In the television world, career longevity is a rarity. Typically, if you’re lucky enough to land one successful television show, your odds of landing another aren’t good. Ask Jason Alexander. Ask Roseanne. Or Jenna Elfman. Or Paul Reiser. Or Bronson Pinchot. What’s even more rare is not only landing two successful shows, but landing them a decade apart. Rarer still is being as crush-worthy an actor in his or her 30s and 40s as he or she was in their teens and 20s.

But it happens. Not terribly often, but it does. Here are 10 instances representing the spectrum of TV crushes that you might have had in the 90s and that, thanks to an ability to maintain a high profile — and good looks — over a decade or more, you may still nurse today.

Read the rest of this entry »

As good as its surprising first season was, “Justified” entered rarefied heights in its second season, earning critical acclaim (a well deserved Emmy for Margo Martindale, plus nominations for Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins) as well as fanboy huffing here at Warming Glow, where all of the show’s trappings — a shoot-first protagonist, complex characters, femmes fatales, bourbon, snappy one-liners, and noir undertones — appeal equally to our intellectual proclivities and baser instincts. Entering Season 3, my primary concern was whether “Justified” would match Season 2′s quality and join “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” as a terrific show that grows from year to year, or regress to mere testosterone thrills, as its FX mate “Sons of Anarchy” did after its own stellar second season. After viewing the first four episodes of Season 3, I’m happy to say that the former is very much the case: “Justified” is still one of the best shows on television.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fantastic casting news today: my longtime love Carla Gugino will join Season 3 of another love of mine, “Justified,” as a woman who shares a past with my other longtime love, Timothy Olyphant.

In Season 3 of the acclaimed drama, Gugino will playa Washington, D.C.-based assistant director of the U.S. Marshals Service who used to work with Raylan back in Miami — and as such shares a history with our favorite trigger-happy lawman.

Gugino’s character, who is described as “tough, smart and funny,” comes to Kentucky to help safeguard hidden witnesses who have become vulnerable after the murder of a U.S. Marshal. [TV Line]

This makes awesome and wonderful sense. Not only has Gugino starred in another series based on another Elmore Leonard character in the U.S. Marshals (the unfortunately short-lived “Karen Sisco”), but she’s already established on-screen chemistry with Olyphant (banner image). Granted, like everyone else, I’ve never seen their scenes together in Elektra Luxx, but I’ve dreamed about those two having sex often enough that it automatically gets my approval.

I believe this calls for a gratuitous and unnecessary gallery of sexy Carla Gugino pictures. C’mon, you know you wanna click through. Daddy needs the ad dollars.

Read the rest of this entry »

TNT announced a little while back that they were getting into the TV movie game, and now they’ve settled on the first installment: “Hide,” a crime drama based on a book by Lisa Gardner, starring Carla Gugino as Boston detective D.D. Warren. From The Hollywood Reporter:

The story will revolve around Warren, who will investigate the mummified remains of six missing women found inside a buried chamber at an abandoned mental hospital. The case will lead Warren to investigate Annabelle, a woman with a secret past and twisted family history.

The telepic is part of the cable network’s new lineup of original movies under its upcoming “TNT Mystery Movie Night” announced at the upfronts in May that will feature six contemporary crime dramas based on true-crime stories and fictional mysteries.

Don’t look now, but between “Rizzoli & Isles,” “The Closer,” reruns of “Bones” and “Cold Case” and some of these new movies (including a second one starring Catherine Bell from “JAG”), TNT is damn near cornering the market on ladycop shows. I mean, USA’s got that one with Piper Perabo as a spy and “In Plain Sight,” but they’re not really “cop” shows. And “In Plain Sight” is shutting it down after this season, anyway. FX has none. AMC had “The Killing,” but let’s keep on pretending that never happened. Hell, even the big networks really can’t keep up with TNT. There’s “Castle” and “Body of Proof” on ABC (but those are stretches because “Castle” is more about, well, Castle, and “Body of Proof” is about a medical examiner, but I called “Bones” a ladycop show, so I’ll allow it), and there are other shows with female cops, but not many others that rise to the level of the ones on TNT.

In summation, I suppose the two most important takeaways of this post would be: 1) Carla Gugino is very attractive. 2) I know an awful lot about ladycop shows.