Figures

So apparently there’s no Stargate tonight (well, last night now, I suppose) because Ghost Hunters is taking over the whole night.  Which is sort of annoyingly ironic in itself, that my current favorite show is sort of being preempted by a show that I work on.  The really frustrating thing is that I just learned that Amanda Tapping (Sam of SG-1) was the guest investigator tonight.  Which would have been pretty awesome and kind of a thrill for a Stargate fangirl like myself… except that tonight, Halloween, is the live show, which means that I don’t have anything to do with it and it’s pretty much the one episode of the year that bypasses my station completely.  (And since I don’t watch finished GH episodes because the field tapes are far more interesting and enlightening…)  Grr.

Given that we had very little to do tonight, I kind of wish I’d found out she would be on earlier.  I may have gone downstairs to the GH offices to see if I could watch a bit of what was going on (I could probably have said that I wanted to help, as I heard that they were going a bit crazy).  Ah, well… woulda coulda shoulda, as they say.

In Plain Sight

I’ve been trying to think of something worth blogging about, but I’m afraid I’ve been delinquent in my movie/tv-watching lately. So, I figured I’d talk about the one show that I have been watching. And since this one is a new one, and one that I really would recommend to just about anyone, I’ll try to avoid major spoilers.

USA, the network that brings us the uber-fun Monk and Psych, now brings us In Plain Sight. It’s about a US Marshal working for the Witness Protection Program, and her assorted friends, family, and co-workers. Now, one of the really fun things about this show…you can watch full episodes online. Yep, I think I’ve gotten spoiled by online TV viewing. It’s only increased my inherent independence and dislike of being told what to do (something I share with a great many other 25-year-olds), because dang it, I don’t want to be told when to watch something and I don’t want to have to watch commercials, either. Even the total of maybe 2-3 minutes of commercials you get with your typical streaming drama tries my patience (especially when they’re the same commercials, for the same products). So, even though I get cable and am actually home when it’s on (Sunday night…I wanna say 10:00), I still wait for it to show up online (which seems to happen some time around 11:30). So, to watch this show at your leisure, go here: http://www.usanetwork.com/series/inplainsight/video/fullep/ (Fair warning: most networks don’t keep all the episodes on their website at once. Many will only keep the last three or so. I don’t know USA’s policy on this, but it might be better to watch sooner rather than later, as early episodes may disappear as the season progresses.)

There’s only been four episodes aired so far, and already I see great improvement. The (double-length) first episode left me with a positive, if not wildly exciting impression, but the third one had me rolling more than once. The show provides the same sort of mix of comedy and drama that you get with Monk, but with, of course, its own personal mood and vibe.

And now, before I get to the episodes so far, how about some words on the characters…

Mary McCormack as Mary Shannon — As a main character, Mary’s pretty cool. She’s tough, but funny. I like that she’s very ungirly. Actually, she’s about as ungirly as it is possible to get. Which is cool, but it also makes weird the fact that she has already been forced to use her sexuality to solve a case more than once. When she does, she’s not the most convincing at it, but that makes perfect sense for someone who’s supposedly a law enforcement officer (one annoying thing about movies/shows is that whenever a character has to act, because they’re caught in a situation or whatever, they’re usually very good actors; why do most actors/directors/writers/whoever not seem to realize that just because a character is being played by an actor doesn’t mean they are themself a good actor?)…although I honestly am not sure whether Mary’s poor acting (I’m particularly thinking of an instance in the third episode) is intentional or not. Let’s go with the former. But anyway, she’s a very enjoyable character and I think she holds her own as the lead.

Marshall Mann — Yep, Marshall Mann the marshal man. I like it. I think it’s funny. And see that serious little frowny face he’s got there. That’s how he looks through the first three episodes, no matter what he’s saying or doing (except for when he’s flummoxed by breasts). It’s part of what makes him so hysterical. He does branch out into other expressions in the fourth episode, though. Really, he’s just a fun, fun guy. Deadpan humor, moments of kickassity, and a great relationship between him and his partner-slash-only-friend Mary. There’s a definite sort of attraction/chemistry there, along with the friendship, which becomes blatantly obvious by the third episode. Personally, I hope they don’t actually have them become a couple, because I really feel that would screw with the great dynamic they’ve got now. But the teasing is fun.

Paul Ben-Victor as Stan McQueen — Yes, it’s the same guy from the first show I reviewed. I can’t help it if he works a lot. Now, I’d like to avoid the obvious Invisible Man reference (particularly since I already made it in my earlier JFC post), and so salvage some of my coolness, but I realize that I have long ago relinquished any claim I may ever have had to such a thing, so I may as well go ahead. Especially since the guest-starring of Vincent Ventresca (a.k.a. the star of I-Man) in the second episode makes not mentioning it rather like ignoring the giant squid at the dinner table (well, coming from me, anyway). So, here I go, referencing away. In an interview, Paul Ben-Victor has even likened his character in IPS, Stan McQueen, to an older Bobby Hobbes. From what I’ve seen so far (which, granted, is only the first four episodes and so not a full picture), that doesn’t seem entirely accurate. Hobbes was a lot more neurotic, for one. Edgier, too. But this Stan character is fun. I particularly like the relationships between him and the two leads, the whole “he’s the boss, but he’s not really in charge” vibe. He’s sort of parental, but in a very nice, pleasant way, rather than your typical gruff, overbearing cop boss, which is very refreshing. You get the feeling that he’s actually on Mary and Marshall’s side, rather than working against them as so many TV bosses do. And funny, too. There was one hilarious scene in the third ep…well, I don’t want to give anything away, so let’s just say it involves the declaration, “The peacock struts.”

Lesley Ann Warren as Jinx Shannon — Jinx is Mary’s mother.  She’s…well, she’s pretty darn annoying.  Despite being the age she is, she has no job and lives off her daughter.  Nor does she have any discernable ambitions or desire for responsibility.  And she’s kind of a ditz.  I suppose some would find her amusing, but I mostly find her irritating.  Still, it is nice to see how Mary puts up with her and takes care of her, even if she is a total leech.  And Jinx can be somewhat endearing at times, when she’s not being a dumb brunette.  I hope as the series progresses we get to see her try a bit harder to become a better person, maybe take up a hobby or something.

Nichole Hiltz as Brandi Shannon — Brandi is Mary’s younger, slackier sister.  She takes after her mom in most ways.  She does seem a bit brighter than Jinx, and maybe a touch more motivated, but she still spends most of her time lounging by the pool and otherwise being entirely no use to anyone.  She’s got a boyfriend back where she normally lives, but there’s something fishy about him.  It’s not really been cleared up what all that’s about, but I’m fairly sure it involves drugs.  And like her mom, Brandi causes nothing but problems for Mary, but Mary still loves her anyway and wants to help her.  So I suppose Brandi and Jinx bring out the softer side of Mary, in some strange way.

Cristian de la Fuente as Raphael Ramirez — Raph is…well, he seems to think he’s Mary’s boyfriend, but Mary disagrees.  She seems to see him more as a…I believe the term is f**k buddy.  He can’t help but get his feelings all hurt over this and generally play the woman in the relationship while Mary freaks out about commitment.  Now, it’s not that I don’t like him.  I like him well enough, for what he is.  It just seems like the writers didn’t really know what to do with him.  I don’t want to say much here, so I don’t spoil it, but…I don’t know, maybe when a character gets a drastic haircut after one episode that’s a bad sign.  Kinda seems like they changed their minds about him.  Or maybe they’ve got some grand master plan they’ve yet to reveal.  If not, Raph kinda got a shoddy deal. 

Todd Williams as Bobby D — Bobby D’s not actually in the show all that much, so it’s hard to say much about him.  He’s a homocide detective that shows up at a lot of the same crime scenes as Mary and Marshall and he seems to sort of grudgingly help her.  He’s also very, very cool, as evidenced in a scene at the end of epsidoe three. 

So, episode one sets us up, introduces us to Mary and all her various life-accessories.  There’s also a case, of course.  I suppose it could be called a fairly standard case, but the nice thing about this is that there isn’t really a set, standard case formula.  It also introduces us to location, being Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Now, as someone who doesn’t know much more about Albuquerque beyond the fact that Bugs Bunny should have taken a left turn there, it’s very nice to see a show set somewhere other than LA or Vancouver.  Not just set, but actually filmed.  New Mexico is probably not a place I’d like to spend a lot of time myself, judging by the amount of sun there appears to be, but it’s nice as a change of venue on my computer screen.  The story in the first one is good, but the character interaction just isn’t quite as interesting, generally, as it is in the other episodes.  Probably because there’s so much to be done in setting the scene for the show.

The second one was very enjoyable.  Mary got to show she’s not good with kids, Marshall got to show how he’s kinda badass, and it all wrapped up in a very satisfying way.  As to that guest appearance by Vincent Ventresca…I have to say, while I thought the episode was very good in just about all respects, there is one thing that did irk me like an unscratched itch. Now, you’d think that when you just happen to end up having an episode featuring two actors who played partners and best friends for two years in another show, you might have them at least, I don’t know, interact once.   Some shows even go a step beyond that and contrive some little moment, such as I-Man itself did in a completely throw-away scene involving Adam Storke, one of the stars from a show called Prey, which also starred Vince and now-way-too-famous-to-ever-do-a-sci-fi-series-again Debra Messing. A moment which, I’m sure, was enormously satisfying to the five people who watched Prey. But I digress. The point is, Paul and Vince appear in all of one scene together, and don’t so much as make eye contact. What a waste. And frankly, a bit of a distraction. (Okay, it’s not like, given the plot of the episode, it was out of place for the characters, so I’m sure people who never heard of I-Man wouldn’t notice anything odd. Which was perhaps the problem. I think it’s funnier to leave casual viewers going, “What was that?” while those in the know go, “Ah-ha *wink*wink*.” Boy, I am really rambling now.)

The third episode was the most hilarious so far.  Mary shows once again that she’s not your typical woman while Marshall shows that ultimately, he’s just a guy.  And Brandi shows that she is of some use…if you need to dress like a skank and don’t know how.  There were just too many funny things to mention, most of them involving Mary and Marshall.  There seems to be a bit of a shift as far as how their relationship is being handled in this one, but I think it’s a fun direction they’re going.  This ep guest-starred Missi Pyle, who has done a heck of a lot of stuff.  You may remember her as Mrs. Beauregarde in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or (my personal favorite) Laliari the alien on Galaxy Quest.  She’s a fine actress, able to be charming, creepy, or conniving at any given moment.  And she’s got a wonderfully expressive and memorable face.

The fourth episode guest-starred the strangely-adorable Dave Foley.  He was the boss-man on Newsradio, as well as having been in the popular Canadian sketch comedy show Kids in the Hall.  He’s quite a funny guy, but it turns out he can do some good drama, as well.  This ep also provides us with some delicious Marshall whump.  We get to see more of what Mary and Marshall mean to each other, but from quite a different angle than the third episode.  It almost seems odd that they’re delving so deeply so early in the series.  Used to be shows wouldn’t even bother with any kind of in-depth character development until they’d established themself and were in the second or third season.  Sadly, shows can’t afford to dawdle like that any more.  As Journeyman and Moonlight proved, a show’s got to make those first thirteen (or fewer) episodes count, because they may be all that it gets (they also proved that even when they do make them count, there’s still every possibility that they’ll get canned).  Though it does make me wonder if it’s not somewhat tying their hands as far as future stories.  If the show does go on for several seasons, how will the relationship between these two characters progress?  Or will it simply reach a comfort level and not change for some time?  I don’t know, but I hope we get the chance to find out.

In summary: In Plain Sight.  Watch it.  It’s good.

 

G vs. E

So here’s this show that I never even knew existed until a few days ago.  I happened to be perusing some older pages on the net when I came across mention of a show that used to be on the Sci-Fi Channel.  It was called “G vs. E”.  Now, I was hoping that stood for something terribly interesting and unexpected, like maybe “Gypsies vs. Eskimos”, “Girl vs. Elephant”,  or even “Gero vs. Espenson” (also known as “Sci-Fi Series Writing Staff Smackdown”).  Alas, it stands for “Good vs. Evil” (which could sort of be the title of half the scripted shows in existence). 

Since the show hasn’t been on for years, and it’s not on DVD, it’s pretty hard to find.  Someone has uploaded the first episode onto youtube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz6-2brzHlk ), so that’s the only one I watched.  (By the way, in case anyone cares, there will be spoilers here.)

From 1999, the show’s about this guy who dies, then gets recruited into some sort of supernatural army that fights against the forces of evil.  They’re very careful not to say anything about the afterlife, the enemy, or the people in charge which might point to any one particular religious view, and makes the offices of “the Corps” look like any standard-issue police headquarters.  I suppose they think this is a clever way of “modernizing” the angel/demon theme while making up their own rules about it, meaning to appeal to a wide, modern-day audience.  To me, it just made it seem ungrounded. 

While the word “demon” is occasionally thrown around, most of the words describing the major types of players are not wholly new, but not really referencing something known either.  The demons that the good guys are going after are called “morlocks”, presumably because it’s a menacing-sounding and catchy word, because they don’t bear much resemblance to the flesh-eaters of HG Wells’s story.  The morlocks are the counterparts to the heroic agents of the Corps in that they, too, have once died.  While people such as the main character, Smythe, are regular humans who, becuase they’re not quite good enough for heaven, but not quite evil enough for hell (in Smythe’s case, he was a good journalist, but a bad father), are given the chance for a bit of extra redemption by fighting for the good guys, the morlocks are people that, before they died, had made a deal with the devil (and so, apparently, become devils of some kind themselves after death, if the horns and general ugliness are any indication).  Before they die, such people are known as Faustians (which at least makes a bit more sense than “morlocks”, but still doesn’t blow me over with the creativity).  Now, these Faustians, being still alive, have a chance to switch sides and reneg on their aforementioned deal.  Near as I can tell, the job of the Corps is to find such people and win them over.  Or, if they can’t, to get rid of them.  Likewise, they’re meant to hunt down and kill whatever morlocks they can (I believe one of the head guys in the Corps at one point informed Smythe that it was “kill or be killed”).  They’re given special morlock-killing knives which for some reason are the only thing that can kill a morlock because they’ve been soaked in the blood of an innocent.  Now, how an apparently evil act (something that would result in the substantial bloodloss of an “innocent”) could yield something of great power against the forces of evil, I’m not quite sure. 

Oh, and there’s a catch.  Actually, three (all presented in a convenient orientation tape upon Smythe’s return to this plane of existence).  First, they can die.  Second, they have no special powers.  Third, they’re not allowed to have sex (becuase they never know that the person they’re having sex with isn’t a morlock).  This here is my main problem with this show.  It seems like a phenomenally stupid idea to go through the trouble of using the deceased as an army of goodness if you’re only going to make them mortal again.  Isn’t part of the handiness of such beings that they are no longer susceptible to normal bodily punishment?  Especially when the beings you’re fighting are supposedly less than mortal (if only a special knife can kill them)?  Likewise on the special powers.  If you’re not going to give them any kind of advantage, then why on earth not just use humans?  The trick, I think, is that this means all Corps agents have basically been roped into working for them by effectively being told “join us or go to hell”, while at the same time being denied any kind of access to their former life or family (who wouldn’t recognize them anyway), and yet forced to live in the same crappy human bodies as before.  This a) makes whoever’s in charge of the Corps, the army of the light, look like a complete dick, and b) seems like a pretty lousy way to run an operation, from a tactical point of view.  When the requirement for entry into the Corps is apparently that a person was of negligible moral character, is that really who you want representing the side of good?  Not so much good vs. evil as neutral vs. evil.  (Not to mention that there are a heck of a lot of reasons for sort-of-undead people working for the side of good to not have sex other than that their partner might actually be a demon, but at this point, that seems moot.)

(Looking at the entry in wikipedia, it gives more info on morlocks than appeared in the first episode, assuming it’s accurate.  For one, it says, “They are identifiable as people who have suddenly become sarcastic and courageous to extreme degrees.”  Which, I guess, means that the ranks of morlocks include Severus Snape, Rodney McKay, and any boy who’s hit puberty.  It also says, “Any member of The Corps who dies at the hands of a Morlock immediately becomes a Morlock as well.”  I’ll chock that up to another reason why it’s stupid to have mortal agents, and yet further proof that whoever’s running the Corps is kind of an ass.)

Basic premise aside, there were things that I rather liked about this episode (the blaxploitatious, retro feel sadly not being one of them, but that’s just personal taste).  One was the scene where Smythe and his new partner (an afroed Shaft-alike named Henry McNeil–a Scot if ever I saw one) are at an old lady’s house, questioning her, when she chokes on one of her homemade goat nuts and slowly suffocates to death while our heroes look on, half-heartedly wondering if they ought to do something.  Deciding, “she’s had a good life,” and, “don’t mess with the natural order of things,” they let her die.  I have to admit, that moment is nothing but win.  How many shows would have their heroes not even attempt to save a dying old lady when a good Heimlich was all that was needed (and further, feel not the least bit bad about not helping, and later use her corpse as a prop in an attempted sting while they all sit around and eat hot dogs)?  It also reinforces my “neutral rather than good” view on them.  Not that that’s strictly a bad thing.  From a storytelling perspective, it’s far more interesting to have morally ambiguous heroes than ones who always do the right thing.  If we can get over the fact that it’s not a very smart move to have such people in your army of goodness, then we’ll have more fun watching them than we would your typical white knight.  And from a certain perspective, this apathetic response is totally understandable from them.  After all, by definition, these two guys have themselves already suffered death (in Smythe’s case, a brutal, violent murder), so naturally they may not have much sympathy.  Oh, other people might be made more sympathetic by the fact that they’ve gone through another’s pain, but not these guys, and that’s totally fine with me. 

One of the higher-level Corps guys is this fat guy who’s kind of amusing, and reminds me more than a little of this actor named Gary that I knew in college.  After they get shot at a bunch and the new guy’s freaking out, fatty reassures him by saying, “You got the bad guys trying to whack you, you’re doing something right.”  Which isn’t so much funny as surprisingly profound for such a campy show.  I rather liked that line.

One thing that didn’t make sense to me about the plot of this particular episode was that they were chasing down this morlock who’s got some other morlock out to kill him.  When they finally catch up with him and explain that they weren’t sent by this other morlock, the guy’s relieved and they have a nice chat.  “But wait,” I’m thinking, “isn’t the whole purpose of their jobs to kill morlocks because they’re all inherently evil?”  I guess not, since they seemed to have let that one go.  And yet they chase down with a vengeance the morlock who’s offing other morlocks.  Which confuses me. 

By far the best part of watching this particular episode was seeing Dominic Keating (who would not too much later be cast as Malcolm Reed in Star Trek Enterprise) as a falsely-accused Russian butcher on death row.  Sure, there wasn’t anything particularly outstanding about it, but I enjoy seeing actors from shows I watch (particularly sci-fi shows) on other stuff.  Especially when they’re wearing silly Mario-Brothers-esque moustaches.  Check it out:

But wait, it gets better (and here’s the really spoilery part): it turns out that he’s actually a morlock, some kind of super morlock assassin guy, the main one who’s killing all the other morlocks (which the good guys don’t discover until they get him released from death row).  So then we get to see the flashbacks of his supposed crime, where he’s wearing not only the moustach, but little horns as well, and he looks like a demonic Luigi…

…which was enough to make the whole frelling thing worthwhile. 

Now, I know there are some people who love this show.  I’ve read it got much, much better as it went on.  Unfortunately, unless they decide to release it on DVD or I happen to accidentally catch it on some network called Chiller (where wikipedia tells me it’s airing), I’ll never know how the rest of the series turned out.  (Actually, it looks like episode 18 is on youtube as well, so maybe I’ll give that a look.)  I suppose my final verdict on the premier episode is that, while I find the premise deeply flawed, the characters are promising and it probably was a better show than this episode made it seem. 

John From Cincinnati

A little over a week ago, on a whim, I bought the DVD set of a show called John From Cincinnati.  Now, for those who have no idea what this is (and considering the show aired on HBO, which a lot of people don’t get, was new last year, and got quickly cancelled, that’s a safe bet), it’s basically about this really strange guy who wanders into a surfing town, innocently insinuates himself into the lives of a really dysfunctional family of surfers, says strange and cryptic things, and somehow makes supernatural/paranormal things happen to those around him. 

I watched the whole set last week (as the poor thing only had ten episodes, it wasn’t difficult), and I have to say, I think I like it.  Granted, being HBO, it’s a fair bit dirtier than most of the shows I usually watch (primarily in terms of language, although there was one, um, memorable shot of Luke Perry’s butt), but seeing as I hear an awful lot of that sort of stuff at work (both from the tapes and from my co-workers), it doesn’t really bother me any more (aside from the sheer lack of imagination it tends to display).  One of the nice things about it being an HBO show, though, is the length.  Each episode is about 50 minutes, and the pilot was even longer.  Okay, so that’s about the length that normal, network shows were ten years ago, but compared to today, that’s six to eight minutes more than you normally get with “hour” dramas.  Which slightly makes up for the woefully short seasons they usually have (even when not cancelled prematurely).

The writing is highly unique.  Just listening to the dialogue, it’s clear this is not your typical drama.  Each character has an individual speech pattern, but few of them really sound much like the way an average person would talk.  At least, not quite.  It’s just that shade left of normal that makes it so interesting to listen to. 

And now some words on the cast/characters…

This is one of those shows where the main characters are not my favorites.  I much preferred a lot of the secondary characters, especially those that were generally found around the motel.  They were quirky and funny (though not without problems of their own) and had this hilariousway of standing around like they didn’t quite know what to do with themselves, but wanting to find some way to help.  But I suppose I should hit on the main ones, as well.

Austin Nichols as John — This is the first time I can remember ever having seen this actor, so I can’t say all that much about him, considering the oddness of the character we’re talking about.  John is very peculiar, and reminds me of no one so much as Kyle on the ABC Family show Kyle XY.  He wanders around looking lost, mostly repeating what other people say and what isn’t repetition usually doesn’t make much sense at all, but can sometimes get people really freaked out (like, “Shaun Yost will soon be gone.”).  But he does have this tabula rasa innocence about him that makes people immediately let him into their lives, and is admittedly kind of endearing, if slightly creepy.

Brian Van Holt as Butchie Yost – Now this guy, I gotta give him props.  The only other thing I could really remember seeing him in is the short-lived and mediocre sci-fi show Threshold.  He played a clean-cut, straight-laced military type.  A more respectable character? Sure.  A more interesting one?  Not even a little bit.  His character in this, Butchie, is a dirty, scruffy, drug addicted deadbeat who squats in a run-down motel.  And he does a really, really good job at not only making Butchie totally believable, but somehow sympathetic.  I’m not crazy about the Yosts, but I would have to say that Butchie is my favorite. 

Rebecca De Mornay as Sissy Yost — She did a good job here, but I just can’t much like Sissy.  She’s got some extreme anger management issues and spends an awful lot of time shouting at people and generally being incredibly irrational.  It’s very tiring to watch. 

Bruce Greenwood as Mitch Yost — This actor’s been around a bit.  He was the president in National Treasure 2 and (I feel obligated to point out) is Christopher Pike in the new Star Trek movie.  He does a good job here, but nothing that really wowed me.  Mitch is a guy who understandably seems to have had much of the life sucked out of him by his harpy wife.  Perhaps this can be blamed for some of his less responsible, more chicken-assed actions over the course of the series.  And I’m not entirely sure to what his initial belief that his spontaneous levitation is the result of a brain tumor should be attributed.  Is that a stronger grip on reality or a looser one?

Greyson Fletcher as Shaun Yost — For all that Sissy is a bubbling cauldron of rage, Shaun appears to have virtually no emotions whatsoever.  I’m not sure if this is due to Greyson being a professional skater rather than an actor, or if that’s really how the character was written to be.  Shaun is meant to be a really good kid, which I suppose considering where he came from and who raised him, he is.  Not taking that into consideration, he’s more like a normal kid who slacks off, occasionally smokes weed, doesn’t talk much, and loves his parents and grandparents despite their freakish horribleness.

Emily Rose as Cass — This is the first thing I’ve seen her in, though she reminds me of other such pretty, petite blondes in recent shows.  Apparently she graduated from Vanguard University, which is a Christian school here in SoCal (a guy I knew in high school went there).  Also, she’s evidently from Seattle, so she gets bonus points for being a Northwesterner.  Her character Cass, I’m afraid, is an entirely different story.  We’re set up not to like her from the start after she hits on Mitch by saying she likes “vintage” (ostensibly referring to her car, but we all know what she really means).  Okay, she does take a turn for the better after a few episodes, but I could never quite forgive her for her willingness to so blatantly attempt to destroy a family that was already tearing itself apart, no matter what her reason (for that matter, the full reasoning behind that was never really answered, at least not to my satisfaction). 

Keala Kennelly as Kai — Surprisingly good actress for someone who’s a professional surfer.  Although she did a pitifully small amount of on-screen surfing for someone who’s a professional surfer.  Kai comes across as a very natural, easy-going sort who does her best to help out the Yosts, no matter how thankless a task it may be.  She’s likable enough that I appreciate her when she’s there, but I don’t miss her when she’s not.

Ed O’Neill as Bill Jacks — I couldn’t stand Married…With Children, but I’ve liked Ed O’Neill in pretty much everything else I’ve seen him in.  He’s a good actor.  (Okay, so we’ll pretend I don’t mostly know him as the troll king in the miniseries The 10th Kingdom…let’s say I watched, oh, Dragnet or something.)  Bill is one of the most interesting characters, though I can’t quite place why.  Well, there’s the fact that he takes telepathic orders from his parrot.  That’s pretty interesting.  Particularly when those orders are to do things he doesn’t want to, like make friends with a drug-dealer.  But I suppose it’s his mourning devotion to his dead wife and his determination to protect the Yosts (because Butchie was once nice to her) that makes him terribly sympathetic.

Willie Garson as Meyer Dickstein – Now, I suppose most people would recognize him from his role on Sex and the City.  Having never even once watched that show, I don’t fit into that category.  I’ve seen him on other things here and there, but of course, being the geek that I am, I mostly associate him with his role as space-alien-turned-television-producer Martin Lloyd on three episodes of Stargate SG-1.  Which shouldn’t be all that surprising, really, considering there aren’t all that many space-alien-turned-television-producer roles out there in general.  But anyway, he’s great.  He does this really funny, unassuming thing which makes him very noticeable, despite how other characters often have a tendency to dismiss him and despite the fact that he is, at least by appearance, completely dismissible.

Dayton Callie as Freddy — Another one of those guys I can’t remember seeing, but surely have.  Gotta say, Freddy’s pretty darn scary.  Then again, for a ruthless, abusive drug-dealer who just might kill a guy if you leave him alone in a room with him, he’s not so bad.  I get the feeling there was something we were supposed to eventually learn about him that we never did, something that might explain why he took an interest in protecting this family. 

Paul Ben-Victor as Palaka — I’ll admit it: I’m biased.  I’m a huge fan of The Invisible Man and this guy was one of the stars.  He can be scary as hell when he wants, but he does comedy like nobody else.  And Palaka is definitely a funny character.  Pathetic, sycophantic, and utterly without any sense of self-worth, but funny.  For a drug-dealer, he’s remarkably good-natured, though that may have something to do with not seeming to be quite all there.  And anyone who buys a plush teddy bear with a little biker jacket for his drug-dealer boss can’t help but be more or less adorable.

Garret Dillahunt as Dr. Smith– Can’t say I recall ever seeing this guy before.  Which isn’t to say that I haven’t, only that I can’t recall it.  He was quite good as the doctor, though.  I like the doc, particularly his confusion and the way he’s forced to question everything he knew when faced with something unbelievable yet real, and the way he does his best to help where he can, where he is.  He’s just kind of a good guy, like you want your doctors to be.

Matt Winston as Barry Cunningham – Now this actor I know I’ve seen before.  He’s done some Star Trek (that time-traveller from the future in Enterprise), as well as various roles in movies and things.  He was just great in this.  Barry is clearly a very damaged person, but he always seems to be trying to be upbeat and positive despite all that he’s been put through in life.  He has a way of always surprising you, being oddly friendly and cheerful one minute and putting a gun to his head the next.  You just never know what childhood trauma is going to rear its head in any given situation.  I probably find him more hilarious than I should.

Okay, so it’s a big cast and I’ve left a few people out.  Suffice it to say, the acting tends toward the excellent and the writing is certainly compelling.  So if you don’t mind the HBO-ness of it or not actually getting answers to quite a few of the major questions (though, for me, I could live without them), maybe check it out.