My 12 year old daughter enjoys the show Seventh Heaven. On occasion I have watched portions of it, and it strikes me as a relatively benign show.
But my goodness! I question whether the entire cast combined could act their way out of a wet paper bag. The only member of the cast who seems to have any acting ability is the guy who plays the younger minister. The others appear completely wooden and insincere. As painful as the young twin automatons are to watch, I’m not sure they are the worst members of the cast. The main characters such as the preacher and his wife, and the bit players such as the black cop, all seem similarly afflicted.
Am I being unfair in my characterization?
What is it that makes bad acting so obvious?
Are there any other shows out there with comparably bad acting?
You know, far be it from me to defend a show that provides an outlet for the acting talents of Alyssa Milano (both of them! ba-dump-bump), but I think Holly Marie Combs, who plays Piper, is really an outstanding actor. The show is never better than when it focuses on her, and no matter how badly written or incomprehensible her plotlines are, she’s always believable.
I also think Rose McGowan has her moments, and Dorian Gregory (Daryl, the hapless cop) is very, very funny at times.
I do think that Milano drags the overall batting average down a bit, but there’s no way that, including Combs’ contribution, it’s as poorly acted as 7th Heaven.
Wow. I know way too much about that show. What can I say? Sometimes the Sunday night game is a rout, and I have to watch something
Plus, I feel I tend to cut actors more slack in terms of the realism I expect when they are - say - fighting dragons and demons, helping leprechauns, being transformed into Greek goddesses/mermaids/Valkyries/etc., than when they are interacting as family in a middleclass suburban/small town community.
Did Holly give birth? HA HAHA Where have you been? A long time ago. To a boy, Wyatt.
As far as 7th Heaven goes. I think the twins acting is the WORST. I think how the script reads for the two of them to talk at the same time and say the same thing is so sterotypical of twins.
I don’t like how Ruthie’s charachter is a know-it-all and I can’t believe her strict parents let her date/kiss a boy and let him in her room without supervision!
Now did Mary tell her folks that she is pregnant? If so, how did they handle that?
Did Matt run away? I saw a week or so ago he was going to take off.
I don’t watch the show very often but I am still interested. Don’t ask why
Bolding mine.
Anyway, I’ve noticed the wooden acting on 7th Heaven(my fiancee’ watches… yeah, that’s the ticket…). I think the show is only still on because its got a religious theme. (and therefore garners huge ratings from fundies who can’t recognize bad acting even though everyone around them pretends to tolerate them.)
Unless I am being whooshed. Holly would be the real life person (hence the IRL) and Piper would be the character. Wyatt would be the fictional child born to Piper…not Holly.
I assume Eric was asking if Holly Marie Combs had given birth in real life.
Err. I see it’s gone on a “Charmed” tanget, but to bring it back to 7th Heaven. I think it’s because it’s so preachy even the actors/actresses have a hard time “believing their character”.
I don’t know if anyone has realised this, but they’ve done the “smoking is bad and you’ll burn in hell if you smoke” bit no less than four times now. Seriously. Four times. Ask me to count them out for you, and I can.
Frankly, no actor in that cast has ever given a really good performance. Stephen Collins bad acting goes back to ST:TMP where his character went on to a higher plane (We always thought that he looked a bit like the pig Lance Heartthrob from The Muppet Show), then on to Brass Monkey and a bunch of other stuff forgetable even by those standards. Catherine Hicks is also a ST alumna – having stunk up ST: IV with her inability to give a hint of sincerity.
In their defense, the scripts are simply awful – as bad as, if not worse than that Gerald McRainey show that spun off from Touched By An Angel.
I think the acting style on 7th Heaven is intentional. I don’t think method acting would be appropriate. It would lose that quaint feeling of purity and safety that is its trademark.
In fact, there were a couple of episodes surrounding Matt’s marriage that incorporated a more realistic Eric and they were horrible. I even pitted the show at that time, and demanded that they return our idealistic 7th Heaven characters to us.
7th Heaven is the most well-plotted, subtle and best acted show EVER! Twins ALWAYS speak in unison and act slightly retarded! 13-year-old girls know EVERYTHING! People ALWAYS wait until they get married to have sex–it’s the only moral thing to do! Often, in life, there are wacky mismarriages between daughters of rabbis and sons of ambiguous-faith ministers, resulting in heart problems and over-salted kugal! AND ANYONE WHO SMOKES POT DESERVES TO DIE!
