He did the mash, the monster mash

It's far too much pressure to always be writing about the most current episodes of the most current shows so I have decided to avoid that pressure and instead chronicle any aspect of my daily tv viewing experiences that strikes my fancy. So there.

Last night, I watched part of an old X-files episode, "Tooms," about a creepy guy with the ability to compress his body and slide through crevices in his quest to attack people and eat their livers, which then provide him sustanence during his long hibernations in between killing sprees. (He played this character in two episodes, both full of oozing liquids and close calls. I really used to love these monster storylines. So much more immediately fulfilling than the extended conspiracy arcs with no. resolution. ever.) What I noticed immediately last night, of course, were early Mulder's bushy hair and bad suit and early Scully's sensible hair with a horrible part and an ill-fitting, suit even worse than his (In burgundy. With tapered legs. Seriously. I once heard Chris Carter say that they dressed Gillian Anderson really conservatively in the beginning because that's what they thought serious female FBI agents would look like and it only occurred to them later that she could probably wear clothes that fit her and still be taken seriously as a character. The inanity of these assumptions goes without remarking. But is this the same reason that in this episode they seem to be filming her through some sort of Barbara Walters-esque filter, to make her look attractive but not in any way that might be construed as intimidating? Hmmmm...)

But what kept my attention longer than these wardrobe malfunctions and bad coiffeures was the character Tooms himself, whom I now recognize as having played the bad guy in The Green Mile. And I wondered, is he now suffering from the Curse of the Creepy Guy? You know, what happens to people who play the really, really bad characters really well and then must forever after continue to play the bad guys? And now, of course, after I have proposed this theory, the names of those who suffer from this curse escape me at the moment...damn this stroke...anyone out there got any ideas of their own?...no?...umm...so ah, more on the creey guys later, because now I am reminded of a similar typecasting situation, the Best Friend. And the quintessential example is, of course, Jeremy Piven, who has made a career of playing best friends almost exclusively, at least as far as his big screen ventures and even in most of his small screen fare as well. Don't believe me? Don't remember who he is? Just trust me. And Clare.
Trust us. Out of the mouths of two or three witnesses, it must be true.

Coming soon: Patrick Dempsey musings