Six Degrees of Television

This blog has documented my love of sci-fi/ fantasy television viewing. I do watch other shows but they are not the staples of my weekly viewing. At this time, I DVR four shows because I am truly die-hard and the other shows can wait for Netflix. This is all to say, I watch a lot of shows, but not necessarily in a timely fashion. I enjoy noting actors transition between shows, hence the six degrees. Becky is my favorite viewing buddy because she is as bad as I am. We both have spotted Nicholas Lea on Once Upon a Time and V (which was running in the background one night). As soon as we recognized him, we both yelled out Krycek, which was his character on the X-Files. Though Mitch Pileggi has appeared regularly on SG-Atlantis, Supernatural, and Sons of Anarchy, he will always be Skinner from the X-Files to me.

There have been nods through the years to the six degrees phenomenon. On Lost, Daniel Faraday wanted the characters to detonate a bomb in the past in order to alter the current timeline (don't ask). So imagine my glee when watching another JJ Abrams show, Fringe, in which Peter is in the wrong universe/ timeline and someone mentions a Faraday harness. The best nod though was on Castle, when Nathan Fillion dressed up as space cowboy, Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, his character from Firefly.

So I was a bit disappointed to see one of my favorite recurring actors who appears on multiple shows I watch, Mark Pellegrino, being typecast. He appeared on Lost as Jacob, a vague Yoda-like character impacting everyone's lives, leading them to their destiny. Initially, Hurley was one of the few characters who could see him and considering Hurley's past experience with mental institutions, we had to question if Jacob only resided in his head. He was a calm peaceful man, except for that time he killed his brother and set off the chain of events which led to Flight 815 crashing on the island.

He also played Lucifer, yes the devil, on Supernatural. He managed to make Lucifer sympathetic and lonely. I loved him as this character. Recently, Pellegrino has returned to the show reprising his role as a trapped Lucifer who is taunting the character Sam, except it is all a delusion (we hope). I have to say he is truly diabolical in his most recent scenes on Supernatural. Last year, Pellegrino played Bishop, a vampire overlord, on Being Human. His character was killed at the end of last season, so I was pleasantly surprised to see him in a recent episode, except he was a delusion in Aidan's mind, taunting him to kill.

So I love playing six degrees with actors on television, but please don't typecast them. Come up with new material!