When it comes to acting on prestige TV, how did the year fare in terms of its highest
highs and lowest lows?
We're here to explore just that.
These are the best and worst TV performances of 2019, from the pint-sized zombie slayers
to the post-apocalyptic tribal leaders.
GLOW has always loved the seamier side of the entertainment industry.
Taking the cast to Las Vegas in the latest season was a natural evolution of that.
Characters like Sheila, rooted in artifice, were forced to strip down, while practical
types like Ruth discovered the joy of glitz.
Debbie, the show's headlining Liberty Belle, did a little bit of both while falling for
a charismatic businessman, struggling with the realities of motherhood, and becoming
a true producer.
Betty Gilpin has always been one of the show's most impressive assets.
But in offering Debbie what seemed to be a ticket to easy street, GLOW allowed Gilpin
to take the character to an entirely new plane of characterization.
This means portraying Debbie with a forthright unpleasantness, but never losing the character's
steely, battle-tested resolve.
Gilpin dares the viewer to judge Debbie for throwing up cheeseburgers and double-crossing
lovers, and forces them to admit the reality of her life.
It's daring, and it pays off massively.
In The Widow, Kate Beckinsale plays a woman named Georgia who spots her allegedly dead
husband in a news broadcast from Kinshasa.
It's immediately clear that Georgia desperately wants to be the hard-bitten heroine of so
many action thrillers.
She gets on a plane to the Congo immediately upon spotting her husband's distinctive orange
hat and starts demanding answers once she gets there.
She's a take-no-prisoners kind of character.
Unfortunately, that kind of performance demands nuance, and Beckinsale does not provide that
nuance.
"It's all we've got.
We have to try."
"Okay, okay.
I will collect you in the morning."
"Appreciate it."
The central mystery at the heart of the story is juicy enough to carry a show forward, but
Beckinsale herself doesn't inspire much sympathy.
Add in the saintly excesses of later episodes, in which Georgia saves a child soldier, and
you get a character plagued by the worst of two worlds: the irritatingly selfish foreigner
and the absurdly selfless savior.
The result is a mishmash of tropes that no one in their right mind would bother to root
for.
Despite the controversy of Game of Thrones' final season, there is one thing everyone
can agree on: Lyanna Mormont stole every scene she was in.
Bella Ramsey plays the pint-sized Lady of Bear Island with an intensity that goes beyond
charming all the way into genuinely heart-wrenching.
"You left Winterfell a king and came back a…I'm not sure what you are now."
Sure, it's cute to see the girl talking tougher than all the grizzled men of the North, but
her death at the hands of an undead giant is one of the most tragic moments of the entire
last season.
Lyanna is the spirit of the North incarnate, a child forced to grow up by circumstances
beyond her control.
Yet, in her unwavering commitment to honor, she's a figure of ironclad inspiration.
Ramsey forces the audience to take her as seriously and courageously as she does her
countrymen.
She doesn't live to see the triumph of life over death, but she had as much a hand in
it as all the other headlining names of Game of Thrones.
Ramsey plays the character with such verve, passion, and bravery, and no fan is likely
to forget that.
Game of Thrones was as known for its villains as its heroes.
Joffrey, the surpassingly cruel boy-king, was a monster without peer.
Ramsay Bolton terrorized the North for years.
Cersei, despite having a bit more nuance to her nastiness, became one of the worst people
in Westeros through sheer spite.
Westeros might have been a place of lords and ladies, but audiences loved it for the
darkness underneath all that glamor.
Euron Greyjoy is Thrones' last attempt at a true monster, clearly built to fill the
void after Ramsay's death.
He sneers, postures, and makes lewd jokes with the sort of swagger that made his predecessors
so hate-worthy.
But that's all he ever amounts to, a worn-out copy of better characters.
He's more annoying than dangerous, a buzzing fly rather than a stalking beast.
When he dies, there's no catharsis.
It's more of a relief than anything else to know that he won't be wasting anymore screen
time.
Greyjoy might've considered himself the man who finally killed Jaime Lannister, but in
truth, he was only ever an irritating, unworthy distraction in an already overstuffed show.
Midge Maisel of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel could've been insufferable.
A wealthy, mid-century woman of New York City, she has an enormous apartment, flawless hair,
and a family servant who takes care of everyday tasks like cooking, grocery shopping, and
child-raising.
Midge has it all, remaining, even in the face of her crumbling marriage, unstoppably competent,
chipper, and immaculately styled.
But Rachel Brosnahan never lets the viewer forget one crucial fact: Midge knows exactly
how good she is at what she does and exactly what being that person requires.
Her charm, talent, and poise are all the result of tireless work, whether that takes the form
of exhaustive beauty routines or a crammed comedienne's notebook.
Brosnahan plays Midge as a woman who's justifiably proud of her accomplishments, but never without
the wry knowledge of how hard the world makes her work for them.
Moreover, for as sarcastic a character as Midge can be, Brosnahan infuses her with an
immense warmth and generosity.
She might crack a joke here and there about her friends, but she never stops wanting to
make their lives richer and happier.
Brosnahan's eyes glitter with ambition when Midge faces an obstacle, and it's a delight
to watch.
Pete Davidson certainly seems to believe he's funny.
Audiences know this because he's apparently unable to get through his performances without
joking.
Every SNL sketch he's featured in seems to contain at least one moment in which he breaks
into giggles.
Perhaps Davidson believes this is charming, even adding to the humor.
For the rest of us, it's tiresome.
"I mean, what is this?"
"Your kitchen!"
"No, I mean, us.
I really hope you understand, but we have to end this."
"Okay."
Think for a second.
What comes to mind when the words "Pete Davidson" are said?
Probably his broken engagement with Ariana Grande, perhaps a few of his off-color remarks.
Only then does one remember he is, technically, a comedian and a regular player on Saturday
Night Live.
He struggles through his lines like a high schooler who thinks he really might have a
shot at this whole improv thing.
His effort is audible in both his breaks into laughter and the generally strained way he
delivers his comedy.
He's best as the dopey stoner type, but he's made quite clear that that's pretty much who
he is anyway.
He's barely a comedian and certainly not an actor, two qualities that are required for
SNL to do what it does.
He is merely Pete Davidson.
And to everyone who isn't terribly interested in what that means for him off-screen, that's
not nearly enough to justify his spot in the cast.
The Good Place pulls off a truly devilish double-act with its premise.
It's all about the exploits of people condemned to an afterlife in "the bad place" who just
can't quit trying to do better.
The cast's obvious talent is key to its success, but even among such standout performers, Ted
Danson manages to impress.
As Michael, an immortal architect of their afterlife, he's both devil and angel, punisher
and victim.
Does he have an endearing affection for the mundane-ness of human life?
Absolutely.
Does he also spend his endless days devising new and better ways to torture humans for
eternity?
Well, yes.
But he also loves humanity's many oddities.
"I put a coin in a thing and got a gumball!
And then someone came up to me and said, 'Hot enough for ya?' and you know what I said?
I said, 'tell me about it!'"
Danson's genius is in his delicacy.
Michael never falls into adorable quirkiness, nor does his growing appreciation of ethics
threaten his truly alien characteristics.
He's as unknowable as a character that generally appears to be human can be, and his storyline
is a careful reveal over the course of many episodes.
It's a balancing act that few actors could pull off.
Yet Danson makes Michael's wide-eyed innocence as convincing as his total ignorance of basic
decency.
He might be a billion-year-old fire squid wearing a humanoid skin, but you can't help
but root for him anyway.
What do you get if you put the dystopias of YA fiction, Game of Thrones, and every high-profile
narrative video game of the past decade into a blender?
The answer is See, and it's just as discordant as that description implies.
Set in a post-apocalyptic world in which nearly everyone has lost their sight, Jason Momoa
plays Baba Voss, whose newborn twins have the ability to see.
Naturally, they are coveted by bad guys, and Voss must journey across a threatening landscape
to protect them.
Fight scenes, love scenes, and everything else you desperately need to be crowned the
successor to Game of Thrones ensue, with no expense spared.
See certainly looks good.
Unfortunately, that's about all it succeeds at.
There are many to blame for this, but Momoa is certainly the most visible.
Voss is stoic, good at fighting, and generally cool, but that's pretty much where his character
ends.
Voss feels assembled in a lab, a warrior dude who might've headlined any action franchise.
That blandness doesn't save him, but damns him to second-tier status forever behind the
characters that inspired him.
Baba Voss tries desperately to be cool, and as anyone can tell you, visible effort will
keep one from coolness forever.
Hulu's dramatization of Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee Blanchard's complex dance of cruelty,
appeasement, and ultimately, murder, could've collapsed in a pile of melodrama.
It's a testament to the skill of its cast that it didn't.
A big part of that credit belongs to Joey King, who portrays Gypsy as a survivor against
all odds.
Viewers likely entered The Act knowing its ending, but King's delicacy makes every inevitable
moment an edge-of-the-seat event.
Watching Gypsy's good-girl demeanor crumble is a revelation, one that's as surprising
to Gypsy as it is to her mother.
When Gypsy realizes she might not be deathly allergic to sugar as her mother has always
told her, betrayal and hope flash across her face, then are buried, swiftly, to maintain
the peace.
But the seed has been planted, and watching it flower within Gypsy is a performance worth
anyone's time.
Over the course of eight episodes, King develops the character from an abused girl to a premeditated
killer.
Yet King never lets the audience forget that whatever mask Gypsy wears, it's only one of
many.
King plays a consummate actress in The Act, and in so doing, establishes herself as one
of Hollywood's most intriguing new talents.
The CW wants you to know that this is not your mother's Nancy Drew.
In this iteration of the teen detective's adventures, there's romance, murder, and occult
intrigue, everything that made sister show Riverdale the success it's become.
Who doesn't love a bit of garish, soapy fun once in a while?
A good cast can turn such a premise into a true success, potentially even erasing the
"guilty" in "guilty pleasure," especially when it comes to teen drama.
After all, if it can work for the sunshiny denizens of Archie Comics, why couldn't it
work for Nancy Drew?
In execution, however, this wasn't the case, and lead actress Kennedy McMann is an enormous
part of why.
This Nancy has it considerably less together than her literary self, still reeling from
the death of her mother and the disastrous senior year that entailed.
This is an intriguing take on the character, but it only really results in a dreary performance
that leaves one longing for the can-do spirit of the original.
Sure, painting her mystery-solving as more of a compulsion than a calling is a neat idea,
but that sort of rewrite necessitates an actress who can sell the contrast between the original
heroine and the TV show's struggling girl.
McMann, whose acting is mostly confined to her eyebrows, is not that heroine, resulting
in one of the worst TV performances of 2019.
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