Skip to main content

Before They Were "Lost": Sawyer Vamps It Up on "Angel"

Not every star of ABC's hit castaway drama Lost was always as famous as they are today. In fact, the actors pretty much ran the gamut from the widely-recognized TV stars to international film stars to actors of the never-seen-'em-before variety.

We all know that Matthew Fox (Jack) played Charlie on FOX's series Party of Five and that wee Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) was a hobbit in the Lord of the Rings feature film franchise (before that he played Geoffrey on Brit mystery series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates), but what about the lesser-known actors?

Well, Evangeline Lilly (Kate) appeared on a Canadian dating commerical (no joke), while Jorge Garcia (Hurley) was discovered after an appearance as a drug dealer on Curb Your Enthusiasm. As for a few of the others: Terry O'Quinn (Locke) had appeared in numerous TV roles, usually as a military officer, on such shows as Alias, The West Wing, JAG, and Harsh Realm; theatre actor Harold Perrineau (Michael) was best known for his work on HBO's Oz and in films like Romeo + Juliet and The Matrix series; and Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) memorably appeared on 24 and Angel--

Wait, what's that, you say? Angel? The now defunct WB Buffy-spin off starring David Boreanaz as the titular hero, an L.A.-based vampire with a soul saving the hopeless and continually preventing the end of the world? Didn't someone else in the Lost cast appear in that very same show?

You would be right. Lost's very own amoral con artist Sawyer (a.k.a. actor Josh Holloway) appeared on the drama, in its very first episode, "City of..." playing a character known only as Good Looking Guy who, like Sawyer, wasn't all that he initially appeared to be. In the series' opening scene, Angel stakes out a local watering hole by pretending to be drunk. He spies a young woman talking to a group of suspicious young men--including Good Looking Guy (Josh Holloway)--and follows them outside. Good Looking Guy couldn't be a vampire, could he? Not when he's so, you know, good looking, right?

The young woman is taken aback when the men transform into vampires, who are about to attack the girl when Angel appears, staking two of the vamps off the bat (heh, bat). But our Sawyer isn't having any of that and attacks Angel as well, who throws him onto a car windshield. The damsel-in-distress tries to thank Angel but he yells at her to get away and then stakes Sawyer, turning him to dust. And Angel, being the typically brooding guy that he is, swirls away and stalks down a darkened alley into the night.

Poor Sawyer. He never does get the girl, does he?

What's On Tonight

8 pm: NCIS (CBS); Most Outrageous Moments/Scrubs (NBC); Gilmore Girls (WB); According to Jim/Hope & Faith (ABC); American Idol (FOX); America's Next Top Model (UPN)

9 pm: The Unit (CBS); Scrubs/Teachers (NBC); Pepper Dennis (WB); Hope & Faith/Less Than Perfect (ABC); House (FOX); Veronica Mars (UPN)

10 pm: Dynasty Reunion: Catfights and Caviar (CBS); Law & Order: SVU (NBC); Boston Legal (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

8 pm: Gilmore Girls.

The second-to-last episode before Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino leave Stars Hollow for good. In tonight's episode ("Driving Miss Gilmore"), the Gilmore girls play nursemaids with Lorelai acting as her mom's driver after Emily undergoes minor eye surgery, while Rory looks after boyfriend Logan's recovery after his sky-diving accident. Meanwhile, Luke helps his kooky sister Liz after she announces she's preggers. Ha! Told you so; I knew the pregnancy alluded to in the promos for this week's episode had nothing to do with Rory or Lorelai. Take that, WB promo department!

9 pm: Veronica Mars.

Will the entire Neptune gang make it out of this season alive? Who can say, but it looks like the death of a character could go down in this week's episode of Veronica Mars ("Happy Go Lucky"). At Aaron's murder trial, Veronica, Keith, and Logan take the witness stand; Neptune High janitor Lucky gets trigger happy; and ever-vigilant sleuth Veronica discovers a suspicious e-mail on the mayor's computer. Is Woody Goodman the mastermind behind the bus crash? And will we ever learn why that dead guy had Veronica's name written on his hand?

Comments

Anonymous said…
That is too funny! I was a huge "Angel" fan and loved Daniel Dae Kim as an evil lawyer on the show but never realized that Sawyer (Josh Holloway) played a vampire in the first episode. Hysterical. It's actually pretty amazing how many people started their careers as vamps on either "Buffy" or "Angel."

The last episode of "Alias" also proved to be an "Angel" reunion with Gina Torres and Amy Acker. Glad to see that the excellent cast of "Angel" is still alive and kicking!

Popular posts from this blog

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

The Daily Beast: "How The Killing Went Wrong"

While the uproar over the U.S. version of The Killing has quieted, the show is still a pale imitation of the Danish series on which it is based. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "How The Killing Went Wrong," in which I look at how The Killing has handled itself during its second season, and compare it to the stunning and electrifying original Danish series, Forbrydelsen , on which it is based. (I recently watched all 20 episodes of Forbrydelsen over a few evenings.) The original is a mind-blowing and gut-wrenching work of genius. It’s not necessary to rehash the anger that followed in the wake of the conclusion last June of the first season of AMC’s mystery drama The Killing, based on Søren Sveistrup’s landmark Danish show Forbrydelsen, which follows the murder of a schoolgirl and its impact on the people whose lives the investigation touches upon. What followed were irate reviews, burnished with the “burning intensity of 10,000 white-hot suns

Pilot Inspektor: CBS' "Smith"

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian