Power Rankings: M*A*S*H

7 Nov

(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)

It’s been almost three decades since the legendary finale of M*A*S*H aired and the cast had various levels of success since then.  You’ll see lots of Murder, She Wrote episodes, lots of TV movies (I continue to insist that TV movies have the best names around) and as I was familiar with fewer of the cast members than with other shows I’ve ranked, a genuinely surprising ordering.  Also typing M*A*S*H is incredibly irritating – thank goodness for find and replace.

11.  Gary Burghoff (as Walter Eugene “Radar” O’Reilly) – He was in a couple of episodes of The Love Boat and Fantasy Island as well as two of spinoff After M*A*S*H.  He was in an episode of Burke’s Law before taking a 15 year retirement, breaking it only to appear in Christian movie Daniel’s Lot in 2010.

10.  Loretta Swit (as Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan) – Most of her post-M*A*S*H work was in TV movies.  These include The Execution, Sam, Miracle at Moreaux, 14 Going on 30, Dreams of Gold: The Mel Fisher Story, Hell Hath No Fury, A Matter of Principle and A Killer Among Friends.  She was in episodes of Batman, Murder She Wrote, Burke’s Law, Cow and Chicken and Diagnosis Murder.  She hasn’t worked in film or TV since the new millennium began.

9.  William Christopher (as Father John Francis Patrick Mulcahy) – He appeared in two seasons of After M*A*S*H as Father Mulcahy, and also in episodes of Murder, She Wrote, The New WKRP in Cincinnati, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Diagnosis Murder, Team Knight Rider and Mad About You.

8.  Jamie Farr (as Maxwell Q. Klinger) – He appeared in Cannonball Run II.  He starred for two seasons in M*A*S*H spinoff After M*A*S*H as Klinger.  He was in episodes of Murder She Wrote, Men Behaving Badly, Mad About You, Port Charles and Hey Arnold!  After years without work, he appeared in an episode of The War At Home in 2007 and TV movie A Grandpa for Christmas.

7. Larry Linville (as Frank Burns) – Burns left M*A*S*H after the fifth season.  The next year he co-starred in ridiculous sounding one season series Grandpa Goes to Washington with Jack Albertson.  He was in four Love Boat episodes, two of CHIPs, one of Lou Grant and two of The Jeffersons.  He was three Fantasy Island episodes and co-starred in the one season Paper Dolls, a primetime soap set in theNew York fashion industry.  He was in episodes of Airwolf, Riptide, Night Court, Dream On, A Different World, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and of course, three of Muder, She Wrote.  He was in Earth Girls are Easy.  Sadly, Linville passed away in 2000.

6. Harry Morgan (as Sherman T. Potter) – Morgan is the oldest major cast member, still kicking at the age of 96.  He was one of three cast members (with Farr and Christopher) to appear in spin off After M*A*S*H.  He was in a short-lived series with Hal Linden about a magician who solves crimes called Blacke’s Magic in 1986 (I really hope it’s as amazing as it sounds).  He also co-starred in a short-lived series based on the play You Can’t Take It With You.  Like many of the cast members, he was in an episode of Murder, She Wrote.  He was also in episodes of The Twilight Zone, Renegade, Grace Under Fire, The Jeff Foxworthy Show and three of 3rd Rock From the Sun.  He was also in TV movies 14 Going on 30, The Incident and Against Her Will: An Incident in Baltimore.

5.  Wayne Rogers (as John Francis Xavier “Trapper” McIntyre) – Rogers left M*A*S*H after three seasons.  After leaving M*A*S*H, he starred in one season Stephen J. Cannell detective show City of Angels and in 1979 began starring in three season CBS hospital drama House Calls with Lynn Redgrave and Sharon Gless.  He filled out the ‘70s and ‘80s with an impressive resume of TV movies, including but not limited to Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery, Having Babies 2, The November Plan, It Happened One Christmas, He’s Fired She’s Hired, The Girl Who Spelled Freedom, Drop-Out Mother and One Terrific Guy and mini-series Chiefs.  He appeared in five episodes of Murder, She Wrote, as expected, and in single episodes of Diagnosis Murder and The Larry Sanders Show.  He now appears as a regular panel member on Fox News Channel investment show Cashin’ In, having made tons of money post M*A*S*H through investing.

4. McLean Stevenson (as Henry Blake) – Stevenson, like Wayne Rogers, left M*A*S*H after three seasons.  He finished out the ‘70s and early ‘80s with an incredible run of four one-season sitcoms.  First he starred in The McLean Stevenson Show, then In the Beginning, then Hello Larry and finally in Condo in 1983.  Wikipedia adds the particularly harsh statement that “All four sitcoms were dismissed by audiences and lambasted by critics.”(lambasted! ouch!)  He appeared in six episodes of Diff’rent Strokes as his Hello, Larry character.  He guested in four episodes of The Love Boat, one of Golden Girls and three of beloved childhood learning program (to me) Square One TV.  He also appeared in the one season Dirty Dancing show, based on the film (with Melora Hardin in the Jennifer Grey role).  He guest-hosted The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 58 times, into the mid-80s.  He sadly passed away in 1996 at the age of 68.

3. Mike Farrell (as B.J. Honnicut) – He spent the ‘80s working in TV movies, from Memorial Day to Choices of the Heart to Private Sessions, Vanishing Act, A Deadly Silence, Incident at Dark River, The Price of the Bride and as JFK in J.F.K.: A One Man Show.  He was in episodes of Murder, She Wrote like all good M*A*S*H cast members and Coach and two of Matlock.  He was back to TV movie work in the ‘90s, with appearances in Silent Motive, Hart to Hart: Old Friends Never Die, Vows of Deception and Sins of the Mind.  He voiced Jonathan Kent, Superman’s dad in Superman in 9 episodes.  He co-starred in NBC’s five seasonProvidenceas Dr. Jim Hansen, the father of main character Dr. Sydney Hansen.  He was in episodes of Smith, Without a Trace, Ghost Whisperer, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Miami Medical and three of Desperate Housewives.

2.  David Ogden Stiers (as Charles Emerson Winchester III) – He was in The Innocents Abroad episode of Great Performances and in TV movies Anatomy of an Illness and The Bad Seed.  He co-starred in two editions of popular ‘80s civil war miniseries North and South.  He co-starred in several made for television Perry Mason movies as DA Michael Reston in the mid-to-late ‘80s.  He was in two episodes of ALF, three of Matlock and TV movies Day One, Final Notice, The Kissing Place, How To Murder a Millionaire and Wife, Mother, Murderer.  He was in single episodes of Wings, Married People, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Jack’s Place.  He was in movies such as The Accidental Tourist, Meet Wally Sparks and Jungle 2 Jungle and in Woody Allen films Mighty Aphrodite, Everyone Says I Love You, and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.  He had several major voice roles in Disney films Beauty and the Beast as Cogsworth, Pocahontas as Governor Ratcliffe, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Atlantics; The Lost Empire and Lilo & Stitch.  He was in three episodes of Murder, She Wrote, 13 episodes of Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place and 13 of short-lived show Love & Money.  He was in four episodes of Bull and three episodes of Stargate: Atlantis.  He was in forty episodes, half of the run, of USA’s The Dead Zone in the mid-00s as Reverend Eugene Purdy.

1.  Alan Alda (as Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce) – I think the top three are really close – they’re a tier above the rest of the cast members, and I had a hard time deciding between them.  I gave Alda the slight edge because the show in which he appeared regularly in the ’00s was the most well known, even though he appeared in the fewest episodes.  Alda’s been active since M*A*S*H ended in 1983.  He appeared in a couple of Woody Allen movies, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Crimes and Misdemeanors and Everyone Says I Love You.  He appeared in Murder at 1600, Canadian Bacon and TV movie and And the Band Played On.  He was in Mad City, The Object of My Affection, What Women Want and appeared as Senator Brewster in The Aviator.  He was in five episodes of ER and 28 of The West Wing as moderate Republican presidential candidate of Senator Arnold Vinick.  He was in three episodes of 30 Rock as Alec Baldwin’s possible father and in three of The Big C.  He’s now in Tower Heist as a Bernie Madoff-like figure.

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Fall 2011 Review: Enlightened

5 Nov

When I started HBO’s Enlightened I knew less than I do about most shows going on.  The premise is told in the first ten minutes or so of the episode.  Laura Dern is a high-powered corporate manager who has been sleeping with a married colleague and has a high-profile extremely embarrassing nervous breakdown at the office in which she curses out several co-workers.  She goes to breakdown/stress rehab, whatever the technical name for that is, in which she relaxes in tropical climates for a while and learns to access her inner chi and relaxation techniques and shit like that.  She comes home newly centered and tries to put her life right again, back at work, with her ex-fuck buddy, with her mom, played by Diane Ladd, and with her ex-husband, played by Luke Wilson.  The show is created by Mike White who I know best for writing School of Rock, but who has also written such classics as Nacho Libre, Orange County and The Good Girl.

It’s a half hour comedy, but it’s more in the vein of a makes-you-smile Entourage style comedy than a laugh out loud comedy.  That said, it didn’t make me smile all that much.  This is largely because I couldn’t stand the main character.  I have no problem with Laura Dern as an actress, but her character, Amy Jellicoe, when she comes back from rehab has this hippy-dippy, uber-positive, meditative and vaguely cosmicly spiritual personality which I find to be one of the most irritating personality archetypes out there.  Since, so far at least, she pretty was the show, and was in every scene, there wasn’t much else.  Not only would I find her incredibly obnoxiously in real life, I really don’t want to spend a half hour a week with her on screen either.

Enlightened was already off to a bad start and there was simply nothing else that pulled me in about the show.  I could buy feeling bad for someone who had a nervous breakdown, and watching her search for redemption but not when she acts like that when she’s trying to claw her way back.  The supporting characters were fine.  I didn’t have any particularly strong feelings about that one way or the other.

There’s certainly a chance they’ll tone her oppressive personality down as the season wears on and she starts acting more within the realm of the normal, and that certainly wouldn’t hurt the chance of the series actually being good.  In some comedies though it feels like if they could just remove a couple of small kinks, the show would be off and running.  The essential premise here isn’t the problem, but the level of tuning up needed here to make the show a success far exceeds a couple of kinks.  If New Girl is an oil change and a new set of tires from being good, Enlightened needs a new transmission (the analogy is admittedly a stretch, particularly because I don’t know enough about cars; just go with it).

Will I watch it again?  No, I’m not going to.  If I take a peek in later during the season, I’ll hope they’d made her character a little more tolerable, but even then I’d need a little bit more to make it compelling viewing.

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Show of the Day: Cowboy Bebop

4 Nov

As people who actually know anything anime go, I don’t really know very much at all.  As people who know nothing about anime go, I know a relatively fair amount.  I watched very little until I was in college, only a little bit of what was on Cartoon Network’s Toonami or Adult Swim, mostly Dragonball Z.  I started watching it when it turned out a good number of my college friends were high ups in our school’s anime club.  I never got into it the way the most devoted club members were, but every once in a while a show would come along that captivated me, and I would download it and watch the rest.

Anime, unsurpsingly to me, is like most television.  There’s a lot of it, some of it is bad, most of it is mediocre, and some of it is very good.  That said, some of it is easier to get into for people who aren’t into anime or even animation than others.  Some are more approachable series for novices to dip their toes in the japanimated water.

If there’s one series that from my limited anime experience, but my ability to appreciate learning to become an anime fan, would serve as a good opening note, it’s Cowboy Bebop.  Many animes have a limited number of episodes, which makes for relatively easy viewing, and Cowboy Bebop has a mere 26 (of course, some, like Dragonball Z with 291, are the exact opposite).  It’s a space western, in the spirit of shows like Firefly (which it preceded), which is basically what it sounds like – a show with a western feel in terms of wide open spaces and lawlessness but set, well, in space.  It’s only loosely serial as  most episodes stand on their own, with the exception of a few at the beginning and the end and a couple in between.  It aired in 1998-99 and features four main characters, two bounty hunters, Spike and Jet who travel around space on missions, and Faye, an attractive gambling addict and fugitive, and Ed, a young computer hacker girl, who join the ship later.

Cowboy Bebop is an action adventure show, and the plots are accessible and interesting, with a mix of comedy, action and drama.  Generally each episode features the gang trying to capture one bounty, complete with pratfalls and dangers along the way.  The major on-going plot involves Spike and his relationship with his ex-Crime Syndicate partner Vicious (yeah, that name should probably be a sign you’re not dealing with somebody great).  The animation style is relatively similar to American animation for an anime.  This is largely not coincidence, as the style is geared towards looking distinctly American, though a bit old-timey, with a 1940s and ‘50s film noir feel.  The theme sequence, displayed below, is also fantastic and has received praise on its own regard.

As someone who hasn’t watched an anime series almost since college, I shouldn’t really be advocating anything to do with anime, but one of the benefits of this blog is that I’ve pored over lots of TV I’ve watched over the years and put aside, remembering some shows I haven’t thought about in years but loved.  I’ve also tried out new TV I probably wouldn’t have given a chance before.  Basically, if you’ve never given anime a chance and you’re at least ever so slightly interested, Cowboy Bebop is a very good way to go.

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Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 8: The Venture Bros.

3 Nov

Venture Bros is a comedy and has a humorous tone at all times but takes its complicated web of continuity as seriously as any show I can ever remember on televison.  This ridiculously confusing continuity is one of the strongest aspects of the show.  What’s interesting about it is that it’s not as if all of it was planned out back when the show began; the writers seem to make something up, and then they keep that in mind when they work on later episodes and work around the changes they made.  It seems like this make-it-up-as-you-go philosophy would never work, and feel slapdash (and ill-prepared – Lost, Heroes, anyway) but it just about never does feel forced.   It feels very natural and thorough in a way that might be difficult to plot out from the beginning.

Venture Bros. is the story of an egotistical scientist (Venture and the next show on this list and their arrogant main characters have a fair amount in common) Dr. Rusty Venture who was the son of an uber-popular super scientist and struggles with not living up to that legacy.  He has two sons, Hank and Dean, the titular Venture Bros., and a bodyguard Brock Sampson.  They have to contend with Rusty’s arch-villain The Monarch, bent on Venture’s destruction along with other villains like Baron Underbite and Phantom Limb.  The show as a whole is a humorous take on programs like Johnny Quest and it’s silly and ridiculous, but it is so much more than simply a parody.  The Venture Bros. lives in a world where villains are governed by an organization known as the Guild of Calamitous Intent which has rules, such as forcing villains to temporary release their captives for certain medical emergencies.

Plot is central in the Venture Bros, but not in a true serial way – many episodes have plots which mostly are only relevant in their episode, even though anything mentioned is always fair grounds for a reference or to come back unexpectedly in later episodes.  Some forces like Brisby and the Orange County Liberation Front pretty much never show up again, but sometimes characters that initially seem like one-offs like Sergeant Hatred go out and become semi-major characters.  Because of the way episodes are often very non-serial even throughout a complicated continuing storyline, Venture Bros. has some episodes that are all-time classic and warrant frequent re-watches.

Why It’s This High:  There’s really no other show like it on TV – it’s fantastically irreverent, makes you smile without always being laugh out loud funny and a joy to watch

Why it’s not higher:  Really, the only common bane of any of the shows this high on the list – episode to episode consistency – the top episodes are better – that, and some overuse of gay characters Shore Leave and Sky Pilot, but that’s a small complaint

Best episode of the most recent season:  A few stand out, but it comes down to two.  First, the first episode of the season, which skips around in time, and does it as brilliantly as any show or movie told with this device, with the ordering of the scenes is denoted by the value of an expensive comic book Dean has.  Second, which is my official choice, is “Everybody Comes to Hank’s,” a film noir homage.  While often the best episodes of the show involve utilizing many of the wide universe of characters Venture Bros. has to choose from, this episode focuses on very few characters, primarily Hank who acts as a gumshoe solving the case of why his friend Dermott didn’t get picked up by his mother, and in the process, figuring out whether Dermott is Brock’s son.  He does this along with his sidekick, the Alchemist, a member of The Order of the Triad who gets some good screen time here.  Anyway, the noir is spot on and some big time plot details come out of the episode in the process.

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The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame: James Rebhorn

2 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)

Known for playing WASP-y characters and authority figures, James Rebhorn is a character actor legend.  He’s spent thirty years acting in over 100 films and television shows, remarkably getting more busy as he’s gotten older.  Many words could be spilled on his fine film work, but we’ll concentration here on his television roles.

Rebhorn’s first role came in an episode of television show The Doctors in 1977.  He didn’t work for a couple of years, with his next role coming in an episode of Texasin 1981 and then in TV movies Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Libby (seriously a movie?) and Sessions.  He appeared in an episode of Guiding Light, as “Man on Phone” in TV movie “He’s Fired, She’s Hired” (I swear TV movies have the best names) and in ABC Weekend Special episode, “The Adventures of Con Sawyer and Hucklemary Finn.”  When TV mini-series ruled the world in the mid-80s, he appeared in small roles in Jeffrey Archer adaptation Kane and Abel and North and South.  He appeared in an episode of soap Search for Tomorrow and two episodes of Kate & Allie, Spenser: For Hire and The Equalizer.  He also appeared in TV movies Rockabye, A Deadly Business, and Kojak: The Price of Justice.  He finished the 1980s with roles in the Our Town episode of Great Performances, a role in ABC Afterschool Special “A Town’s Revenge” and in Kojak: Ariana (as a different character than in the previous Kojak).

He started the next decade with constant TV movie work as well with roles in kids classic Sarah, Plain and Tall, Plymouth, Dead or Alive: The Race for Gus Farace (Tony Danza played mobster Farace) and Kojak: Fatal Flaw (same role as in Kojak: Ariana).  He was in three episodes of Wiseguy, one Against the Law, and one I’ll Fly Away and yet more TV movies including Deadly Matrimony, J.F.K.: Reckless Youth, and Mistrial.  He was in episodes of The Adventures of Pete & Pete and The Wright Verdicts and TV miniseries The Buccaneers.  In the late 1990s, he worked in an episode of New York Undercover and in TV movie A Bright Shining Lie and in an episode of astronaut miniseries From the Earth to the Moon.  He also had the notable role of playing the district attorney in the final episode of Seinfeld who prosecutes the four main characters for violating their duty to rescue by watching a fat man get carjacked.  Rebhorn calls as witnesses to the stand various characters who Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer offended over the course of the show.

As the ‘00s began, Rebhorn appeared in two episodes of Now & Again, two episodes of The Practice, in one episode of UC: Undercover and in TV movie Amy & Isabelle.  He was in six episodes of Third Watch, two of David Morse led Hack and in TV miniseries Reversible Errors based on a Scott Turow novel and also starring William H. Macy and Tom Selleck.  He was a main cast member in 2006’s controversial The Book of Daniel, in which Daniel, played by Aidan Quinn is a Reverend who is addicted to painkillers and sees hallucinations of Jesus.  Rebhorn plays Daniel’s father.  He appeared in Hallmark Hall of Fame movie Candles on Bay Street starring Alicia Silverstone, in an episode of the short-lived The Knights of Prosperity, and in Larry McMurtry novel adaptation miniseries Comanche Moon on CBS.  He was a recurring character in Law & Order most notable for playing defense attorney Charles Garnett in five episodes.  He also played a serial killer in second season episode “Vengeance” and a doctor who participated in a botched lethal injection in season 18 episode “Executioner.”

He was in one Canterbury’s Law, two Boston Legals, and one Royal Pains.  He portrayed Dr. Kaplan in two episodes of 30 Rock, a dentist at whose office Tiny Fey meets British Wesley played by Michael Sheen.  Rebhorn co-starred in one-season Comedy Central series Big Lake with Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell.  He currently has a recurring role in USA’s White Collar as Reese Hughes, Peter and Neal’s boss in the FBI’s White Collar division.  He also appeared in the most recent episode of Homeland as Claire Daines character Carrie Mathison’s father.

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Rankings the Shows That I Watch – 9: Justified

1 Nov

Justified is part of a two-some of shows, along with Terriers, which proceeded Justified on this list, that are examples of what USA shows could be without their inherent USA limitations.  They’re shows that very much feel like the “characters welcome” brand of USA show except unleashed to be a little darker, a little bit more serial and generally just feel like the creators have a little bit more control over them.

Justified is a show that grew on me over the course of the last season, which was significantly better than an already solid first season.  Part of what makes the show so enjoyable is the wonderful Timothy Olyphant, who yes, maybe always plays a type, as the tough, speak-softly-but-carry-a-gun honest guy with attitude, but plays it as well as anyone.

The show tries to posit as the second most interesting character Boyd Crowder, played by Walter Goggins, who was apparently in the Shield, a massively long show that I have not dared attempt yet.  Fowler was the primarily antagonist for most of the first season going from a work-a-day Dixie mafia leader to a crazy quasi-religious drug runner.  I knew the creators of Justified wanted to keep Fowler as a character long after the season, but I thought it would either seem forced or repetitive as shows often do when they keep around an interesting character past his or her expiration date (is Sylar still alive?), and to the show’s credit it hasn’t felt that way as Fowler has transitioned from someone seeking honest work to a gangster again, but one who ends up on the same side as Olyphant’s Raylon Givens at the end of the season.

The second season was greatly enhanced by the increased emphasis on a serial plot which was spread out over the course of the season.  The key antagonists in the second season were the Bennett clan, a Dixie mafia family who control their local county (fittingly named Bennett county).  Ma Bennett was the matriarch, and she had three sons, one of whom was the local police chief.  (By the way, I credit Justified along with Winter’s Bone for learning what the fuck the Dixie mafia is and being scared that these people could command police forces.)  The other two are mostly kind of moronic henchmen, one of whom is played by the always enjoyable Jeremy Davies, who is hilarious to hear in a southern redneck accent.  Ma Bennett is portrayed by Margo Martindale, who won an Emmy for her role (for whatever that’s worth) and actually deserved it.

Why it’s this high:  Olyphant is fantastic, the show sets a nice western tone, and Ma Bennett was a great villain

Why it’s not higher:  I greatly enjoy this show, but it lacks the scope and maybe a little bit of the depth behind Breaking Bad, Mad Men or Game of Thrones (not to give away shows coming up on the list)

Best episode of the most recent season:  “Bloody Harlan” – the season long plot more or less ends in the final episode of the second season and shit goes down.  I won’t reveal exactly what happens, but the ending is fairly final and satisfying without feeling cheap or implausible in context.

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Power Rankings – Buffy the Vampire Slayer

31 Oct

(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)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer power rankings this week.  We’re covering a lot of actors and actresses who have been in the cast over the seven seasons of the show, but we had to draw an episode cut off line somewhere.  Apologies Eliza Dushku and Mark Blucas.  That said, it’s a fairly impressive bunch.

11.  Amber Benson (as Tara Maclay) – She’s mostly been in a series of indie films and single episode appearances of shows such as Cold Case, The Inside, Private Practice, Grey’s Anatomy and Supernatural.  She’s also written a handful of books with Christopher Golden.

10.  Emma Caulfield (as Anya) – She appeared in a Monk episode and in a couple of Robot Chickens as well as a Private Practice.  She was a recurring character in one-season TeenNick show Gigantic and in 11 episodes of CW two season show Life Unexpected.

9.  Charisma Carpenter (as Cordelia Chase) – She moved over to Angel along with David Boreanaz.  After her role there ended, she appeared in four episodes of Miss Match and episodes of The Division, Charmed, LAX, Big Shots and Back to You.  She was a recurring character as Kendall Casablancas in 11 episodes of Veronica Mars.  She’s also appeared in episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Legend of the Seeker, Burn Notice and Supernatural, and in four episodes of ABC Family’s Greek.  Last year she appeared in feature film The Expendables.

8.  Nicholas Brandon (as Xander Harris) – After Buffy ended, he starred in short-lived Fox series Kitchen Confidential based on Anthony Bourdain’s book of the same name with Bradley Cooper and John Francis Daley.  He voiced Huntsboy #89 (I have no idea what this means) in six episodes of animated program American Dragon: Jake Long.  He plays a recurring character Kevin Lynch on CBS’s Criminal Minds, having appeared in 11 episodes.  He appeared in TV movie Relative Chaos with Buffy co-star Charisma Carpenter and in four episodes of Private Practice last year playing a mentally disturbed man.

7.   James Marsters (as Spike) – He moved over to Angel for a season after Buffy ended.  He appeared in a supporting role in P.S. I Love You.  He was in four episodes of Without A Trace.  He appeared as villain Brainiac in 14 episodes of Smallville and as a recurring character in one season Syfy Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica.  He also appeared as Piccolo in the live action film adaptation Dragonball: Evolution and in three episodes of Torchwood.  Most recently he appeared in episodes of Hawaii Five-0 and Supernatural.

6. Michelle Trachtenberg (as Dawn Summers) – An actress from an early age, after Buffy, she portrayed pop star Celeste in four episodes of Six Feet Under.  She starred in the kids movie Ice Princess and guest starred in episodes of House M.D. and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.  She appeared in 17 Again and as recurring character Georgina Sparks in 14 episodes of Gossip Girl.  She starred in the one season hospital drama Mercy and was in four episodes of Weeds.

5.  Sarah Michelle Gellar (as Buffy Summers) – Gellar’s career seemed on the rise as Buffy ended, but that momentum largely stalled after the series ended.  She appeared in the second Scooby Doo movie Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed as Daphne (she had appeared in the same role in the first while Buffy was airing) which was a commercial success but a critical bomb.  She also appeared in the first and second Grudge movies and Richard Kelly’s disappointing Donnie Darko follow up Southland Tales.  She also appeared in six episodes of Robot Chicken and The Air That I Breathe.  She’s now starring in the first season of CW series Ringer which got picked up for a full season’s worth of episodes.

4. Anthony Stewart Head (as Rupert Giles)  – the oldest member of the Buffy cast by a good deal (closest is Marsters), Head did little in America but has been quite busy in his native Britain.  He had a small role in Woody Allen’s Scoop and starred in the cult horror rock opera Repo! The Genetic Opera.  He was a regular in British sketch show Little Britain and narrated Doctor Who documentary series Doctor Who Confidential.  He co-starred in BBC series Merlin as Arthur’s father King Uther Pendragon and co-starred as the boss in the successful BBC series Free Agents and the unsuccessful American remake of the same name.

3. Alyson Hannigan (as Willow Rosenberg) – Best known outside of Buffy at the time for her role in the American Pie series of movies, she’ll be reprising her role as Michelle in 2012’s American Reunion.  She appeared in Date Movie, but she’s best known for her ongoing role as one of five main cast members in CBS’s multi-camera sitcom smash How I Met Your Mother, currently in its 7th season.  Hannigan plays Lily Aldrin, kindergarden teacher and wife of Jason Segal’s Marshall Erikssen.

2.  Seth Green (as Oz) – Green left Buffy after the third season.  He’s continued his voice role as Chris Griffin on Family Guy which continues to this day and created and contributed his voice to five seasons of Robot Chicken on Adult Swim, which is still airing.  He guest-starred in in five episodes of That ‘70s Show, two of Will and Grace, and three of Entourage as an exaggerated version of himself.  He starred in one season NBC sitcom Four Kings and appeared in two episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and three of Heroes.  He’s contributed to various voice roles in American Dad!, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, The Cleveland Show, stop-motion Adult Swim series Titan Maximum and the Mass Effect series of video games.  He’s also appeared in feature films The Italian Job, Without a Paddle, Sex Drive and Old Dogs.

1.  David Boreanaz (as Angel) – Boreanz left Buffy after the third season and starred in spin off Angel as the same character in Los Angeles, which lasted five seasons and ended a year after Buffy.  Like Hannigan, Boreanaz has essentially only done one major project since leaving the Buffy-verse, but like Hannigan’s, it’s a seriously big one.   The year after Angel ended, in 2005, he started his ongoing role as FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, one of the main two characters in Fox’s Bones.  Bones has been extremely successful and its seventh season will premier this week.

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Show of the Day: Secret Girlfriend

28 Oct

I’ve made mention before about how most Comedy Central shows fail within the first year.  Of course, part of this is because most of them are terrible; it would be giving short shrift to that fact to blame it all on Comedy Central having a quick trigger finger.  Their general terrible-ness has however, not prevented me from at least giving many of these shows a shot.

One of the more unique shows in this parade of one season cancellations was 2009-10s Secret Girlfriend.  Based on a pre-existing web series, the great gimmick of the show is that YOU are the main character.  What this means is that the camera is oriented as if you are walking around, looking at your surroundings, swinging up and down, left and right as different things get your attention.  You hang out with your two friends, Sam and Phil, who converse with you even though you can’t hear your responses.  They’re good friends, but boneheads and over the course of the series they explain to you their different hare-brained schemes and the web videos that they make.  You’re also a bit of a ladies’ man, and in the first episode you meet Jessica, the title “Secret Girlfriend” who has a boyfriend at the time, but with whom you eventually develop a relationship over the short course of the series.  The fourth and final main character (well fifth including YOU) is your crazy ex-girlfriend Mandy who breaks up with you in the first episode but still follows you around and is jealous of any girl who comes near you.

Sadly, the show is not very good.  I’m not sure whether that is simply because the camera format is too limiting or that it could be done well but wasn’t.  Each episode is composed of two 11-minute segments; the show might have been better suited to Adult Swim where short-format shows like Childrens Hospital and Eagleheart make their home.

The show is extremely crude and one of the main reasons for the camera style seems to be to allow the camera to focus on hot chicks.  Basically every female character in the show seems to be in love with you and you’re constantly have sex with them.  I’m not sure exactly sure what the comedic value there is.  The best moment in the series may be in the second episode when the characters go to a strip club, but find the food far more alluring than the strippers.  Crudeness can certainly be funny; Workaholics has done a fine job of showing that on a couple of occasions.  Too often, Secret Girlfriend doesn’t make it work however.  It doesn’t seem like there’s enough substance to justify expanding a shorter web series into a television show here.

In a world of rehashes, procedural police shows and tired old family sitcoms, it’s oddly refreshing to see a failed show that at least tried something new and interesting.  I’ll always have more respect for a show that takes a real shot and fails than one that doesn’t even try.

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Ranking the Shows I Watch – 10: Terriers

27 Oct

I several times almost forgot about the existence of Terriers when working on this list as it was crushingly cancelled after its 13 episode first season  on FX in December, 2010.  The best new show of last fall’s TV season by a long shot, it gained traction with critics, but never with audiences and fans like myself were left wondering whether the terribly non-descriptive name played a significant role in preventing people from tuning in.

Earlier in this list, there were a number of USA shows. USA shows, as previously mentioned, are good, but due to the strictures of the network, they genrally have a ceiling.  Terriers is at its heart, a USA show, with the strictures removed.   Donal Logue plays an ex-cop who is a recovering alcoholic and is partners with Michael Raymond-James (Renee from True Blood), an ex-con, in a private detective business in San Diego, California.  The two solve week-to-week cases while working on occasional long-term projects and deal with each other’s personal life – Logue’s troubled sister and the marriage of his ex-wife and Raymond-James’s possible engagement to his long-term girlfriend.

The primary two actors are where the core of the show lies and their chemistry is the engine that keeps Terriers moving.  The show maintained a relatively sunny disposition, giving it that great USA easy-watch feeling without the sometimes forced famed USA Blue Skies mentality. Things don’t always exactly work out.  Logue and Raymond-James were the underdogs you loved to root for (maybe that’s where the Terriers name comes from?).  With such a promising first season, it’s depressing to think where the show could have gone if it just had more time.  The concept sounds incredibly generic but the execution is pitch perfect.  When I read about it at first, it didn’t sound all that great, until I actually watched it and I was hooked.

Why it’s this high:  The actors are great by themselves, and the relationship between Logue and Raymond-James at the heart of the show is strong – about as good as a largely procedural show can be

Why it’s not higher:  This is pretty fucking high for a show with one season which is cancelled already

Best episode of the most recent season:  It’s hard to remember exactly, having watched the show almost a year ago but I’ll choose “Fustercluck” partly because I just remember it better; I don’t think there were any one standout that was so much better than the pack.  In this episode, a character they helped put in jail asks Logue and Raymond-James to steal back $250 thousand of his own money in exchange for allowing them to keep $100 thousand of it.  They take the case, but follow him after he’s bailed about because they’re suspicious of his motives.  They then learn a little bit more about the season’s long local conspiracy plot.

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The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame: Willie Garson

26 Oct

(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)

Willie Garson is a TV veteran’s veteran, having worked in the medium regularly for a quarter century.  Garson’s acting career began with appearances in 1986 TV movie The Deliberate Stranger and with guest spots that year in Family Ties, Cheers and You Again?  Over the next year, he appeared in TV movie The Leftovers, an episode of American Playhouse, an episode of My Two Dads, and in two episodes as two different characters in Newhart.  In 1989, he was busy, making appearances in Make a Living, Coach, Peter Gunn, and Chicken Soup.  Around this time, he also appeared in seven episodes of Mr. Belvedere as Carl who was the oldest son, Kevin’s, best friend.

He began the ‘90s with spots on Booker and thirtysomething and as well as Twin Peaks before appearing in three episodes of Quantum Leap, two as Lee Harvey Oswald, as Sam Beckett tries to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  Over the next couple of years, he showed up in Moon Over Miami, L.A. Law, Flying Blind, A League of Their Own (the short-lived TV series based on the movie), Renegade and TV movies Daybreak, Black Sheep and Ray Alexander: A Taste for Justice.  He appeared in two episodes of show-I-have-never-heard-of Pig Sty, before appearing in MadTV as Lee Harvey Oswald again and in episodes of Partners, Mad About You and Touched by an Angel and TV movie The Barefoot Executive.  Around this time, Garson appeared in the first of his two X-Files episodes.  He was a medical orderly in third season episode The Walk.

He continued the circuit the next year with episodes of VR.5, Caroline in the City, two of The Practice as D.A. Frank Shea, and two of Melrose Place.  He got his first main cast role in absolutely ridiculous one season comedy on Fox Ask Harriet that got five episodes before getting pulled.  I’m curious to read more about this, but in very short the show featured a sexist sports journalist who dresses in drag to get work as an advice columnist after being fired from his sports job.  Garson played a security guard in an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and two different characters in two episodes of Ally McBeal.  He was in one Conrad Bloom and three Party of Fives.

He was in seven episodes of NYPD Blue as Henry Coffield, a loser and relative of Jimmy Smits’ Bobby Simone’s dead wife, and superintendent of the building that Simone inherits.  He was in a Friends, The One With the Girl Who Hits Joey, a Just Shoot Me, and an Early Edition and a Star Trek: Voyager.  He appeared in four episodes of Boy Meets World, including one as the minister who married Topanga and Cory.

He got his biggest role to date in 1998 as Stanford Blatch in Sex and the City.  Carrie’s best friend outside of the other three women on the show, Blatch is the only one other than the four main characters to occasionally receive his own storylines.  He is a gay talent agent who has known Carrie for many years and in the second Sex and the City movie gets married.

While he was working on Sex and the City, he was still busy elsewhere.  He appeared in his second X-Files episode, The Goldberg Variation, this time as Henry Weems.  Weems is a man who is exceptionally lucky, several times evading mobsters through bizarre acts of chance, and having been the only person to survive an airline crash that killed twenty.  He is trying to use his luck to treat a sick boy in his apartment building.  He also showed up in episodes of City of Angels (again, TV series based on movie), something called Hollywood Off-Ramp, two of Level 9, and ones of Spin City and Going to California.  He continued in two episodes of Special Unit 2, two appearances in TV miniseries Taken, single episodes of Greetings from Tuscon, All About the Andersons, TV movie Harry’s Girl, and an appearance in the minorly infamous furries episode of CSI.

He was in a Yes, Dear, a The Division, a Monk, a Wild Card and a Las Vegas.  He appeared in three episodes of Stargate: SGI as Marin Lloyd, a human from a non-Earth planet who desserted from his planet’s military when they were losing a war against another species.  He felt guilty about it, but was drugged by his fellow survivors so that he wouldn’t make trouble.  Eventually he helped start a campy TV show based on the Stargate program called Wormhole X-Treme!

He got another shot as a main cast member in HBO’s one season John from Cincinnati from Deadwood creator David Milch as Meyer Dickstein a lawyer and surf fan.  He had a cameo in David Alan Grier Comedy Central program Chocolate News as well as in a Wizards of Waverly Place, a Pushing Daisies and a Medium.

This all led to his biggest role to date, co-starring inUSA’s very successful White Collar as Mozzie.  Mozzie is main character Neal Caffrey’s best friend and long-time associate, and helps the team in weekly cons and with his contacts in the criminal world, for information.  He is a conspiracy theorist and calls FBI Agent Peter Burke “Suit” and his wife “Mrs. Suit.”  White Collar has been renewed for a fourth season.

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