Character Actors Going To Pot

So, it's Premiere Week on the TV. Usually, it's the same-old, same-old with Premiere Week, with all the returning shows being good, and all the new shows sucking. This year is turning out to be pretty much the same, with one exception.

I was watching Shark on Sunday, and thought I saw a familiar face. I thought, "That looks like some obscure character actor I should know, but he looks too shitty to be him." But, as it turns out, it was exactly who I thought it was: Alex O'Ross, an action movie staple of the '80s and '90s. Here's a guy that, in his heyday, had the menacing looks a bad guy, now reduced to being a bloated old man.

It continues.

A few nights later, I'm watching House, and the woman playing the patient's mother looked vaguely like someone. Turns out it was Kay Lenz, who, back in the '80s and '90s, was actually pretty hot. Now...well, the term "sea hag" comes to mind. I'm sure there are others, but I can only watch so much TV; I'm only one man.

Now, I know that TV tends to be a bastion for character actors who fall out of vogue. But these folks look like they've not only fallen out of vogue, but out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

I also find it odd that someone like Hector Elizondo, who's in Cane, looks exactly the same as he did 20 years ago. Hasn't aged a day. Hell, I just saw John Saxon in person a couple of months ago, and he looks the same as he did 30 years ago.

But, it's a fact of life that people get older, and some of them age waaaay worse than other. It's just a shame that we have to see them on TV.