Watch This: The Daly Show

It's almost summer, which means many of our favorite comedies are gone until September. Don't get too worried though, because I have a solution! Or rather, Tim Daly, Sam Daly, and Ben Shelton have a solution. Guess I can't take all the credit. What I can take credit for is introducing you to one of the funniest series of web videos*.

Sarah Drew, "Grey's Anatomy", "Glee", and Typecasting

Sarah Drew probably isn't someone you've heard of before. She's certainly not a household name. But she is someone who you'll be seeing a lot of this year. She's Dr. April Kepner on "Grey's Anatomy". Dr. Kepner is slightly nerdy, slightly childish, slightly whiny, and apparently a virgin. All of this is probably why I immediately recognized her when I was re-watching "Glee" last night. Sarah Drew (the actress who plays Kepner) was playing a nerdy, childish, whiny, definitely-a-virgin character named Suzy Pepper. Suzy was a student who had a massive crush on the teacher Will Schuster, and was competing with Rachel for his attention ("Glee" S1E10).

Drew is interesting because she graduated from a university (in my hometown!), and then almost immediately started doing voice-work and acting. In 2004, just two years after she graduated, she was in a 38 episode arc of "Everwood". She was also in 4 episodes of "Mad Men" and 2 episodes of "Private Practice". Her role on "Private Practice" is the most confusing, considering that the show often does crossover episodes with "Grey's", yet Drew plays different characters on the two shows.

All I can say is that Shonda Rhimes must really like Drew a lot. After her role on "Private Practice" Rhimes cast her in a new pilot ("Inside the Box") which never got the green light.

Another interesting tidbit is that Kepner's love interest on "Grey's" is played by Peter MacNicol. MacNicol appeared on the incredibly successful "Ally McBeal" as a character much like the one he plays on "Grey's": socially awkward and apparently appealing to attractive women (de Rossi played his love interest on "Ally").

So, are Kepner and MacNicol typecast at all? Possibly. But they're both appealing to watch, and so I don't think anyone will really care.

I can tell they have accents...

Foreign Actors Who Have Bad American Accents

Lisl: Me nightie's slippin'
Bond: So is your accent, Countess.
--For Your Eyes Only


I was watching "Private Practice", a show that I normally choose to avoid (I like "Grey's", but for some reason I find the drama in "Private Practice" grating, and their focus on psychiatrists completely unrealistic), and I happened to see that Alex Kingston was in it. Now, I am a fan of Kingston. I was a loyal "ER" viewer, and really enjoyed her performance as Elizabeth Corday. I also enjoyed the fact that she had a lovely and realistic (because it is real) English accent. My biggest problem about her performance on "Private Practice"? Her accent sounded wrong. She was playing an American, and spoke with an 'American' accent...but there was something slightly wrong about it. I can't even explain it, but every third or fourth word sounded off.





My friend H, who reads my blog but chooses to verbally give me comments instead of writing them (write some comments, people!) also pointed out that Simon Baker's accent in "The Mentalist" is pretty shoddy. Since I don't watch that show, and have only seen previews, I didn't realize that. So, I retract him from my prior post, and am now including him here instead.



Click HERE for the Boston Globe's grading of American accents.