They’re both handsome. I know tastes vary, but they’re just not ugly. Nowhere near.
Neither are Eddie McClintock or David Boreanez. The latter has kinda aged a little, but he is still ruggedly handsome.
Recently the trend has been changed a little - it’s far more common than it used to be to see a headliner character who is female and very obviously not attractive to most people. But her subordinates will usually be cover-girl material.
If we’re counting non-current cable shows, Tony Soprano. I wouldn’t rate any of the male regulars on that show as pretty boys.
I was gonna chime in with the ensemble cast of Homicide, but that might not meet the textbook definition of “current.” It was kind of a great thing for us plain-faced guys, though.
You took the words out of my mouth, but the women !
You leave out Elisabeth Moss, methinks; she’s quite cute, and a lot more attractive to me than Hendricks. It’s harder for me to assess the looks of Jones on the show, as Betty Draper’s personality is so repellent that she seems ugly.
Is John Cryer supposed to be handsome? I always thought he looked goofy.
And many of us find John Slattery quite the Silver Fox, even if his character is less than sterling.
In the eye of the beholder & all…
Really? I hate to play the “I’m so straight that I can’t tell which guys are attractive” card but I swear that I would have guessed that he was practically a male model.
I should have mentioned him; I know my baby sister thinks he’s quite hot, along with–um–what’s his name who was on Angel. The crying rapist wanker. Also, Mad Men is full of hot secondary characters. With one significant exception, all the secretaries have been babes, for instance. And I think that’s purposeful on the part of the agency.
Firstly I think James Arness and Steve McQueen would both have been considered handsome in their primes, Charles Bronson not so much.
I think there have actually been some actors in recent primetime who would not have been leading men in the 70s.
Dennis Franz on NYPD Blue isn’t just ugly, he’s seriously ugly. Like I don’t see someone that ugly on a regular day to day basis, he’s probably in the top 10% of ugliness you will see from normal people. I don’t see a guy who looks like Dennis Franz being top actor on a primetime drama in the 70s (Franz himself was a career secondary character before NYPD Blue, and started Blue that way.)
Would Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston (longtime leading men of L&O) be considered handsome? I dunno that I would think so on that one.
I loved Law & Order, but I don’t htink either Orbach or Waterston was a leading man; the show very deliberately had no lead characters–or, rather, all six regulars had equally good claims to being the lead. And its in earliest years, the show was a conscious subversion of the handsome actor bit, as of the six regulars, only Chris Noth and Richard Brooks were especially good looking; the rest were ordinary-looking men and there were no female regulars at all). This changed, of course, first with the introduction of Dr. Olivet, then the parade of improbably-hot female DAs. (Improbable in aggregate, that is.) And of course it was traditional that the younger detective be good-looking–and that by definition excludes Orbach.
I don’t think he is necessary male model handsome–he has kind of a weak jawline–but I watched Burn Notice mostly because I found him so hot. Plus he has amazing arms, not to be shallow or anything.
Heh. I find him repellent, which is why threads like these are so tough. One woman’s pretty boy is another’s example of how ugly men can make it on TV.
I’m trying to think of shows we currently watch with male leads that are objectively unattractive, and I’m not coming up with any. There are plenty of shows we watch where I find the male leads unattractive, but I can at least understand how others would think they were handsome enough.
Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles of Supernatural on the CW are quite attractive and mentions have been made of their good looks on several of the episodes throughout the seasons.
We could do a poll, if you like 
But I find him as distasteful to look at as I do Hillary Swank.
