Top 10 TV crushes

How have I not done this list before? My current Wade crush got me thinking about my TV crushes through the years and I just knew you'd all want to chip in. 

I am going to do them in a vague chronological order and we're talking warts and all here. No judging. We all have our crushes of shame.

Bobby Ewing

I don't know what it was about Patrick Duffy that got my 11 year old self all in a spin. I do look back and wonder what on earth I was thinking. But at the time, I thought he was lovely. In a non-threatening 11 year old girl kind of way. He was just so moral, good and loved his Pammie. Looking at this photo, he was quite cute really.

Magnum PI

This one is a bit odd but then everyone fancied Tom Selleck didn't they? Moustache, hairy chest and all. Crushes often make no sense and all I can say about Magnum was the character was good fun and he drove a porsche.  I loved Tom Selleck in Friends as well. As Phoebe says, he is yummy.

Dr Caldwell

I admit I had to look up the character's name. Mark Harmon as Dr Bobby Caldwell in St Elsewhere. This was the start of a lifetime crush on Mark Harmon who is simply divine. He was perfect in Moonlighting, to die for in The West Wing and still looks good at 61. He does seem to get killed off quite a bit though.

Dylan McKay

A list without Dylan McKay is unthinkable. Luke Perry wasn't a great actor - I just rewatched some classic Brenda and Dylan scenes on YouTube and cringed for him. But boy, he gave some zing to 90210. To be fair, there was little competition as only complete saps preferred Jason Priestly. Dylan was our motorbike-riding bad boy and we loved him for it.

Pacey Witter

If one character could top my list, it would be Pacey from Dawson's Creek. Slightly pudgy of face and not classic crush material, Joshua Jackson made Pacey sexy. Pacey who remembered everything, who would have gone to the end of the world for Andie and watched Joey while she slept (that makes him sound like a stalker, he wasn't!) Oh Pacey. I still love Joshua and will watch whatever he is in on the strength of Pacey.

Jack Bauer

There is nobody I'd rather have save me than Jack Bauer. Kiefer with that voice, he can save me any day or teach me over the phone how to shoot like he did for Chloe. Jack never had time for romance and he was so busy saving the world but they did allow him some sex in the final season with Renee who gets shot minutes later. Thems the breaks if you get involved with Jack Bauer but it would probably be worth it.

Sam Seaborn

My one beef with The West Wing is there isn't enough romance for Sam. You have Rob Lowe in your cast - give him a girlfriend or two! It doesn't make any sense and it would have been so fun if he'd flirted with someone he worked with. Never mind, it's still Rob Lowe and he is so noble in this. And funny! Sam rocks.

Tim Riggins

You have to watch Friday Night Lights in full to appreciate Tim Riggins. To start with, he is annoying and not that special but then he sneaks up on you and by the time he is declaring love for Lyla, you're done for. Misunderstood with a heart of gold and an intensity to match Pacey's, Tim is hot. But this is purely a character thing for me as Taylor Kitsch without Tim doesn't light my fire.

Don Draper

From all the boys to a man with Don Draper. One of the most beautifully written and complex characters on television, Don treats so many people horribly but is sexy in that wonderfully old-fashioned James Bond way. Mad Men is my favourite show and Don is a joy to watch. His best moments for me are when his defences are down. When he kisses Peggy's hand. When he goes to talk to Joan but he's too late. When he wears that hat and orders an Old Fashioned. Mmmmmm. Swoon.

Wade Kinsella

I'm not obsessed, honest! But he is cute, he is southern and if you've not made it to the season finale yet, you might not quite know what I mean but you will. Oh yes, you will.

Who are your crushes? Share all.

Top ten annoying male TV characters

It's been over two months since I did my list of annoying female characters. Now it's time for the men. I am not going to lie, it was harder compiling this list and I put this down to scriptwriters making women more annoying rather than me being unsisterly. Let's get to it.

10. First up is a strange choice, Robin Colcord from Cheers. Never let it be said that I don't have a memory like an elephant when it comes to television. Robin was the stuffy English guy Rebecca chased after inexplicably. I have no idea whether this actor is English but he pops up in The West Wing years later playing the most annoying character ever. I hate it when American television portrays the English as eccentric lunatics and get their facts wrong. I dislike this actor anyway and the character was ill-advised. Some of us spent several years getting over the departure of Diane and characters like this did not help us.

9. This is a bit controversial. Danny from The Kids From Fame. I don't know, what was the point of Danny? He was the comedian who wasn't very funny. He couldn't sing very well. I just used to find every scene he was in to be rather tedious. Sorry Carlo but there it is.

8. Talking of controversial, we come to Dr Peter Benton. The surly, moody surgeon in ER. Now, I actually quite liked what they did with his character a lot of the time and I applaud that they had a miserable bastard portraying a surgeon as I am sure surgeons are moody and not particularly nice. However, Benton was relentlessly horrible to everyone around him. When he left, I didn't miss him.

7. Bill from True Blood. Not cute, not sexy, bad hair, annoying accent. Sookie, you could be with Eric. Have a word.

6. Just looking at Dan from Gossip Girl is making my blood pressure rise. The whole Humphrey family could fall into the river Hudson and I'd be cheering but I especially loathe Dan. He thinks he knows best, he's supercilious, he's smug and he's tedious. Be gone Danny Boy.

5. Oh good heavens above. Billy in Melrose Place was meant to be a heartthrob but did anyone get past the hair? The fact that Andrew Shue couldn't act at all or the fact that his character was an ocean of wetness? Message me if you did. I am genuinely interested.

4. Steven Carrington in Dynasty famously had his face melted in a oil rig explosion which meant a new actor. They cast him well, the new guy looked plastic. The old Steven was quite hot. Along with a new head, they gave him a new personality, just like they did when they brought in Emma Samms to play Fallon. The new Steven was painful and suddenly no longer gay either. So offensive. Just urgh.

 3. Jess/Logan in Gilmore Girls. Now this is cheating a bit I know but I couldn't choose between them and I wasn't having two characters from my beloved Gilmore Girls in the list. So they are together. Both Rory's boyfriends, both supremely irritating in their own special way. First, Jess. Jess with his leather jacket to denote he was a bad boy. Jess who sulked and was actually horrible to Rory when she didn't really deserve it. Jess who needed a slap. Best bit - when Luke pushed him in the lake. As for Logan, he made Jess look almost good. No wonder Rory was so annoying with such lame boyfriends. They should have kept Dean. I liked Dean.

2. Aidan from Sex and the City. I have nothing against John Corbett at all, he's a good actor and I've enjoyed him in other things. This is absolutely all about the character of Aidan. I know there are women who swoon about Aidan. I always disliked him. Aidan was wimpy, pathetic and he made furniture. Give me Mr Big any day of the week. Aidan and Carrie were simply never convincing as a couple. When they got back together and he was really mean to her - pfffft. She should have just dumped him there and then.

1. This is so inevitable. I didn't have to even think about who had the number one spot. Brandon Walsh from Beverly Hills 90210. He was horrible. He was in every season and he just got worse and worse. He reached his pinnacle of obnoxiousness when he was dating Kelly. And his hair? No. No no no. They should have killed him off. Hated. Him.

Phew. As always, after a rant I am feeling better and ready for my supper. Who have I missed out? Tell me in the comments.

Top ten annoying female TV characters

I saw my sister yesterday (who I might have to give a guest slot as she gets mentioned so often) and we were watching Gilmore Girls and I said how annoying Rory is. Whereas she conceded she could be annoying, she maintained that there was no way Rory would make a top ten list of all-time annoying TV characters.  After some animated discussion, I had to agree with her. Sorry Rory, you don't make my list. I have kept it to females as they kept getting mentioned but I don't want to be unsisterly so I shall do my best to compile a male list some time soon.

Here we go:

10. Amy Gardener (Mary-Louise Parker) from The West Wing. Everytime she was on screen I felt my teeth starting to tingle with irritation. I hated the way MLP portrayed her, so mannered and affected. I think she was meant to be a bit kooky but I wanted to hurl cushions at the TV. Thank heavens they wrote her out.

9. Joey Potter (Katie Holmes) from Dawson's Creek. Now then, I liked Joey in seasons one and two of DC. She was OK in seasons three and four because she was dating Pacey and gave us some classic Pacey moments. However, by season five I wanted to kill her but not before I had hacked her horrible orange hair off. As my sister so famously said at the time "all she does is wheel out her dead mum as an excuse for why she needs sympathy." We're known for compassion in our family.

8. Grace Adler (Debra Messing) from Will & Grace. I wanted to like her and to be fair, she wasn't all bad. I loved that the network cast someone with abundant ginger curls who wasn't classically pretty. This is not in any way a criticism of Debra Messing who I quite liked. But they made her character so pathetic. She lives in Manhattan, in a fabulous apartment, has a great job and a cool gay best friend. Yet she whinges all the time. When she was given some fun lines, I liked her but she wasn't given enough of them. All she ever wanted was a boyfriend and she was in love with her gay best friend which I do not believe actually really happens. Your gay friends are gay. You love them but you don't have a crush on them. Because they are gay. Maybe I am too well adjusted.

7. Pam Ewing (Victoria Principal) from Dallas. Just looking at that picture above is bringing me out in a rash and it's been well over 20 years. My supreme irritation with Pam can be summed up by her trademark line: "I need more time." The woman could never make a decision about anything. She would sanctimoniously stride into either JR or Cliff's office and shout at them and then whimper away with either Bobby Ewing or Mark (from Houston!) A disgrace to all women.

6. Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano) from Charmed. Charmed was my guilty pleasure and I shall blog about it soon. Everyone in this was annoying but none quite so much as Phoebe. They made her such a skank, I think that's what bothered me and it's hardly Alyssa's fault. She was bratty and mainly horrible.

5. Krystle Carrington (Linda Evans) from Dynasty. I can't think of anything positive to say about Krystle. Oh yes I can - when she had catfights with Alexis and showed some spine. Other than that, all she did was mope. Why did she marry Blake? WHY? Always put in powder blue, pink or some silvery shade to bring out her eyes, Krystle was the archetypal wet blanket. She quivered, she trembled, she had watery eyes and would whisper "Blake!" like a kicked puppy. I loathed her.

4. Alison Parker (Courtney Thorne-Smith) from Melrose Place. This isn't Courtney's fault but I don't like her face so it didn't start well for us. Something about her mouth. Then they make her the most exasperating character in Melrose (and boy, was there competition). Defined by her love for Billy (who was a plank of wood) Alison was a royal pain in the arse. Amanda was horrid to her and we loved Amanda for it. At no point did one ever feel remotely sorry for wet Alison who dripped around bleating that people were mean and turning to the bottle. Wish she'd drowned in it.

3. Now we are getting properly into it. Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart). She would be at number one except I actually couldn't watch this show because of her. This could have been a great tv programme - it introduced us to the wonderful Lucy Liu after all. But in the history of television, could any woman have been more excruciating? Waaaaaaaay too thin, in love with another woman's husband, self-obsessed. Arrrrgggghhh! I had to turn it off.

2. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica-Parker) from Sex and the City. A show about four kick-ass women living in Manhattan and they make the protagonist a wimpy, man-dependent, nightmare. Go figure. I really like SJP and so it pains me to have Carrie at number two but her obsession with being in a relationship infuriated me. She was horrible to Aidan (although I couldn't stand Aidan, he didn't deserve to have her cheat on him) and nobody said to her 'Hey, you are being a bitch". She is this high on my list because the show was so influential and a little more sisterhood would have been most welcome.

1. Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) from Beverly Hills 90210. Kelly Taylor was the bitch in the early seasons of 90210 and therefore quite fun. However, when Shannen left, the writers decided to make the show about her and her love for Dylan/Brendan. Dear lord. What a mistake. She floated around doing her psychology course (god help us all) and dolling out advice and words of 'wisdom' to anyone unfortunate enough to be in range. She was a class A bitch (it's ok to be a bitch when your character is to be a bitch but when you are meant to be nice, it's not) to Valerie and again, nobody called her on it. She got slightly burned in a fire and filled a whole season with her 'recovery' from one scar on her back (never her pretty face of course). For me all annoying TV characters are benchmarked against Kelly Taylor and none have topped her yet.

There we have it. A great way to start a Saturday, a good old vent!

Opening credits - Starksy & Hutch

The 70s. What a decade. So funky. No theme tune came funkier than Starsky & Hutch. Everything about this show was iconic; from the red and white car, Huggy Bear and David Soul's flares. It was marvellous. And the theme sounds as great now as it did then. What I learned today: Aaron Spelling produced this. I did not know that!

Enjoy!

Melrose Place

Melrose Place was the soap fan's soap of the 90s. If you didn't watch this, then I pity you as it was fantastic. A spin-off from Beverly Hills 90210, it was more grown-up and set, funnily enough on Melrose in LA.

It had a wobbly start because they just made everyone nice and dull so nobody cared. But then Aaron cast Heather Locklear and sexed the whole show up and suddenly it was unmissable. This coincided with a year I spent in the US doing my degree and on Wednesday nights they would show 90210 followed by Melrose. Man alive, were me and my roommates happy! We used to love it. Those were the days.

The storyline all Melrosians (just made that up but we'll go with it) remember fondly is the Kimberly one.  She went from:

to:

to:

OMG! It was the best television at the time! Kimberly was played by Marcia Cross who became a big star in Desperate Housewives. I was really pleased to see her pop up there as I always thought she was excellent in Melrose. Daphne Zuniga was also in this and I believe they brought her in as she was quite hot property having been in The Sure Thing (we'll save that classic 80s movie for another day) and she was good in this but her character was never well written. Heather was as good as she always is (ie brilliant) as the bitchy Amanda. The show was let down for me by the utterly tedious Billy and Alison (played by Courtney Thorne-Thomas - truly a drab actress) but no matter. We had Dr Mancini, Sydney and this show introduced us to Kristen Davies as Brooke.

It was simply the trashiest of television and all the better for it. Back in the days before the internet, it was hard to watch this once I came back to the UK as it was on Sky (and nobody had Sky back then - unimaginable I know!) but again my sister came up trumps as she videoed all the episodes in Sydney (where she lived at the time) and posted them to me. That, my friends, is love!

Classic opening credits, enjoy!

Opening credits - Hart to Hart

Hart to Hart was one of the worst programmes ever made. Naturally I loved it. Oh, I wanted to be Jonathan Hart on that plane in the first scene of the opening credits.

I am a complete sucker for narrated credits. I'd love to give you other examples but my mind has gone blank. Max does us proud here - "when they met, it was moider!" Ask my sister and she will tell you about me asking her if that actually meant they murdered each other. I was only little.

This show was all about style over substance. The plot was the same every week - either dashing Jonathan ("he's quite a guy") or Jennifer "(She's gorgeous!") would uncover something suspicious, be in danger, rescue each other and then have a final scene in bed talking about it which ended in a sweeping kiss: fade to black.

They didn't have children and to my recollection, there was no mention of them. They had a lurve that needed no kids - just them, Max and Freeway the dog.

Oh, those were the days. Another Aaron Spelling classic.

Opening credits - Charlie's Angels

Now then, what is there left to say about Charlie's Angels? Plenty I say. Let's get to it.

For girls growing up in the 70s, there was only one TV show and this was it. I was only a youngster when the Angels hit our TV screens but I have such fond memories of watching this and being totally entranced. The glamour! The hair! The clothes! Three 'little girls' fighting crime and solving cases while tossing their bountiful locks of hair and donning lip gloss. OMG. Seriously, O.M.G.

It was wonderful of course. And much as I like Cheryl Ladd, Farrah was who we all wanted to be. Well actually, this isn't true. I always wanted to be Jacklyn. Even now I covet her hair. But Farrah was cool. Kate was cool. They were all cool. Watch the opening credits and you could be looking at a fashion show from 2011 as all these clothes are back in this season.

A timeless show of pure genius with the voice of Blake Carrington as Charlie. It's hard to imagine needing anything more from a TV show. They just don't make television as entertaining as this nowadays.

These credits are season two as it's hard to find season one online. Enjoy.

Beverly Hills 90210

You can take 90210, yes indeed. You can take it and you can keep it because the original Beverly Hills 90210 was where it's at. This came along at an age where I should have known better but that has never stopped me and never will.

The revamped 90210 sums up everything that is wrong with our perfection obsessed culture. The women are painfully skinny and everyone really is just too glamorous. If you look back at the wonderful early seasons of the original 90210 you can see that they had a cast who did not look perfect. Andrea (despite being 32 and way too old for the part) was normal looking. Brenda had a wonky face (as my brother told me many a time - yes, he watched it too) and Walsh ma and pa did actually look like normal human beings. Even Kelly, who was meant to represent the perfect Californian blonde, had a rabbity look to her.

Oh but it was marvellous. BH90210 tackled issues. A particular favourite was Brenda's lump in her breast. Discovered, dealt with and never mentioned again all in 50 minutes. Shannen was my star of 90210 and Brenda was the best character for my money. The show never quite recovered when she left (although naturally I still watched). I know people hate Ms Doherty but I have a soft spot for her. I didn't think Charmed was quite the same after she left that either. Although kudos to Valerie who had one season of being sassy and fun before they gave her issues too.

And the couple of BH90210 was undoubtedly Brenda and Dylan. A close runner up is the Andrea/Brendan romance that never quite happened. But it was all about the Romeo & Juliet love story of B&D that did it for me. Needless to say I loved Dylan. Luke Perry has done nothing of note since but we'll always have his unfeasibly large forehead and his angsty Dylan McKay.

Hands down most annoying and irritating character - Brendan Walsh. Preachy, smug, boring and somehow a pin-up, I never understood the appeal of him. Second most annoying character - Kelly. Oh my god but she was so annoying and whiney. Therefore Brendan and Kelly together was a snoozefest. Tori Spelling was the freakiest character and her breasts almost had a show of their own in later seasons. She did however have the classic 'Donna Martin Graduates!' storyline. You can buy a t-shirt!

There was an innocence to BH90210 that 90210 simply doesn't have. We worship at the altar of Aaron Spelling television - this was one of his finest hours.

I leave you with the opening credits from seasons 2&3 - the best ones. Enjoy!

Dynasty

Dynasty vs Dallas. I loved both but for different reasons. I shall save Dallas for a future date. Dynasty was the glam, old school soap whereas Dallas was down on the farm. The first season was really slow and the producers obviously realised this because they brought in the Best Soap Character Ever In The World, Alexis. Alexis, as played sublimely by Joan Collins, was fantastic. I am fortunate enough to have Season 2 on DVD and watched it recently. What struck me was how timeless Alexis's outfits are. I know we are in an 80s revival but one does not think the same about Krystal's clothes. In fact, one wonders how Linda Evans could bear to wear them. All those long ivory dressing gowns with massive shoulder pads - urgh!

But Alexis was cool. And she was another female character who did things on her own terms. Yes she was a bitch but honestly, wimpy Krystal deserved it. She was so wet and hopeless. Alexis strode around running ColbyCo and giving Blake what for. My abiding memory of Dynasty is Alexis having a massage in her office and somebody striding in to have an argument. They must have done that scene dozens of times. 

My other favourite Dynasty character was Fallon. And I mean the original Pamela Sue-Martin Fallon as Emma Samms was so wrong. Pamela as Fallon was feisty and funny. In fact the original casting was excellent. The incomparable John Forsythe, fresh off Charlie's Angels as Blake Carrington, a truly horrible person by the way, you wonder why any woman would stay with him. John James as Jeff Colby; was there ever a more 80s looking male?

And I was always rather fond of the original Steven before they replaced him with the rubbish one.

Dynasty got really silly and there was no excuse for the spin off The Colbys. But that second season is still a treat. And it is the show that gave us the wonderfully named Dex Dexter.

But this was Joan's show. And how she rocked it. Here's to you Joanie.