Characters of the Decade: Part 2

The first list was pretty heavy on animation, but this one mixes up the media a bit more and also features humans who aren't white males.

J. Jonah Jameson
J.K. Simmons - Spider-Man series


"Meat! I'll send you a nice box of Christmas meat. It's the best I can do, get out of here."

Honestly, this was the most exciting thing to see be brought to life in the first Spider-Man movie. Has there been a better comic relief character in the last decade of action movies? I can't think of one. Simmons has a unique asshole charisma that he can make work for seemingly any character, and this was the first time a lot of the world got to see it. While I don't think they quite nailed Peter Parker's personality, the personification of his most consistent detractor went off without a hitch.

Omar Little
Michael K. Williams - The Wire


"I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?"

I could name wonderful characters from this show all day if I wanted. Omar isn't necessarily my favorite, but he certainly tends to stick out more than the others. In the world where everyone seems to have an affiliation, he's pretty much out there on his own besides a revolving door of accomplices, playing the dangerous game of robbing criminals. A sort of perverse modern day Robin Hood who keeps it all for himself. While the majority of the show's cast is great because it seems so real, Marlo is great because he's a legend in his own time. Nothing quite clears the streets of Baltimore like hearing the call "Omar comin'!"

Yorick Brown
Y: The Last Man


"In the words of Thomas Jefferson... that's bullshit."

Being the last man on Earth is a large weight to carry, and luckily Yorick's up to the task. It's definitely an unusual situation for a person to be in, and he manages with the right combination of heroism and hopelessness to make him a definite protagonist but still very vulnerable and in need of the health. He makes his share of mistakes, but through the whole story he never loses his sense of humor or humanity. And while I wasn't a big fan of the epilogue, the conclusion of his personal journey was pretty perfect.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds
Nathan Fillion - Firefly franchise


"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

Another case where I could almost name anyone in the cast and justify putting them here, but as the leader of the crew Mal always stuck out. A true outlaw smuggler with a heart of gold in the tradition of Han Solo, Mal is perhaps an even better version. He does what it takes to get by, with lethal force if necessary, but in the end has what's ultimately good always on his mind. He's a bit inconsistent, sticking with his principles in some cases but running if it makes sense in others. But that's part of what makes him likable. He's unpredictable, funny, and a pleasure to watch command a ship.

Brock Samson
Patrick Warburton - The Venture Bros.


"Hank, seriously. When I get my license back I'm allowed to kill you."

It speaks to the show's quality that the recent half season was still totally great even with Brock being elsewhere for most of the episodes, but he's definitely the most fun character to see do his thing. He's the ultimate death machine, a badass with an actual license to kill and unending willingness to use it. But even when he's not on a rampage he's a lot of fun. His familial relationship with his unorthodox family, unexpected extracurricular interests, and uncommon understanding of the insane cartoon world he lives in are all big parts to the character and how he stays interesting beyond going on murder sprees.

Caleb
Nathan Fillion - Buffy the Vampire Slayer


"What can I say? I work in mysterious ways. Also some fairly straightforward ones."

And here's Fillion again already, fresh off Firefly's cancellation. I could watch him in almost anything, with his unending supply of sarcastic nice guy charisma. But this is the only time I've seen him play a true villain, and damn if he isn't good at that too. Caleb doesn't have a ton of screen time, but he's probably my favorite bad guy in a series that prided itself on strong antagonists. With a single push of a finger (well, thumb) he secured his place in infamy, and there's just something about his religious background, rampant misogyny and disarming accent that make him a lot more terrifying than any vampire or demon Joss Whedon could conjure.

George Oscar Bluth
Will Arnett - Arrested Development


"No, Michael, that's not my trick. It's my illusion!"

Arrested Development is basically the definition of a great ensemble comedy cast, but GOB was basically in a league of his own. I'm sort of getting the feeling at this point that this is the only character Arnett actually plays, but damn if it isn't an entertaining one, and it works all the better here with his unusual interests, perspective, and motives. The show was absolutely littered with transcendent moments, and GOB had more than his fair share.

Oh Dae-su
Choi Min-sik - Oldboy


"Anyone here with an AB blood type, raise your hand."

If you watch this movie again, Oh Dae-su isn't even recognizable in the first scene as some drunk at a police station. 15 years alone in a room will change anybody, but Min-sik totally sold hit in his complete transformation into who he'll be for the rest of the movie. The thing that drew me to finally seeing it was a particular action scene, but that's not really what the character's about. It's about what unbelievable circumstances can do to a man, but how at his core there's still the same guy who can still be hurt, no matter how hard his exterior's gotten. And while his final decision is somewhat mortifying, in a way I can't blame him.

Colonel Saul Tigh
Michael Hogan - Battlestar Galactica


"So take your piety and your moralizing and your high minded principles and stick them some place safe... I've got a war to fight."

Tigh is an interesting case, as a pretty good character who didn't become great until circumstances forced him to. He was always an entertaining cranky old guy with a strong sense of duty and a bit of a drinking problem, but when he's thrust into the position of leading a resistance movement by any means necessary, he really starts to shine. Ugliness is what makes pretty much any of the Battlestar characters interesting, and his decisions under stress are as hideous as they come. Of course he changes quite a bit in another way later, and it just adds to his depth as he just tries to come to grips with it all. Most of the show's cast is sort of hard to like, but Tigh was actually easy in a strange sort of way.

Illyria
Amy Acker - Angel


"I wish to do more violence."

Illyria's here half because of the character, and half because it was so mind blowing to see cute, neurotic Acker transform into the embodiment of pure, sentient power. It's really a surprising amount of range, and she pulls it off without a hitch. It's definitely a good character too, one of the few in the whole setting to subvert the normal expectations for the appearance of what's basically a newly awakened, vengeful god. One of the greatest shames in the show's cancellation is not seeing more of her. I guess I could read the comics, but it won't be the same without Acker's performance.

Al Swearengen
Ian McShane - Deadwood


"I wouldn't trust a man who wouldn't try to steal a little."

If you look up "tour de force" in the dictionary, you'll see a definition that accurately describes what Ian McShane did for three years on Deadwood. The show was more theatrical than cinematic in the stateliness and brilliance of its dialogue, and nobody presented it as well as he did. I think I would watch a show that was just him giving speeches to an empty room. That wasn't all there was to the character either, as he was equal parts hilarious and terrifying as he fought for control of the town he helped build. Absolute dynamite the entire time.

Brick Tamland
Steve Carell - Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy


"Yeah, there were horses, and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident."

One of the few supporting appearances in a comedy that basically stole the whole film and launched a career. Carell was funny on The Daily Show and The 40-Year-Old Virgin and The Office certainly helped, but I think Anchorman is when people everywhere thought to themselves, "Man, this guy's funny." Honestly, of all the movie's funny bits, Bricks are pretty base and low brow, but still humorous and important to the continuing development of what's considered funny in mass popular culture.

Continued tomorrow.

Angel - Season 5

Angel's fifth and abruptly final season didn't have the great long, continuous story of the fourth, but in the end it just may have been the most entertaining of them all. The only one that got Whedon's full attention due to other projects taking precedence in the previous four years, it has more of a sense of fun and some really good stand-alone episodes, especially possibly my favorite in the entire run of this show and its parent Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Smile Time". The dynamic between Angel and Spike is one of the most interesting and funniest of any character relationship in the franchise, and they only really had a chance to explore it in one season of Buffy which wasn't quite enough, so reuniting them again really worked out.

It's not all fun and games though, as while the shows have always had the threat of an apocalypse looming at the end, this season focuses on THE apocalypse they've been preparing for the entire time, and there is a feel of doom and dread surrounding them. It's also not a very good season to be a supporting character, with a pretty high mortality rate resulting in some really good episodes and powerful, sad moments. The series ends with some events unresolved, though really it wasn't a terrible note to end the show on, and just like with Buffy the story is being officially continued in the medium of comic books. I'm not going to rush head on into them, but they're definitely on my radar for eventual consumption.

Angel - Season 4

At this point in the series, the writers have basically abandoned stand-alone episodes in favor of long-form, serialized storytelling. The second half of season three was dominated by one plot line, and except for maybe one or two brief tangents here, the entire thing is one big, slowly unfolding story. It's probably as strong a single tale as I've seen a Whedon show tell, filled with human elements, deception, and crazy looking monsters. I think it's the longest lasting storyline in any of his shows, and while I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer gradually grew weaker as it went on, Angel really seemed to improve as it went along. His shows don't tend to start off very strong, and Angel has seen the most steady improvement over its years.

A lot of the focus is on Vincent Kartheiser's character, whose fate is central to the vast conspiracy behind many of the events in the show. I like Kartheiser's smug sliminess on Mad Men for some reason, though I can't say I like him too much on Angel. His motivations as a character always seem weak, like he's not bothering to think about what he's doing, and his entire relationship with the rest of the cast is just an unusual one. It's actually interesting, this was my favorite season despite my thinking the series really picked up once the main crew finally came together, and they sort of fall apart this time. They're still together as a group, but the a lot of the individual relationships are broken past the point of repairing. I'll be interested in seeing what else can go wrong in the final season.

Angel - Season 3

You can really see Angel come into its own and out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's shadow in the third season. With a whopping six people working or staying at the hotel, they finally figured out that a strong supporting cast is the key to making Angel work as a protagonist. Really, it's a hard formula to get wrong - a variety of interesting people working together makes for a more compelling long-term viewing experience than just one or only a few. Joss Whedon obviously had this down to a science when Firefly premiered the next year with a main cast on the ship of nine. Dollhouse got better once the focus shifted from Echo to the workings of the whole facility, and Buffy was better once it expanded beyond the main four too. Everyone bouncing off each other plays particularly nicely with Whedon's style of snappy dialogue, so it's no wonder the shows improved as they went along and the cast grew.

Not standing idly by while Buffy's tone grew steadily darker as it entered the new millenium, Angel follows suit with a pretty somber plot for a lot of the way. Darla first appeared way back in the pilot episode of Buffy, and she'd been bouncing around on Angel for a while with no clear direction. Not that she wasn't an interesting character or played fairly well by Julie Benz, but I was waiting for it to go somewhere. It did that in season three, delivering something to the show that became the focus point for the last two thirds. Along with the arrival of a foe from deep in Angel's past and Cordelia's continued ascension from high school drama queen to something much more, it makes for a pretty engrossing story. And you don't have to look any further than Wesley's arc in the second half to see that this show doesn't play around. The return of a character at the very end carried with it some pretty lame and dated looking computer-aided action bits, but it was still a generally well-executed payoff to the whole thing. The ending was a pure cliff-hanger begging me to keep watching, and it won't be long before I pick it back up.

Angel - Season 2

Angel's second season expands naturally on the first, as his crew gets a little larger while he continues to kill a bunch of demons. There's much more of a real story arc through the whole thing, and an awful lot of the season is not spent following the status quo of the cast being paranormal investigators for hire. A character brought back at the end of the first run is the focus of most of Angel's attention for a long while, and a lot of time is spent with him estranged from everyone else and not really being himself. It was sort of interesting for them to go in that direction this relatively early in a series, although it's not too terribly long before he's back to where he was, just in time for another unusual storyline.

The last several episodes revolve around a plot involving portals to another dimension stuck in a medieval society where humans are slaves, and brings in two main characters, one of which who already appeared frequently since the season premiere. Lorne is a green-skinned, lounge singing demon with special mental abilities, and is a pretty likable character considering how cheesy that sounds. Wesley and Gunn both have bigger parts this time, though I can't really say I totally like either yet. Fred is the late addition, and so far she seems pretty entertaining. She's played by Amy Acker, who also has an increasingly interesting part on Dollhouse. Whedon's shows seem strongest when there is a sizable, fun cast, and Angel is definitely building towards something there. It's not great, but the first 44 episodes kept me reasonably entertained enough to keep watching.

Angel - Season 1

500 posts. Weird.

Angel isn't as funny or easily enjoyable as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it does enough to stand on its own in its first season while still feeling like part of the same universe. It's aided by a number of crossovers with its parent show, which makes for some interesting situations as a thread is opened in the original and tied up an hour later on Angel. Aside from a shorter-than-expected stint by an Irish half demon, the main cast in the first season is made up of Buffy castoffs, and while they were mostly tangential there, they manage to establish themselves as a decent foundation for a series on Angel. The titular character himself can handle the lead well enough, though I like him more when he's being dark and standoffish than when he's trying to make clever quips in battle. Cordelia's role in Buffy was mostly just being a huge bitch, but Los Angeles manages to calm her down a bit and make her more tolerable here. Even Wesley becomes likable once he finds his niche in Angel's crew.

Unlike Buffy, there isn't much of a story thread running through the whole season. Wolfram & Hart are an evil law firm that can be found hiding in the background behind a lot of the show's antagonists from episode to episode, and their presence increases as it goes on, but it seems like they're mostly just setting it up for something bigger later. The action and supernatural stuff is about as competent as Buffy, but where it's not as interesting is the other stuff - the lives of the characters. Buffy and her friends fight a lot of demons, but they also go to school and hang out, whereas Angel seems to be all business. It's still an interesting series, it's just not as fun to spend time in its world. Still, I'm curious to see where it goes.