Re: my post yesterday, Gerald has kindly pointed out that Tony Shaloub has perhaps pushed his characterization of Monk beyond the initial concept of the writers, making him more memorable than any individual plotline would suggest. He also pointed out that Jim Garner did this with Rockford, Tom Selleck with Magnum and so on. Now if the writing is superior the actor probably doesn't have to work as hard. Or in some cases, individual efforts don't shine as brightly (take The Wire, which is all about writing). Or maybe also due to a very large cast allowing little airtime for any one character.
What individual efforts made more of a movie or TV show than the writing allowed for. What did you watch strictly for an individual performance?
Julia Louis Dreyfus has done this with her two followups to Seinfeld. Christine is especially tepid save for her performance (IMHO). Tony Randall and Jack Klugman did this with The Odd Couple, which ran out of steam after its many incarnations. Michael J. Fox carried Family Ties on his back for years. What else?
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How about Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce on M*A*S*H*.
Now that's an interesting one because Alda began to shape the show after the first few years, moving it more to the left than either the movie or the first few years had been. M*A*S*H, IMHO, had several memorable characters. Maybe just about all of them. An emsemble that due to the show's longevity allowed them to show off their stuff.
Hugh Laurie with House, although I'm not sure even he can save it from the repetitiveness of the plots.
Bob Newhart in both of his shows. Tom Poston in the second Newhart.
These are two that come quickly to mind.
Also, Tom Hanks in Bosom Buddies
I thought that Angela Landsbury carried Murder She Wrote for years after it had run its course. I would hate to live in Cabbot Cove. The murder rate there was astronomical.
Actually, I thought the increasing influence of Alda on M*A*S*H wasn't quite disastrous, but did take the edge off the series and made it remarably bland when it wasn't trying something relatively clever (such as the long newsreel interviews episode). Someone, somewhere, perhaps on the radio show THE SOUND OF YOUNG AMERICA, made a note of there being two modes in which Alda worked in the post 1975 episodes, smartass and maudlin. And, for what it's worth, Bob Newhart's had six regularly-scheduled tv series (including THE ENTERTAINERS), but r2 clearly meant THE BOB NEWHART SHOW of the 1970s, which didn't need BN to transcend it, and NEWHART, which did, and he couldn't quite. Usually, the actors can't shine if they don't have scripts to work with...Selleck was another who ran his own show into the ground when he started to throw his weight around (usually this happens to sitcoms; THE ROCKFORD FILES is one of the few examples of a series actually improving because the actor in question wasn't looking to take over the show so much as making sure the best efforts of the writers weren't impeded). The best example that comes to mind of actors triumphing over material in television is the two-part adaptation of Koontz's inane novel INTENSITY, wherein Molly Parker and John C. Reilly did their damnedest to make that pablum into a real meal, and almost succeeded. John Astin brought more zest to THE ADDAMS FAMILY than it deserved, I'd say (as he would with a number of his film roles, to those productions, notably CANDY)...oddly enough, Edmund Gwenn was the best thing about THE MUNSTERS, albeit the ADDAMS show was usually a cut above its competitor.
Phil Hartman on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, till it actually improved around him. It fell apart again after he left and has never fully recovered. Nor, of course, could NEWSRADIO ever get over his murder.
I'll also watch Monk for Tony Shalhoub (and for the record, I've watched 13 Ghosts for similar reasons, though that has the "poor F. Murray Abraham" thing going for it, too). I'll watch House for Hugh Laurie. The actor who plays Grissom makes CSI go-to background noise TV; the other two CSI series are completely intolerable.
Andre Braugher made Homicide: Life on the Street. Same with Michael Chiklis in The Shield, though it may be his interplay with Walton Goggins that is the real show-maker.
Got to disagree with you there, Christa...HOMICIDE made Braugher, at least as much as vice verse.
Great choices all. Bob Newhart is always Bob Newhart but he can save any show, except maybe the one that followed those two. It would have helped the second one to have Suzanne Pleshette rather than the sweater lady. Oh, Tom Hanks was terrific in Bosom Buddies. We've never seen that side of him again, I think.
Angela Lansbury had style and was very believable in that character. Often the show was more interested in showcasing up and coming or down and going actors than real plots.
Phil Hartman, what a loss. News Radio was fun-although Andy Dick doesn't do much for me.
Homicide made everyone look good. The writing, plotting and acting were just superlative. And unlike The Wire (which I love), the characters just popped off the screen. One of the best ever.
I so agree about Grissom. He just radiates life. I've liked him in everything I've seen. He has such gravitas.
I wish I could watch House cause I love that performance. It scares me too much. Can't watch medical shows at all. Maybe they can make him a cop next time. Or a teacher. Or anything else.
Interesting how few women appear on these lists. Angela Lansbury and Julie Louis Dreyfus. How about Edith Bunker, Buffy, Maude, The Gilmore Girls, Cagney and Lacey, who else?
That's just it, Patti...the women characters you cite were in well-written shows. They worked because they had good scripts to work with (unlike, it probably could be said at least some of the time, Lansbury in M,SW). Consider how un-triumphal the last season of GILMORE GIRLS was without the Palladinos. (And Newhart had two rather unimpressive post-NEWHART sitcoms, BOB and GEORGE AND LEO...but I didn't really like NEWHART all that much, despite some good bits, after the wonderfulness of much of the 1970s BOB NEWHART SHOW.) Since you were asking about actors who were transcending badly or indifferently-written shows, I'd since thought of Ross Martin, doing what he could to liven up the thinner WILD, WILD WEST scripts...and Burgess Meredith, giving a real human dimension to a typically one-punch Serling TWILIGHT ZONE, "Time Enough at Last"...much as NBC directed HOMICIDE's producers to make it into the Andre Braugher show for a season or so, it seemed similarly that the less-good ER was to be the Abby show, and NEWSRADIO alumna Maura Tierney was pretty much up to that challenge with weaker scripts and support than Braugher had to work with.
You're right, Todd. I have yet to come up with another actress who overcame weak material. But I haven't yet given up.
Well, it did take CHINA BEACH a few episodes to get rolling, and Dana Delaney managed to come through there and in most of her subsequent career from jump.
Another one, that's still big here in North Carolina, Is Don Knotts" Barney Fife.
To me, Lucille Ball made the I Love Lucy show. The scripts wouldn't have worked near as well with a lesser talent.
Lucille Ball is the sole example I've come up with too--where the character was more memorable than most of the plots. Oh, sure there's the candy episode and the vitamins, but most are pretty lame and repetitive.
Loved China Beach. The prostitute was great on that too. But the writing was pretty good or am I remembering it wrong.
CHINA BEACH improved enormously rather quickly, but started rather slow and not so great. And, of course, the prostitute/pimp-madam was played by Marg Helgenberger, who went on to distinguish herself also on CSI.
Susan Dey was better than either THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY or the early LA LAW deserved.
Sally Field was doing something right to survive both GIDGET and THE FLYING NUN, to say nothing of the SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT films.
But my favorite example would be Sela Ward, who didn't have a role worthy of her, on a regular basis on television at least, till ONCE AND AGAIN...though I admit that if I was flipping by SISTERS when that was on, and Ward was on the screen, I would likely be transfixed, however briefly.
I almost listed Sally Field in her current role on Brothers and Sisters. Certainly she's the most interesting thing about that cast of male models.
Sela Ward is ethereal, isn't she? And Once and Again has a great cast and decent writing. They should have stuck with it longer.
Jason Bateman on ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. Actually, every actor on that show. They really hit it out of the ballpark, except for that whole ratings thing. Karen and Jack (can't remember the actors' names) on WILL & GRACE. Alec Baldwin on 30 ROCK.
As for Shaloub, the reason he's so awesome is because he graduted for the University of Southern Maine. Alums of USM are incredibly brilliant. I happen to know a guy who graduated from there who writes crime fiction. :)
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