Television's Greatest Characters Review

Those us of us who fall into Generation X grew up with television as a staple. Sad to say, but I remember a lot more about television shows from the 70s than I remember about the things I learned in grammar school.

There have been some awful programming, but television has also featured some really great entertainment and memorable characters. Here, in no particular order, is my list of great television characters - the ones that captured the imagination, made me love to hate them, made me laugh, scared me, and generally kept things interesting.

J.R. Ewing, Dallas - No list would have any credibility without J.R. Ewing. The guy was a scoundrel, a beast...he'd stab his own brother in the back and collect insuarance on it. Yet, there was something so very likable about J.R. Larry Hagman, who stood out in my memory as the lovable oaf, Major Anthony Nelson from I Dream of Jeanie, pulled out all the stops and had a ball with this juicy role. I never was quite sure if I wanted to slap J.R., or congratulate him for doing the things we all think of, but would never, ever do. When J.R. was shot by an unknown, shadowy figure, all the world watched, and the great tradition of ending a television seaons with a cliffhanger was born.

Elaine Benes, Seinfeld - I know most people would rate Kramer or Costanza as their favorite Seinfeld character, but not me. I find myself quoting Elaine Benes, even today ("You're th eloser. He's the victor. To the victor go the spoils.") I loved that she was the one girl among a group full of inept boys, but that she wasn't there as some moral compass. Elaine was as bad as, or worse than, each of the guys on the show. Watching Elaine move from thankless job to thankless job was a laugh riot. And I still can't hear Earth, Wind and Fire's Shining Star without picturing Elaine' god-awful dancing.

K.C., China Beach - I was a huge fan of China Beach, and K.C. was one of my favorite characters. While the trend has been to portray hookers as having hearts of gold, or being victims of their sad fates, K.C. was neither of these things. Marg Helgenberger's K.C. was a smart, savvy woman who didn't ever put herself in victim shoes. She deicdedly did not have a heart of gold, In fact, she often had a heart of stone - she had to, if she was going to survive the harsh realities of Vietnam. K.C.'s Vietnam journey included an unplanned pregnancy and unwanted baby, drug addiction, the unwanted attention of a wide-eyed "doughnut dolly" who never caught on to K.C.'s true profession, and an unlikely alliance withthe show's main character - straight as an arrow Nurse Colleeen McMurphy. As China Beach's story arc progressed, I was really pleased that the writers chose to portray K.C. as a woman who'd taken charge of everything around her. When we last see her, she's calling the shots at the head of some Japanese business conglomerate. I always knew she had it in her.

Lucy Ricardo, I Love Lucy - I do love Lucy. During the past few years, there's been some back-peddling, with people (and TV Guide) calling Seinfeld the best sitcom, ever. I still maintain I Love Lucy holds that title. Lucy was a maverick - her foolish antics are legendary, and the show has been translated into countless languages. Why? because Lucy Ricardo is darned lovable. Face it- she's fun to watch. She did things no one else dared do on camera, all for the sake of a laugh. And she did it better back int he 50s than just about anyone has ever done, since. And she did it consistantly. Every episode of I Love Lucy guarantees laughs...even after repeated viewings. How many characters can you say you still find fresh and funny after 200th viewing?

Jadzia Dax, Star Trek Deep Space Nine - I confess: I'm a Trekkie. I love the Star Trek franchise, and I especially love DS9 - the only one of the shows where the action takes place on a base, and the stories are all character-driven.My all-time favorite Trek character has got to be Jadzia Dax. Dax is a Joined Trill....basically, a humanoid woman with an intelligent life form - a symbiont - living inside of her abdomen. Host and symbiont share a joint conciousness and form their own personality, which is seperate from that of the host, alone or the symbiont, alone. Symbiont's outlive Trill hosts many times over. When a Trill dies, his or her symbiont is removed and implanted in another Trill host. This happens over and over, as symbionts live many hundreds of years. This arrangments makes for all sorts of interesting situations. One symbiont, for instance, will go through dozens of hosts -some male, some female. Each new host will inherit the memories and experiences of each former host. Imagine inheriting the thoughts, feelings, memories and experiences of a being who has lived for hundreds of years, as both a man and a woman, held dozens of different jobs, seen hundreds of different worlds??? Jadzia Dax was skillfully played by statuesque Terry Farrell, who looks more like a fashion model than an actress from a sci fi program. This bit of casting is inspired, as the Dax character has a history that predates the "Jadzia" part of the equasion by many lifetimes. DS9's Captain Sisko, for instance, knew Dax back in the day when the Trill host was an old man named Curzon. Even though Jadzia Dax is a beautiful, young woman, she carries the memories and feelings of old Curzon, and Sisko calls Jadzia as "Old Man", out of habit. Sisko also relies on young Jadzia Dax to impart good advice and sage wisdom. Not what most people usually expect from that particular package. Dax also has a history as a skilled expert in the martial arts of the Klingon people, someting Jadzia embraces. I love Jadzia Dax and the whole idea of joined Trills - the concept really pushes the envelope, when it comes to issues such as gender roles,  sexual identity, age, personal responsibility, karma and personality.

Frank Pembleton, Homocide, Life in the City - Andre Braugher's Frank Pembleton brought anintensity to tv cop dramas the likes of which we'd never seen before. I'm a huge Braugher fan (why isn't he a huge movie star, anyhow?) and I loved,loved, loved his portrayal of Pembleton - the slickly-dressed, tightly-wound, silver-tongued, super-intelligent, ridiculously-serious Baltimore police detective who raised interrogation of a suspect to an art form. Surrounded by sloppier, less intelligent, less skilled colleagues, it was always clear that Frank Pembleton did not suffer fools. Midway through Homocide's run, the wriers decided to make things interesting by having Pembleton suffer a stroke. Inspired! A man for whom sharp, cutting dialogue and grace mean eveyrthing stripped of the ability to move easily or speak without great effort! I loved this guy. Someone please, please give Andre Braugher a good role in a prominent show or movie!

Roger Thorpe, Guiding Light - I was weaned on the soaps. All My Children, Young and the Restless, Edge of Night...you name the soap and, at some point, I've followed it. Soap operas are known for their great, over-the-top villains, and no daytaime villain was ever more interesting, charismatic, complicated or conflicted than the great Roger Thorpe of daytime's longest-running drama, Guiding light. Roger was great because he was driven by passion: passion for living, passion for women, passion for power, passion for revenge, passion for family. No cardboard cutout of a bad guy, Roger also elicited sympathy and even support from loyal viewers. Just when you hated him for comitting the most unspeakable acts, you'd feel a pang of sympathy for him as he'd do anything for his daughter. He'd swindle his own business partner out of money, but put his own life on the line if the cause was right. The late, great Michael Zaslow played Roger for almost 20 years and it never got old or boring. How many tv characters can keep viewers wanting more for that long?

Archie Bunker, All In The Family - Who doesn't hold a special place in his or her heart for Archie Bunker, the world's most lovable biggot? I think the reason he's such a great character is that he wasn't really a bad person, so much as an incredibly ignorant one. And we all know people like that. Lots of us have relatives like Archie. I know my grandfather was somewhat like him. While Archie Bunker was incredibly biggoted and ignorant, he often did a bang-up job at pointing out the hypocracy of extreme liberalism. All in the Family was a ground-breaking show, and Archie Bunker remians one of the greatest tv characters, ever.

Bart Simpson, The Simpsons - I know some people may think cartoon characters shouldn't count, but I disagree. Bart Simpson has moved from tv character to American icon. He's the bratty kid some of us were, some of us wish we'd had the chutzpah to be, and that we hope we never wind trying to raise. I love Bart - just when he does something awful and irresponsible, we're reminded that he's really only supposed to be a little kid: a little kid being raised by a noble mother and a halfwit father who drinks too much and has a bad temper.

That's my list of greatest tv characters. You'll notice I've only listed 9, when a list of 10 is more traditional. I did this on purpose, to make up for something else you may have noticed: this list doesn't include any hispanics or Asians. It doesn't include any homosexuals. It only has one black character. In my opinion, television doesn't have enough diversity, certain ethnic groups are under-represented, and there are certain characters we never seem to see on TV. I've left the #10 slot vacant, because, even though there have been some great tv characters, there's room for more. Room for something and someone who looks, sounds, acts differently than most tv characters.