Reinvention on the Small Screen

One of the more intriguing casting choices this fall is Ted Danson to replace Laurence Fishburne as the lead on CBS's original CSI series. Danson has played some darker characters--including Dr. John Becker on CBS (1998-2004) and corrupt billionaire Arthur Frobisher on FX's legal drama Damages (2007-2010), but you may still see him as Cheers' lovable bartender, Sam Malone (1982-'93). In television, where characters come into viewers' homes for several weeks if not several seasons, how can actors reinvent themselves? What does it take for viewers to accept them in new roles?

William Shatner has been praised, pigeonholed, and parodied for his role as Star Trek's Captain James T. Kirk (1966-'69 and movies and video games from 1979-2006). One might think that image, that deliberate dramatic delivery, impossible to escape. However, Shatner has played  two other iconic TV roles: Sergeant T.J. Hooker (1982-'86) and Boston Legal's eccentric senior partner, Denny Crane (2004-'08) .

Tom Selleck gained fame playing flashy-dressing, Ferrari-driving P.I. Thomas Magnum on CBS (1980-'88). He struggled to escape that image for some years, but finally did in cable TV Westerns and now in seven TV movies as Robert B. Parker's slow-burning police chief Jesse Stone (2005-present).

Clearly, playing vastly different characters helps in reinvention, but so does the passage of time. Jesse Stone is much younger in Parker's books, but TV viewers may not have accepted a younger Selleck as Jesse Stone so soon after Magnum. I also doubt they would have accepted Richard Dean Anderson, who played thinking-man's hero and pacifist MacGyver (1985-'92), if he'd gone right into playing Stargate's alien-blasting Col. Jack O'Neill (1997-2010). Sarah Michelle Gellar has wisely waited eight years her role as Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) to play estranged twins in The CW's thriller series Ringer.

In some cases, an actor doesn't seem to so much reinvent himself as bring his own personality to roles. Two examples are Jack Klugman, known as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple (1970-'75) and Quincy, M.E. (1976-'83), and James Garner, known as Bret Maverick (1957-'60, 1981-'82) and Jim Rockford (The Rockford Files, 1974-'80 and several TV movies). Not certain where Garner's and Klugman's personalities end and where the roles begin, I don't know that these are true cases of reinvention, but they are different roles viewers embraced equally.

One element sometimes overlooked as lead actors go from role to role is the strength of their supporting casts. Before the cult science fiction hit Firefly, Nathan Fillion was best known as a supporting character in the sitcom Two Guys and a Girl. As Firefly's Mal Reynolds, Fillion showed his dramatic chops, but he had good actors to work with, and good writing to take viewers to a different world. Currently, Fillion plays the title role on ABC's Castle (2009-present), mystery writer Richard Castle, but the show is really more about Castle's latest muse, NYPD Det. Kate Beckett (Stana Katic).

Before his role on Bones (2005-present), David Boreanaz played vampire-with-a-soul Angel as a supporting character and then a lead character for a total of seven seasons (1997-2004). Bones' Special Agent Seeley Booth is a more down-to-earth character who appeals to a new, possibly wider audience, but his co-star Emily Deschanel carries more of the show's load.

Another veteran of Angel, Christian Kane, successfully went from playing smarmy lawyer Lindsey McDonald to bona fide tough guy Eliot Spencer on TNT's Leverage (2008-present), recently renewed for a fifth season. The role of Eliot allows Kane to let his hair down and show off his stunt training, but he also works with a strong ensemble led by Timothy Hutton.

The examples of Fillion, Boreanaz, and Kane show that actors have to adapt to new roles themselves. They have to learn how they fit into a new show's dynamics to help viewers adapt. New series are often tweaked as they go to highlight the relationships and plot twists viewers respond to most strongly.

It can be argued that even short-lived series, in which actors fail to reinvent themselves, are helpful to future reinvention. After her role as Assistant D.A. Abby Carmichael on Law & Order (1998-2001), Angie Harmon played James Patterson's police detective Lindsay Boxer in ABC's uneven Women's Murder Club (2007-'08). This role may have cleaned the slate for viewers, paving the way for Harmon's current success as Tess Gerritsen's Boston police detective Jane Rizzoli (Rizzoli & Isles, 2010-present).

Kelsey Grammer is probably hoping his two canceled sitcoms since Frasier have paved the way for success this fall as he plays powerful Chicago mayor Tom Kane, hiding a degenerative brain disorder, in the Starz drama Boss.