Fandom--Because I don't want to think about politics today

I don't write much about television or films, but that's not because I don't enjoy television or films. I love a good drama. Recently I've become a fan of the British television series Life on Mars, the story of a British policeman who is hit by a car in 2006 and "wakes" up to find himself 33 years in the past, in 1973. The series is being re-broadcast on PBS.  Although I root for the modern, methodical, more sensitive DCI Sam Tyler, the officer who is stunned to discover he's on almost alien soil in 1970s England, I have an awful soft spot for the often corrupt and bullying DCI Gene Hunt, but I would like to think that soft spot is more the result of my rather swooning regard for the actor who plays Hunt--Philip Glenister--than of any admiration for the ham-fisted Hunt.  But evidently Gene Hunt has a swooning effect on many women viewers, and I'm just one of many. Maybe it's that confident swagger and curling lip that attracts us so.  However, I first really noticed Glenister as an actor in his role as Mr. Carter in BBC1's Cranford, a very different role than that of DCI Hunt--and I immediately liked that character, too. So, yeah, though he is not traditionally handsome, for some reason, I think Philip Glenister has a lot of sex appeal. I think I'm a fan--or as much of a fan as I ever am of actors. Here is a list of some of my favorite actors/characters:

• As a child, I loved Eric Fleming's Mr. Favor in Rawhide, my first "crush" on a fictional character.
  
• Vying for second place were Leonard Nimoy's Mr. Spock from Star Trek (all those other women could have the captain!) and Patrick McGoohan's "Number Six" in The Prisoner.
  
• Kevin Kline--a great talent
  
• French actor Jean Reno--oh yeah!
  
• British actors Alan Bates, Bill Nighy, Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, John Hannah, and Alan Rickman--all very sexy (and, yeah, I know that Everett is gay, but that doesn't make him less sexy!)
  
• I love Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes.
  
• Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, especially his role in Yojimbo
  
• Don Cheadle--not only a great actor but also very good-looking
  
• I first really noticed Forest Whitaker in Smoke and have enjoyed his acting ever since.
  
• Indian actors Aamir Khan and Ajay Devgan.

And that's my list of favorite actors, none of whom are really traditional heartthrobs--provided here today because I don't feel like addressing the really important news of the day, such as the execrable Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance. Yep, taking refuge in the superficial and entertaining.