Scribblings from the Mitchy Side

Best TV show cast

You know, I normally don't get too anal about what these things mean but "best cast" is dreadfully vague. I could go with "Cast where I loved everyone and their characters without exception" (and I'd have think hard for an ensemble show where both parts of that equation were true). I could go with "Cast that made me go squee because it had loads of my favourite people in it". I could go with "Cast that was just a blinding stroke of casting, where everyone gelled and it showed on the screen."

For that latter, I'd have to nominate the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. They're still friends, 20 years later, and if you follow those who are on twitter, you'll know they make a point of meeting for lunches and keeping in touch and look forward to hanging out together at conventions. None of the subsequent ST shows really had that same chemistry - I've heard both DS9 and Voyager had off screen problems. Whatever I thought of the writing and the wish that some characters were treated far better than they were, the actors always made those characters more than 2D cardboard cut outs and there were times when you could see they were having a ball. I see echos of that in NCIS, incidentally, another show where the casting has been spot on throughout.

For the "Squee", NCIS:LA had me at hello. At least for the pilot, where they had Chris O'Donnell AND Louise Lombard. I was less squeeful when they wrote LL's character out after the pilot but they did bring in Linda Hunt so hrm, I may have to forgive them. Eventually.

TNG prolly comes closest to fulfilling the first "best cast" option too but actually, I think Leverage might edge it by a nose. Again, they got supremely lucky with the casting, all the actors own their characters and I love them all, even Sophie who can annoy me but I have to give major props to Gina Bellman, because she keeps Sophie real enough to be interesting. I was all ready to resent her being back this season and dammit if she didn't have me sucked in by the end of the first ep. Bah! Foiled!

So I think the winner is (again) Leverage :)

Non-Spoiler - THAT WAS FRICKIN' AMAZING! THAT was the show I grew up with. Thank you Stephen Moffat.

( SPOILERS DAMMIT! )

OK, while I'm perfectly capable of being a big ol' soppy and there are "D'awwww" moments that still make me sniffle, none of them revolve around kisses. If this was a movie meme, I could prolly come up with a few but not so much for TV. But there is a moment from SG-1 that makes me gigglefit every time. It's from the hysterical episode "Window of Opportunity", which is basically SG-1's Groundhog Day. Jack and T'ealc are caught in a time loop. Eventually, they start having fun with it which leads to all sorts of shennigans. Watch the whole clip because it's hysterical but the kiss is right at the end if you want to FF :D