

The story takes place soon after the Civil War as the great project of building the transcontinental railroad commences.  Our protagonist is former southern soldier Cullen Bohannon who heads out to work on the railroad, getting hired as a foreman because as a former slave owner he may have a rapport with the black workers, who while free, are treated as barely better than slaves.  Before he heads out, he kills a priest who we find out had something to do with Meridian, a place in Mississippi, in which events resulted in the death of Cullen’s wife.  Cullen’s goal is to find everyone else responsible and kill them as well.  The northerners and southerners get along pretty much right after the war, while the former slaves bear the brunt, the scenes seem to show us.  By the fringes of the railroad, civilized law doesn’t apply.  Rather, the territory is controlled by our antagonist, railroad baron Doc Durant, played by Irish television veteran Colm Meaney.  The episode ends with a long Richard III like speech by Durant, self-identifying himself as the villain but noting that that’s what it takes to get things done, in this case to get the railroad built and of course make him as much money as possible in the process.

Before this, Cullen learns in discussion that his immediate boss had a hand in Meridian, leading the boss to pull a gun on Cullen but inform him that he knows the name of his wife’s murderer.  Unfortunately, a black member of Cullen’s crew, played by Common, slits the boss’s throat before the name of the murderer can be revealed.  Other potential main characters appear to be the wife of a surveyer who is killed by Indians, a reverend, an Indian recently converted to Christianity and a couple of Irish brothers who were on the same train to work as Bohannon, but none of these characters had a whole lot to do in the first episode.

It’s hard not to think of Deadwood when watching even the pilot, as the shows are both set in roughly the same time period and both evoke the spirit and lawlessness of the old west, where there were no legal or moral rules governing society.  The main character seemed at first view like a poor man’s Timothy Olyphant and Durant’s ending speech was needlessly over the top.  We get that you’re a villain, and I can understand a small amount of cartoonish theatrical rationalizing, but it was a bit much.  Many of who appear to be other main cast members didn’t do much in the first episode so it’s hard to evaluate them.  The show is a little bit over serious and could get buried under its own weight if it’s not careful.

That said, there’s enough going on to interest me.  I love the setting and the idea of the moving railroad town and I think there’s a lot of potential there.  I think the revenge plot has possibilities.  Honestly, it’s not so much that the show has done a lot in the first episode to keep me coming back for more as much as raised the possibilities of good things coming in the future.  I’m taken in enough by this though that I’m willing to give it a few episodes to start delivering.

Will I watch it again?  Yes, I’m going to give it another try to see if it builds intrigue and finds its footing.  I’m the first to admit I’m a sucker for historical dramas.  That said, I hope the parts get moving relatively soon and the characters become a bit more compelling.

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Mid-season Report: The Walking Dead

8 Dec

(This should go without saying but this midseason report contains spoilers you’re not going to want to read if you’re not up to date on the show and plan on watching it)

This first half of the second season of The Walking Dead ends with a great TV moment which shows everything The Walking Dead can be when it’s at its best.  The barn full of zombies, which has been revealed to us a couple of episodes ago, and to the whole crew more recently, is opened up by Shane.  Dramatically, the zombies are shot one by one by everyone except Rick, until, last out, comes zombie Sophia, wearing the same clothes she was wearing when she got lost.  Everyone is stunned, too stunned to react, and finally Rick steps up and shoots her, taking on his leadership role and showing he’s willing to play rough at the same time.  Even though I hadn’t cared so much about Sophia before, the way she came out out of the barn as a zombie had an immediate visceral emotional impact, and the misdirection of the barn plot had me forgetting about the search for Sophia temporarily.  The scene was extremely powerful and exhibited surprise, plot development and characterization all at once.

The Walking Dead is a show which with a short season and a half behind it is still trying to find its footing.  It’s a good show, and it shows flashes of being a great show, but there are several areas that need improvement.  There are two top-notch moments in the first half of the current season.  The second is the barn scene that ends the half-season, leaving a very good impression going into the second half.  The first is when Shane is shown in flashback shooting poor helpful redneck Otis to get out of the school with the hospital supplies alive.  Both of these moments were character defining, hold your breath, call your friends and talk about them immediately after they happen moments.  Not all of The Walking Dead can be like this – no show can have moments like this constantly and be sustainable.  Still, the payoff of these scenes remind me how good the show can be.

Characterization and pacing are probably the two biggest areas of The Walking Dead that need work.  The Walking Dead has a lot of work to do buidings its characters up.  The best developed character so far in the show is Shane, who began as the best friend who looked after Rick’s family before Rick met up with them, and who has slowly emerged as the primary antagonist in the show.  His journey to antagonist has seemed fairly natural as he’s struggled with losing Laurie and dealing with Rick’s less practical, more soft leadership style.  The rest of the cast either hasn’t gotten a chance to grow or have had their moments in stops and starts.  Daryl, the redneck with the heart of gold, had one half an episode in which he has some battle with a hallucinated version with his brother, and other than that it’s not exactly clear what his deal is, or why he’s so friendly when he seemed more hostile in the first season (think Sawyer from Lost, but skipping past a few seasons).

The Walking Dead needs to decide what its relationship with its own status quo is.  Some shows constantly change while others like Battlestar Galactica feel uncomfortable once they venture too far from their original set up and work on getting back to it.  I’m not sure whether I can expect constant change in The Walking Dead universe or whether even when they move from place to place as seems inevitable, they’ll just settle back into their routines.  One way is not necessarily better than the other, but it affects the pacing of the show.  In the first season, the characters moved around a lot and the plot almost felt rushed.  Another episode at the camp might have let us learn about the characters more and laid down the groundwork for future conflicts.  The second season, on the other hand, has remained at the farm and it feels like an episode or two could have been cut.  All that time could have been used for productive characterization, but it wasn’t.  Often, instead of organically feeling like a character got to a particular state, it felt like he got there because the story needed him there.  An example of this is Dale’s admonishments of Shane in the last two episodes.  For Shane, the journey to antagonist actually seems natural as I mentioned before.  For Dale to hate Shane though, seems to come out of nowhere along with his certainty that Shane killed Otis.  There were no scenes showing us why Dale would feel this way or why he would suspect Shane, connecting the dots.

There’s three main story reasons to kill characters in this show that I can think of offhand.  First, to provide a powerful emotional moment for the viewer.  For this, there needs to be a lot invested in the dying character.  Second, to show a big moment for another character.  For example, Shane killing Otis.  We don’t care that much about Otis, but it’s a powerful moment for Shane.  Third, to show how dangerous an enemy is, such as the zombies.  This is the main motivation between killing many of the early first season characters.  This is a horrible world and the zombies are deadly.  I have no way of knowing, but this seems like the type of show that’s going to want to kill off characters as it goes forward and right now I feel like for a majority of the characters I wouldn’t feel that much if they died (think Boon from Lost).  There’s plenty of time to change this, but it’s something the show should be working on so they can give us more moments like the final scene in the last episode.

I’m by no means souring on The Walking Dead. It’s just frustrating to watch a show that has so much potential not yet fill it.  Unlike shows like Heroes and Lost that had me extremely excited only to lose me for good after I was quickly disenchanted, The Walking Dead has me right now thinking it has the same chance of being great as it did when it started.  There hasn’t been any creative decision which is such a mistake that they can’t turn back from it and I have no reason to think there will be.  The pieces remain in place, they’re just shifting back and forth waiting for someone to get the configuration right.

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The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame: Alan Dale

7 Dec

(The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame is where we turn the spotlight on a television actor or actress, and it is named after their patron saint, Zeljko Ivanek)

Alan Dale didn’t get his start in American television until well into the ‘90s, but he has spent the last decade making a living as an older powerful rich white guy, much in the Malcolm McDowell mode.

Born in New Zealand, Dale got his start in Australian soap The Young Doctors as Dr. John Forrest, a role he played for almost four years, from 1979 to 1983.  He then graduated to the granddaddy of Australian soap operas, Neighbours, which has been the breeding ground for popular Aussies from Kylie Minogue to Natalie Imbruglia to Guy Pearce.  He played the role of Jim Robinson for eight years, from the inception of the role in 1985 until 1993, when failed contract negotiations resulted in him being off the show and his character being killed off on screen.  Jim was the powerful and wealthy (watch the theme develop) family patriarch who loves cars and his children.  He’s still best known for his Neighbours work down under and in the UK.

He then plied his trade in Australia for a couple more years, guest spotting in Janus, Frontline, and Blue Heelers and in a couple of American shows which filmed in Australia such as Time Trax and Space: Above and Beyond.  He also recurred in Aussie police show State Coroner.

United States television finally took an interest in him in the late ‘90s.  He was first in Muriel Hemingway TV movie First Daughter.  Once the new millennium hit, the roles came fast and furious.  He recurred in four episodes of ER as South African Al Patterson, which was his first big American break.  He was then in episodes of The Lone Gunmen and Philly and three of The X-Files as “Toothpick Man.”  His character was a high-ranking FBI agent who was a super soldier and also a judge in Mulder’s military trial.  He was in an episode of American Dreams and then two of The Practice, two of JAG, and two of The West Wing as Mitch Bryce, the Secretary of Commerce in the Bartlett administration.  He was in a CSI:Miami, TV movie Rent Control, and a Crossing Jordan.

He appeared in eight episodes of 24 as Vice President James Prescott.  In the second season, Prescott believed the president should authorize an attack on a Middle Eastern nation he thought responsible for a failed nuclear strike in Los Angeles.  Prescott and Mike Novick conspired to get the 25th amendment invoked to take Presidnet Palmer out of power, and Prescott takes control, only to give it up when he learns the evidence about the failed nuclear strike was fabricated.  He took power again when the President was injured in an assassination attempt.

Next, he was a main cast member in The O.C.  He played Caleb Nichol during the first and second seasons.  Nichol was a wealthy and powerful businessman who owned real estate company The Newport Group.  He was known for unethical business practices and treated his daughter Kristen harshly even though he appeared to have genuine affection for her.  He married Julie Cooper, discovered an illegitimate daughter and eventually died of a heart attack.  Later he was found to have been bankrupt.

He appeared in seven episodes of NCIS as NCIS director Tom Morrow, reprising his role from JAG.  He left within the show to become Deputy Director of Homeland Security.  He was in three episodes of E-Ring.  He was a main cast member of Ugly Betty for the first two seasons.  He portrayed Bradford Meade, the rich and powerful publishing titan behind the fashion magazine at which Betty works, MODE.  He puts his son in charge of the magazine after the previous editor died, and hires Betty.  Apparently Ugly Betty is a far far more insane show than I had realized, and I can’t even begin to sum out Bradford’s role in just two seasons except that he learned that at least two people he thought were dead were alive, including his son who was now his daughter, and he was seduced, using his foot fetish, into only marrying someone who wanted him for control of the magazine.  He died of a heart attack eventually (reading about his character, I’ve read more about Ugly Betty than I have in my life and I want to repeat that I can’t believe how insane it is).

He was in episodes of British shows Torchwood and Midnight Man and six of Aussie show Sea Patrol.  In Lost, he played the important recurring role of Charles Widmore as a wealthy and powerful businessman who was a former Other and was Penny’s father.  He is Ben Linus’s key rival, and was leader of the Others before him.  Eventually exiled from the island, he desperately wants back and eventually finds the island and sends a team to investigate and take it back.  Ben shoots and kills him after he gives information to the Man in Black.  Yeah, I don’t really understand the last season of Lost either.

He appeared in Flight of the Conchords as the Australian ambassador (ironically, as Dale is a kiwi) and mocks Murray continuously.  In five episodes of Entourage, Dale plays Warner Bros. studio head John Ellis.  Ellis offers Ari Gold the job of studio head once, which he turns down but recommends Dana Gordon for, and later offers Ari the job of succeeding him when he retires.  He was in single episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Important Things with Demetri Martin, Burn Notice and Californication.  He was three episodes of Undercovers.  He appeared in two of The Killing as mayoral candidate aide Gwen Eaton’s (previous Ivanek honoree Kristin Lehman) father Senator Eaton.  Most recently he appeared in a Person of Interest and as King George in an episode of Once Upon a Time.

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Power Rankings: Happy Days, Part 2

6 Dec

We’ve broken the Happy Days Power Rankings into two parts because they’re damn long.  You can find part 1 here.

4.  Pat Morita (as Matsuo “Arnold” Takahashi) – Morita’s most well known role came right after Happy Days, with 1984’s The Karate Kid, in which he played martial arts mentor Mr. Miyagi.  He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and revived the role in three sequels and a short-lived TV show.  He was in TV movies Blind Alleys, The Vegas Strip War, Amos, Alice in Wonderland and What Has Four Wheels and Flies.  He starred for two seasons in Ohara as a police lieutenant.  He provided narration in TV special Big Bird in Japan, marking the second Happy Days actor to have an association with Sesame Street.  He was in Honeymoon in Vegas and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and in episodes of Dave’s World, The French Prince of Bel-Air, Burke’s Law, Murder, She Wrote, Married with Children, Boy Meets World, The Outer Limits, Diagnosis: Murder, and Caroline in the City.  He starred in four season Nickelodeon show The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo as Shelby’s grandfather.  He was in three episodes of The Hughleys and five of Baywatch and voiced the emperor of China in Mulan and its sequel as well as in Kingdom Hearts.  In the 2000s he also appeared in episodes of Yes, Dear and Spongebob Squarepants before dying in 2005.  He’s ahead of Bosley for working longer even though he’s only a couple years younger and for getting an Academy Award nomination.

3.  Scott Baio (as Chachi Arcola) – After Happy Days, Baio moved right into starring in Charles in Charge, a sitcom which lasted five seasons, half on CBS, and half in first run syndication until 1990.  While that show was airing, he was in an episode of Full House, an episode of My Two Dads, a couple of episodes of Out of This World, and TV movies The Truth About Alex and Alice in Wonderland,  Baio was in the second season of two season show Baby Talk and starred for two seasons in Dick Van Dyke drama Diagnosis: Murder.  He has been in episodes of The Nanny, Veronica’s Closet, Touched by An Angel, and four episodes of Arrested Development as lawyer Bob Loblaw.  He also appeared in MTV reality programs Scott Baio is 45…and Single and Scott Baio is 46…and Pregnant.  Baio also directed several episodes of The Wayans Bros. and Out of this World as well as 36 episodes of Charles in Charge.  He’s ahead of Morita for having the most successful post-Happy Days show.

2.  Henry Winkler (as Arthur Fonzanelli) – while to this day Winkler is best known as Fonzie, he’s been busy, particularly in the last decade.  He barely acted at all in the second half of the 1980s, apparently only as a voice in TV movies Happily Ever After and Two Daddies? and in an episode of Pryor’s Place.  After dipping his toe back in the television water in the early ‘90s with TV movies The Only Way Out and Absolute Strangers and an episode of MacGyver, he starred in short-lived 13 episode series Monty, in which he played a conservative Rush Limbaugh-esque commentator.  He finished out the rest of the ‘90s with more TV movies One Christmas (with Katherine Hepburn), A Child is Missing, Dad’s Week Off, and Detention: The Siege at Johnson High, appearances in The Larry Sanders Show, South Park and The Simpsons and roles in films The Waterboy and Scream.  He was busier in the first half of the next decade, most notably as incompetent attorney Barry Zuckerkorn in Arrested Development, but also appearing in episodes of King of the Hill, Blue’s Clues, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and The Drew Carey Show.  He was in three of Third Watch and three of The Practice and in films Down to You, Little Nicky, and Holes.  He was a main cast member as one of a family of doctors in the one season Out of Practice and lent his voice to the extremely short-lived and terrible Mitch Hurwitz cartoon Sit Down Shut Up.  He was in two episodes of Crossing Jordan, three of Numb3rs, and appeared in Click.  Most recently he’s had a recurring role on USA’s Royal Pains as the father of the main two characters and has appeared in Adult Swim’s Childrens Hospital as hospital administrator Sy Mittleman.  He’s ahead of Baio for appearing many times more often in the last decade.

1.  Ron Howard (as Richie Cunningham) – Well, he got largely out of the acting game after Happy Days, only acting again as his The Andy Griffith Show character in TV special Return to Mayberry and as the narrator for Arrested Development.  Ron Howard has been best known for his film directing work, with his big break being 1982’s Nightshift.  Afterward, he’s directed Splash, Coccoon, Willow, Parenthood, Backdraft, Far and Away, The Paper, Apollo 13, Ransom, EdTV, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Beautiful Mind, The Missing, Cinderella Man, The Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon and Angels and Demons (this is a long list I know, and I was going to take out totally unheard of titles, but there really aren’t any).  He was nominated for the Best Director Academy Award for Frost/Nixon and won for A Beautiful Mind.  He’s also a prominent producer with partner Brian Grazer.  He’s executively produced such TV shows as Arrested Development, Sports Night, The PJs, and Felicity as well as his own movies.  It’s hard to compare directing to acting, but Howard’s films have been of the commercial and critical level that I think he’s a pretty clear #1.

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Power Rankings: Happy Days, Part 1

5 Dec

(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)

Happy Days this week.  This is a very long one, so it’s getting split into two parts.  I went with a slightly more expanded cast then I felt I needed to because why not and I kind of wanted to cover Pat Morita.  A surprising amount of the cast found a surprising amount of success after the show.  Let’s go.

12.  Lynda Goodfriend (as Lori Beth Allen Cunningham) – She had small roles in Beaches and Pretty Woman.  I’m always glad when there’s one person with almost nothing.  It’s easier to write and it lets the rankings build.

11.  Al Molinaro (as Al Delvecchio) – After Happy Days, Molinaro was in an episode of Punky Brewster.  He was in the main cast of one season series The Family Man in 1991 and in a Step by Step episode in 1992.  He appeared in Weezer’s Buddy Holly video introducing the band.

10.  Cathy Silvers (as Jenny Piccalo) – She was in a The Love Boat, a Punky Brewster and a Wings, and co-starred in one season series Foley Square.  More interesting to me, she’s the son of Phil Silvers, best known as Sgt. Bilko.  Most interesting to me, she voiced Marie Dodo in fantastic Sesame Street movie Follow That Bird.  She gets ahead of Molinaro for that last credit.

9.  Erin Moran (as Joannie Cunningham) – She was in six episodes of The Love Boat (was anybody acting on ‘70s TV not in The Love Boat?) and episodes of Glitter, Murder, She Wrote and Diagnosis: Murder.  She took a decade before her next roles in TV movie Mother Goose Parade and an episode of The Bold and the Beautiful in 2009.  She was a contestant on Celebrity Fit Club in 2008 and appeared in Not Another B Movie in 2011.

8.  Don Most (as Ralph Malph) – After Happy Days, he appeared in three seasons of Dungeons & Dragons on CBS and as a voice on both seasons of the animated Teen Wolf show.  Afterwards, he was in episodes of The Munsters Today, Charles in Charge, Murder, She Wrote, Baywatch, Sliders, Dark Skies and Diagnosis Murder.  In the 2000s, he appeared in episodes of Yes, Dear, Star Trek: Voyager, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Century City, Men of a Certain Age and Glee.

7.  Anson Williams (as Potsie Weber) – I want to take a moment and note that the character shares his actual name with my dad – Warren Weber.  Okay, now that that’s acknowledged, I will get to describing Williams’ work, and note the gap between Most and Williams, even with Most clearly ahead of Moran.  I didn’t exactly know how to evaluate TV direction, so Williams is stuck here but the remaining seven people have all had exemplary careers.  Williams was in TV movie I Married a Centerfold in 1984, didn’t work for a decade, was in an episode of Fudge in 1995, didn’t work for a half decade, and was in two episodes of Baywatch.  Since then he’s been in episodes of Son of the Beach, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and TV movie Take 2.  I was about to chalk Williams up as a loser here, until I realized that his real forte since the early ‘80s has been in TV directing.  He’s directed dozens of episodes of well-known shows.  He started with an ABC Afterschool Special and an L.A. Law in the 1980s, and afterwards added four Diagnosis Murders, seven Fudges, seven Seaquest 2032s and individual episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess, The Pretender and Clueless.  He directed multiple episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210, The Profiler, Charmed, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Lizzie McGuire and The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

6.  Marion Ross (as Marion Cunningham) – Ross spent the post-Happy Days ‘80s appearing in single episodes of TV shows Hotel, Glitter, You Are the Jury, You Again?, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Night Court, Sister Kate, and MacGyver along with a recurring role in Love Boat as Emily Haywood, who marries Captain Merrill Stubing.  She starred as the mother in the critical acclaimed two season Brooklyn Bridge, which started in 1991 and like Happy Days was also set in the 1950s.  Afterwards, she was in episodes of Dream On, Sweet Justice, The John Laroquette Show, Burke’s Law, Promised Land, Early Edition and Family Law as well as TV movies Hidden in Silence, A Perfect Stranger, Hart to Hart: Secrets of the Hart, The Third Twin and About Sarah.  She was in four episodes of That ‘70s Show as Eric Forman’s grandmother and four episodes of Touched by An Angel.  She played Drew Carey’s mom in 14 episodes of The Drew Carey Show.  She showed up in six episodes of Gilmore Girls and in three episodes of Brothers & Sisters and The Boondocks.  She was in episodes of Out of Practice, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Nurse Jackie and Grey’s Anatomy.  She also lent her voice to episodes of King of the Hill, Spongebob Squarepants and two TV Scooby-Doo movies.

5.  Tom Bosley (as Howard Cunningham) – He was in TV movies Private Sessions and Perry Mason: The Case of the Notorious Nun and five episodes of The Love Boat.  He was a recurring character in 19 episodes of Murder She Wrote as Cabot Cove’s local sheriff, Amos Tupping, and picked up possibly his second most famous role starring in four seasons of Father Downling Mysteries as the titular priest during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.  Afterwards, he primarily guested in individual episodes of television series, including Rugrats, Burke’s Law, Johnny Bravo, Early Edition, Port Charles, Jack & Jill,Walker, Texas Ranger, ER, Family Law, Touched by an Angel, One Tree Hill, Still Standing and Family Guy.  He was in Jennifer Lopez movie The Backup Plan before he sadly passed away in 2010.

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Show of the Day: Treme

2 Dec

I just finished watching the second and most recent season of Treme.  I don’t know anybody else who is interested in watching it and while I can’t say I blame them for not knowing better, I feel the need to do a little bit of proselytizing.

Treme is about a variety of characters in post-Katrina New Orleans, picking up a few months after the storm.  I ironically watched the majority of the episodes as Hurricane Irene swept through New York which hopefully made the show more poignant.  I have never met anyone who watches Treme, and I honestly had no interest in the show except for the outstanding reviews it was getting and the fact it was created by David Simon who created one of my favorite shows of all time, The Wire.

If you think The Wire was rather unsubtle about pointing out the dysfunction of the police and the media in Baltimore (which it was), you’ll have to deal with just as much and more of that unsubtlety regarding the mishandling of government money and the obstacles in the struggle to rebuild in New Orleans.

In most shows the main characters are connected by some combination of three bonds.  The characters are usually co-workers, friends or family (co-workers in particular I am stretching to mean a lot – people stuck together in the same physical location, like prisoners in Oz).  In Treme, many of the characters are not related at all to other characters, or at most come into contact with one another once or twice at chance times during the course of the show.  In theory, this approach means there’s a concern about a lack of cohesion in the show and a worry that there won’t be enough time to tell complex and interesting stories about the number of characters that Simon tends to cram in, even with full hour episodes.

In spite of all these potential problems, creators Simon and Eric Overmyer have a gift for storytelling which transcends all the challenges laid out before them.  Even though there’s plenty of relatively heavy handed lessons about the troubles of New Orleans, Simon and Overmyer generally do a good job of letting the characters show these issues rather than lecturing at us.  Even more importantly, via the excellent writing and acting the characters come to life before us and are three dimensional, interesting, and cause the viewer to actually care about them.  The plots continue to take interesting turns.  There’s nothing sudden and exciting like in Breaking Bad, but these characters’ arcs weave in ways that hit the sweet spot of being not always predictable but feeling consistent with the characters.

Like The Wire in Baltimore, Treme examines a number of different facets of New Orleans culture, but instead of the police, the drug trade, the schools, dock workers and the media, it’s the music world, the restaurant industry, real estate development and well, the police and the schools.  Like The Wire, depression is all around at various times, but there’s just enough hope to keep you from getting too down at any one point.  I might even dare to say Treme is more hopeful than The Wire.  Music is extremely important in Treme; almost half the characters are involved with music professionally one way or another.  The roll call of characters include Davis, a goofy DJ, Annie and Sonny, a pair of street musicians, LaDonna, a bar owner, Antoine, a trombone player, Toni, a civil rights lawyer, Janette, a chef, Albert, a Mardi Gras Indian Chief, and his son Delmond, an esteemed jazz trumpeter, Terry, a police officer, and Nelson, a developer.  I know the list of characters is long, but I wanted to give a sense of the occupations.  I’d love to expand, but talking about the characters in any more depth is going to require additional entries.

As much as anything, Treme is a paean to the city of New Orleans.  I was concerned I wouldn’t care for that.  Not because I don’t care for New Orleans, but because I really don’t understand any of the extremely distinctive bits of New Orleans culture which represent major moments in Treme.  I don’t know anything about Mardi Gras or the Feast of St. Joseph or Jazz Fest or anything about the New Orleans music scene outside of Lil Wayne and I thought that would affect my enjoyment of the show.  I was wrong.  The show is very much about New Orleans, but even more than enjoying the show without knowing anything about New Orleans, you can enjoy the show without caring anything about New Orleans.  Simon’s shows are so successful because no matter how important the messaging is to him, all of this comes in second to strong story.

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Ranking the Shows I Watch – Sum Up

1 Dec
I’ve finished ranking the shows I currently watch.  A few have joined the pack since I started the rankings, and a couple of have dropped off but those edits are for another edition.  Here’s a quick look at the rankings with brief notes about if the show’s ranking might change if I drew up the order today instead of a couple of months ago.
  1. Breaking Bad – stays right where it is
  2. Game of Thrones – same – can’t wait for next season
  3. Mad Men – hasn’t been on in a year in a half so same
  4. Community – every week these next two shows are on the air I go back and forth between which one I like more – it’s only fitting that they’re next to each other on the list
  5. Parks and Recreation
  6. Children’s Hospital – saw a repeat recently, still great
  7. Archer – I want to watch the whole series over, but while I initially thought this was an overreaction I’m now happy with where I have it
  8. Venture Brothers – this series only seems to air every two years making it even harder to evaluate
  9. Justified – same ranking – hasn’t been on in months
  10. Terriers – this will just continue to fade from the memory – sad
  11. Bored to Death – the just concluded third season has been its best yet – this might have jumped a couple of spots, certainly over the soon invalid Terriers
  12. Walking Dead – I could drop this a couple of spots for being more about potential than fulfilling it, but I’m not as upset with its placement as I’d thought I’d be
  13. Eagleheart – I haven’t seen it again since the summer, but yeah, it’s hilarious
  14. The Office – I feel like the next three, and as I look further, four shows are exactly where they should be, shows that would have been top 10 for sure at earlier points in their run but have faded back and plateaued into still enjoyable, but below peak form
  15. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
  16. Curb Your Enthusiasm
  17. 30 Rock
  18. Dexter – initially I thought I had put this too low, but as this newest season continues to be its worst yet I’d drop it a few spots
  19. Friday Night Lights – I still haven’t finished the series which is admittedly shameful, I need to get on that before any major reevaluation
  20. Boardwalk Empire – the second season has been better than the first – I’m not sure how far it climbs, but above Dexter undoubtedly
  21. White Collar – same as before
  22. Workaholics – this climbs a few spots as a show just beginning to hit its peak.  A couple of this season’s episodes were instant classics
  23. The Killing – it’s pretty low already but just thinking about the last couple of episodes makes me angry.  Drop it at least past Top Chef
  24. Top Chef – I can’t place a reality show too high, but it’s addictive
  25. Entourage – glad it’s over in a way, and the ending was cheap, but people are always too harsh on the show
  26. Psych – I haven’t been keeping up with this season, which says something about how unimportant it is to miss random episodes, but I still enjoy what I catch and may watch them all on a lazy Sunday afternoon
  27. How I Met Your Mother – this show has its moments, mostly involving Barney, but it’s sinking – there’s a lot of seemingly very special episodes and melodrama (though points for Lily and Marshall moving into my hometown)
  28. The League – you know, it’s become an absolutely far more ridiculous show than it was at the beginning and misses big sometimes but it has truly laugh out moments which shouldn’t be underrated, moves about HIMYM for sure
  29. True Blood – I’m debating whether to stop watching, though I’m leaning in that direction
  30. Royal Pains – you know, as much as I watched this show ironically, it’s gotten better – put it up a spot or two
  31. Rubicon – thankfully don’t have to worry about watching a second season, because I probably would have watched  but it might be best that I don’t have to
  32. Fairly Legal – hasn’t been back on, though not sure how much I’ll watch when it does
  33. Modern Family – don’t really watch – it’s better than Glee, but I don’t really feel bad about it
  34. Glee – stopped watching – it’s not very good

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The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame: Julie Benz

30 Nov

(The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame is where we turn the spotlight on a television actor or actress, and it is named after their patron saint, Zeljko Ivanek)

Not yet 40, Benz has already compiled an impressive career on television.  Her first role was in brief two season show Hi Honey, I’m Home! in 1991, whose first season aired during ABC’s TGIF block, and which had a concept far more interesting than most failed sitcoms.  The sitcom was about a family composed of fifties TV archetypal sitcom characters rescued from cancelled shows, who are now living in the real world.  Benz played popular daughter character Babs Nielsen and was the only actor from the show to experience any significant later success.  Next, Benz guest starred in a Married with Children episode as a girl who strangely wanted to lose her virginity to Bud.  In the mid-90s she participated in a number of television movies, including Hearts Adrift, Crosstown Traffic, Empire, The Barefoot Executive (as “Sexy Woman”), Veronica’s Video, and A Walton Easter.  She appeared in episodes of Hang Time, High Tide, Step by Step, Boy Meets World, Diagnosis Murder, The Single Guy, Sliders, The Big Easy, and Fame L.A.

She had a recurring role in the short-lived Ask Harriet, about a male sports journalist who pretends to be a woman in order to write an advice column (previously mentioned in the Willie Garson column). Around this time, in 1997, she also got one of her biggest roles as Darla, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Vampire Darla was intended to be a single episode character, but her role was expanded greatly.  Darla was one of the primary antagonists of the first season, as the main henchman to The Master, and died in the seventh episode, when it was revealed that she had a long-term relationship as partner in crime and lover as well as maker of Angel.  She rose from the dead in the last episode of the first season of Angel Season 1 as a human as part of evil law firm Wolfram and Hart’s plan to turn Angel evil again.  The plan didn’t work, but they turn Darla back into a vampire, and she and Angel fight before she eventually becomes pregnant with Angel’s baby, and kills herself, leaving the baby alive.  Over the course of her role as Darla, she appeared in TV movies Good Guys/Bad Guys, Satan’s School for Girls (another sign TV movies have the best names), and The Long Shot and in episodes of The King of Queens, Conrad Bloom, Glory Days and She Spies and in TV miniseries Taken.

Benz was a recurring character in the first season of Roswell as FBI agent Kathleen Topolski and she was a main cast member in one season CBS show Payne, starring John Larroquette and based on Fawlty Towers, moved to California.  She continued her TV work in the mid-00s, with TV movies Lackawanna Blues, Locusts: The 8th Plague, Circle of Friends, Held Hostage, and Uncorked.  She was in episodes of NCIS, Oliver Beene, Supernatural, CSI:Miami, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Law & Order:  In 2006, she got her biggest role to date as Rita Bennett in Dexter.

DEXTER SPOILERS BEGIN

Rita is serial killer killer Dexter Morgan’s boyfriend at the beginning of Dexter.  He feels damaged and thinks she is a good match for his psychological baggage because she suffered serious emotional trauma from sexual and physical abuse from her ex-husband Paul.  Paul returns and attempts to reassert his place in her life but Dexter frames him and has him sent back to prison.  Eventually the relationship between Dexter and Rita becomes more serious as she is able to get over some of her issues, and they get married and have a child, Harrison.  Shockingly, in the fourth season finale, Rita is murdered by the trinity killer.

DEXTER SPOILERS END

In 2010, Benz had a recurring role in five episodes of Desperate Housewives.  She plays Robin Gallagher, a former stripper, who wants to be a teacher.  She initially stays with Susan and Mike but moves in with Dana Delany’s Katherine Mayfair.  Later, it is revealed that she is a lesbian, and she and Mayfair begin an affair, eventually leaving Wisteria Lane together.  In 2010, she starred in ABC’s No Ordinary Family, about a family who gains super powers after being involved in a plane crash.  Benz, married to Michael Chiklis, is the mother of the family and gains the power of super speed.  Though heavily promoted, the series was cancelled after one season.  She was in an episode of Royal Pains in 2011 and can now be seen as a main cast member in CBS’s A Gifted Man, starring Patrick Wilson. Wilson is a talented but selfish surgeon who now interacts with the ghost of his ex-wife.  Benz plays his sister, a single mother who has trouble taking care of her unruly teenage son.  She’ll also be appearing in TNT TV movie Ricochet this fall based on a novel by Sandra Brown.

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