5 Accents that Fooled Me

There are a lot of non-Americans making it on the American TV as Americans or even vice-versa. Not all of them get to keep their actual accents for their roles (eg. Jesse Spencer and Tim Roth). And no, I'm not gonna mention Hugh Laurie because it goes without saying.

1. Alex O' Loughlin (Hawaii Five-O) - I'm probably the last person on the planet that recently found out he's Australian. To be fair, I've never seen any of his previous work prior to H5O. Though it's a little odd that his American accent sounds like he's from both Boston AND New York, go figure.

It's either this or a shirtless pic of him out of the ocean ala Daniel Craig

2. Julian McMahon - Okay, I KNOW he's Australian and he still has his accent (some) on talk shows and interviews, but after years of watching him on Charmed, nip/tuck as well as the Fantastic Four movies as an asshole, I sometimes forget that he's not American.

3. James Marsters - Slap me stupid for not knowing that he's American and that his British accent on Buffy and Angel all those years ago was put on. I've been fooled all these years. Or I didn't think too much about it. Well, I was fooled all the same.

4. Owain Yeoman (The Mentalist) - Well okay, I sorta remember that he's Welsh and that his American accent's a little put on at times, but I can't knock every non-American on the show.

5. Alan Dale - The big and small screen token villain is from freaking NEW ZEALAND, which never comes to my mind whenever I watch him on TV. Well done, sir.

Any more suggestions?

An Idiot Abroad

So I saw the Sky show An Idiot Abroad, which is a pseudo documentary series about Karl Pilkington (the idiot former producer of the Ricky Gervais Podcast) visiting the new Seven Wonders of the World just because Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant wanted to make Karl uncomfortable by making him travel to these places he doesn't want to go. How they got Sky to fund this so-called "practical joke" is beyond me. At the same time, I kind of understand Karl not wanting to go in the first place.

So Karl's first stop is China, where he saw the weird street food, the toilets with no doors and the Great Wall of China. Along the way, he gets calls, voicemails and text messages from Ricky and Stephen, telling him to do certain stuff to make his life more difficult for their own (and the audience) amusement.

Karl thought he was done with the Great Wall until he gets a call from Stephen, telling him to see the WHOLE wall and so he scales the entire length of the Wall. Poor dude.

Most memorably stupid line of the episode? "It's the Alright Wall of China"

I'm not sure if I could bring myself to watch the rest of the series - based on this one episode, it could be a hilarious train wreck.

Post-JJ Criminal Minds

Saw the post-JJ episode of Criminal Minds, Remembrance of Things Past.

They totally reworked the title sequence - different mix of the tune, shuffling of cast members with Joe Mantegna get first billing and Thomas Gibson getting the "and" billing. Even the final cast photo at the end also changed.

Question: If Paget Brewster is also (eventually) getting written out, why still bother with the billing at all?

The only sign (literally) alluding to JJ's absence was Garcia taking down the name from the door. I don't think I'm the only one that's curious about who is going to be their new liaison, if they are going to address that at all.

How the CSI fires worked out on the shows

CSI: Miami

Totally forgot that the Miami-Dade crime lab was gassed at the end of the last season, with everyone down for the count if not for Horatio. The gas attack on the lab is just a vehicle to drive Eddie Cibrian's character Jesse Cardoza out of the show. Convenient.


CSI

Writing Wendy Simms (Liz Vassey) out of the show wasn't too hard - her character left to be a field mouse in another city, leaving a devastated Hodges behind. Aww.... HAHA.


CSI: NY

Stella Bonasera in New Orleans to head her own crime lab? Convenient. Also liking Sela Ward's character so far.