Tough Guys Change Diapers: TV Action Hero Dads
October 29, 2011, By Jason Avant 1 comment
Generally speaking, TV dads are a woeful lot, and volumes have been written about the stereotypical TV Dad. As we know, most sitcoms depict fathers as well-meaning bumbling idiots. Ironically, the chief offender is "Modern Family," wherein three of the four fathers—Phil, Mitch, and Cam—have rapidly devolved into caricatures; Phil's clueless man-child routine has grown stale, and the less said about Mitch and Cam devolving into The Wacky Gay Neighbors, the better.
But a quick survey of action-adventure/cop shows reveals something interesting—there are a lot of lead characters who happen to be dads, and good ones at that. Here are my top five TV badasses who happen to be decent fathers. (Sadly, my number one choice, Ned Stark of "Game of Thrones," is ineligible, thanks to...well, don't want to spoil it for those who haven't watched.)
5. Raylan Givens, "Justified": If you're not watching this show, you are missing out. "Justified" is based on Elmore Leonard's novels "Pronto" and "Riding The Rap." The pilot episode drew heavily from Leonard's short story "Fire in the Hole." Leonard, of course, was a huge influence on Quentin Tarantino, and "Justified" is loaded with the quirky characters and snappy dialogue that are Leonard's trademark. Raylan Givens (played by "Deadwood" vet Timothy Olyphant) is one of TV's best leads, a quick-drawing, quicker-thinking U.S. Marshal who returns to his hometown of Harlan, Kentucky. During the show's fantastic second season, Raylan became a father figure to an orphaned girl who'd become entangled with some particularly nasty locals. The season finale revealed that Raylan himself was going to become a daddy; how this will affect him will play out in season three, and should be a lot of fun to watch.
4. Jim Shannon, "Terra Nova": The premise of "Terra Nova" is a great one—when the Earth teeters on the edge of complete environmental collapse in 2149, a group of explorers is sent back in time to 85,000,000 BC to reboot humanity. Part "Avatar," part "Lost," and a whole lot of "Jurassic Park," the show's hero is Jim Shannon, the security chief for the Terra Nova colony. With him are his family—he's got two teenagers and a preschooler, and along with helping them deal with the usual kid problems (how you know if a boy likes you, how to make new friends), he gets to fight dinosaurs. Bonus!
NEXT: Danny "Danno" Williams, "Hawaii Five-0"
Comments (1):