Typecast in Stone?

My favorite television shows are ensemble dramas, and, if one appeals to me, I'll spend hours with its cast of characters over multiple seasons. Over time, I'll figure out what makes the characters tick and learn their strengths and weaknesses. In short, I bond.

The downside of bonding becomes clear when one of my must-see show ends and familiar actors turn up in different shows with different personas. Confusing! Disorienting! Yes, I know there's a difference between reality and play-acting, but surely I'm not alone in blurring the line.

If you watched The Wire, an HBO series now immortalized on DVD, you spent hours with the ensemble cast and thought you knew them. Actor Idris Elba will always be bad guy Stringer Bell to me, and I marvel at the mother-of-all-redemptions that brought him back as a police detective in Luther, a British series on BBC America.

Jimmy McNulty, the disheveled, blue-collar cop at the core of The Wire now plays a suave, 1950's-era newscaster in the British series The Hour, also on BBC America. Actor Dominic West made Jimmy McNulty suave? Is that a Hamsterdam-fueled hallucination? Detective Bunk Moreland, aka actor Wendell Pierce, left Baltimore for New Orleans and now plays a trombonist in Treme. Huh? I didn't know Bunk played an instrument. Detective Lester Freamon, played by actor Clarke Peters, also turned up in Treme playing bass and serving as Big Chief of a tribe of Mardi Gras Indians. Remember Detective Kima Greggs? Sonja Sohn is still detecting but does it without the Ballmer edge in Body of Proof.

Dillon, Texas is the fictional setting for gone-but-not-forgotten Friday Night Lights, and I like to think the Panthers and Lions are still playing football there. Imagine my surprise to learn Tami Taylor has up and left Coach Eric to appear in a new show, American Horror Story. I wish actress Connie Britton well, but horror? Glazed eyes, pierced hearts, can't win. In a recent interview, Britton said the new show attracted her because it's about relationships and making a marriage work. If that doesn't sound like Tami, I don't know what does.

In a redemption almost as startling as Stringer Bell's, The Wire's Wallace, a young drug dealer who made sure the kids he watched over had food and went to school, was killed and reappeared in Dillon as quarterback Vince Howard. Fans of both shows got to see the young-man-formerly-known-as-Wallace mature and reach for his potential on Friday Night Lights. Actor Michael B. Jordan made both Wallace and Vince tough, vulnerable, and unforgettable.

In FNL, actor Scott Porter played football hero-turned-paraplegic Jason Street. Later, when he turned up as a creepy investigator on The Good Wife, his ability to walk restored, I knew he'd made a deal with the devil. Matt Lauria, who played quarterback Luke Cafferty, didn't join the Army as FNL would have had us believe. No, he left Dillon to be a homicide cop in Chicago Code. The list goes on. The other night I spotted the Billy Riggins character from FNL in a cameo role elsewhere. Clearly, he'd gotten his act together, and I caught myself giving credit to Mindy, Tim, and the twins for Billy's transformation.

Sigh.

Writers who create believable characters and the actors who inhabit those characters deserve viewers who can imagine themselves in a Baltimore or Dillon--for the length of an episode, anyway.

Some of us stay longer.

What television-show locale is real to you? When an actor you thought you knew turns up in a different role, how do you react?

ROUGHING IT...FRANCE SUD, LAUNDRY AND ST. TROPEZ

The washing machine in our French house takes over two hours to do a single load. There’s no dryer so we’re hanging our clothes on the line out in the garden,  or at least we tried that and after six hours everything was still wet. This morning we draped our jeans and khakis over the pool furniture in the sun hoping they will dry in time to wear when we go out later.  Laundry in France just isn’t the easy process we Americans are use to. In contrast, the English of our party think this is totally normal.

In the past week, I’ve been reminded of the many differences between the US and France. Outside of Paris, most places—businesses, stores—close between noon and 2:00 or even 3:00. Forget grocery  shopping at a supermarket during those hours, they’re not open. Restaurants are full of people having a leisurely multi-course meal. Fast food? A quick sandwich? Aside from the traditional filled baguettes, the French frown on such barbaric practices. Sure, McDonald’s has popped up in the larger towns but even then the menu is far different than in the US, offering wine, beer and filled baguettes along with burgers and fries.

Here in the south of France, the pace is slower than in Paris except for the abundance of motorcycles constantly weaving in and out of traffic at an alarming pace. Even though the summer season ended  September 1, one gets the impression everyone is either on holiday or catering to the holiday crowd. Yesterday we visited St. Tropez in the afternoon and found the area around the waterfront bustling with activity. Many of the impressive sailboats which participated in the races last week were still tied up at the dock along side of huge motor yachts. The day was sunny and hot. Only the sale signs in the shops indicated the season was over. The sale signs and the lack of celebrities. But the glamor and mystic remained—it was after all St. Tropez.

DAY FIVE...Loving life on the Côtes d’Azur

Observation…I’m the palest person in the South of France, or at least I was when I got here. It’s hard to believe I’ve been here for five days already and at the same time, I’ve easily slipped into the casual holiday lifestyle of this part of the country.  And somehow in my wanderings acquired a slight tan glow.

There’s a reason this is called the Côtes d’Azur—Gold Coast—aside from the glorious sunshine which has inspired painters for centuries.  Everyone here is bronze, apparently the dire warnings against tanning we get in the States don’t make an impression on this Mediterranean coast. And yet there’s an undeniable elegance to the place with its private beaches and chic cafes, shops full of white linen and colorful cotton clothes, and the ever-present exotic sports cars.

The first few days here I was on my own in a charming chambre d’hote near Nice. Driving along the coastal road, I passed beaches (pebbled rather than sandy), boats of all sizes from tiny sailboats to multimillion dollar motor yachts to the most enormous cruise ship I’ve ever seen.  My destination, the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, is a stunning estate on a point on the top of a hill overlooking  a bay on one side and the sea on the other. It wasn’t difficult to understand why in 1907 one of the richest women in Europe chose the site for her extravagant residence.

On Saturday the rest of the party arrived. The house we rented Plan de la Tour near St. Tropez is everything one could wish for with its pool, outdoor kitchen and dining, and spacious living space decorated in the Provençal style. We’re within walking distance to the village and stroll in each morning for baguettes and pain aux raisins. As I finish this up, Cheryl and Jules have returned from the boulangerie and its time to have breakfast and start another beautiful day.