Joss Whedon's favourite TV characters

Of all the websites set up by fans to celebrate their favourite TV shows and creative TV people, Whedonesque has long been top of the list. Even when they criticised an old article of mine about allegations of homophobia in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, I still loved them. (To be fair, it deserved any criticism, but then it was thrown together at short notice, after the editor of the site in question was sacked, and we realised we had no content…)

I’m not the only one who likes Whedonesque, though: Joss Whedon himself, creator of Buffy, Angel and Firefly and inspiration for the site in the first place, is a semi-regular commenter. In this post he passes his opinions on the best TV characters of all time. His list:

1. Number 6, The Prisoner
2. George Michael Bluth, Arrested Development
3. Diana Bennett from the last series of Beauty and the Beast (“Does anybody remember the desperate last-minute revamp… where they got all thrillery, killed Linda Hamilton and replaced her with a sort of female Will Graham, before half the characters on TV were sort of female Will Grahams — before, in fact, Clarisse Starling? Well she was awesome. Cool, and wicked beautiful… Show died in a month.”)
4. Belzer, Hill Street Blues
5. Josh Lyman, The West Wing
6. Lou Grant from, er, Lou Grant and, of course, The Mary Tyler Moore Show (“Oh, I’ll just slide my character from high comedy to high drama like people do all the time. What’s that you say? Well, surely very often, yes? No?”)
7. Mr Hudson, Upstairs Downstairs
8. Phoebe, Friends (“That was one of the best written shows ever for a spell and when it was she could not miss”)
9. President Roslin, Battlestar Galactica (“The role [Mary McDonnell] was born for. You wanna go head to head with Edward James Almos? Perhaps you don’t remember what a bad-ass he was on Miami Vice [as Lt. Martin Castillo]”).
10. Lt. Martin Castillo, Miami Vice (can you tell what he did there?)
11. Rod Serling on the Twilight Zone (“He wasn’t a character per se, he was just TV at its finest and smoking at its coolest”)
12. Quincy, M.D.
13. Logan, Veronica Mars
14. Jim, The Office (US version) — the Americans’ version of our Tim (“I’ve watched that scene between him and Pam in the season 2 finale like 17 times and his readings are smooth like booze”)
15. Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks
16. Anna Devane, General Hospital
17. Jonathan Banks, Wiseguy
18. Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, a recurring character on Saturday Night Live played by Phil Hartman
19. Letitia ‘Buddy’ Lawrence, Family (“Early crush. Can’t remember much more.”)
20. Columbo
21. Maude (Bea Arthur’s classic 1970s sitcom)
22. Lennie Briscoe, Law & Order (a character who originated in Homicide: Life On The Street). “I hated the obligatory wisecrack, but [the late Jerry Orbach] is New York personified (and a Broadway Hoofer) and as real as it gets…
23. “…Unless it gets to [Mike Torello, played by] Dennis Farina in Crime Story, who actually WAS a cop before he started acting.”
24. Dick Van Dyke. “He’s diagnosing… murder! Also I think he had a sitcom.”
25. House. “If you saw him in Blackadder, even more so, but if you haven’t, House. The last great humanist.”

Naturally, as an American, Whedon’s list is heavily US-based. So who would you pick? Personally, I’d definitely want the Doctor, from Doctor Who, Rigsby (Rising Damp) and Bet Lynch (Coronation Street) on my list…

[Hat-tip to Rob for pointing Joss’ list out. Thanks, Rob!]