I’m only halfway through this thread on bad actors in good TV series and Elisabeth Rohm has already been mentioned twice. And I don’t understand why. She’s had three major TV roles:
Kate on Angel
The Girl Lead on Bull
ADA Sutherland on Law and Order
And I don’t think she was terrible in any of them. Hell, I loved her on Angel and I even watched Bull just because an Angel alumnus was on it.
Now I admit her ADA was no where near Angie Harmon (my favorite ADA), but she wasn’t bad.
In fact, I have to give the writers (and her) a little credit. We were all confused by the “Is this because I’m a lesbian?” speech, but if you go back and watch some of her episodes there are subtle clues that it’s there.
She was very interested in gay rights cases or anything that might apply in a gay rights case
She never mentioned any kind of SO, male or female.
And in one episode she was even flirting with a female computer tech.
I’m with you, Justin. The Elisabeth Rohm hatred is an inexplicable phenomenon, limited almost entirely to television critics and the Internet. Whenever I bring it up among Law & Order fans, I get stares of incomprehension. Most people I’ve spoken with, myself included, rank her somewhere in the middle of the actresses who have played the A.D.A., not brilliant, but not terrible. But among certain T.V. critics (the ones from T.V. Guide and the San Francisco Chronicle, for example), she is considered the paramount example of bad acting. And she has basically been chewed up and spit out by the Internet.
I’ve read descriptions of why people dislike her acting, mainly having to do with her being wooden. I just don’t see it. I liked her fine on Bull (although I preferred Alicia Coppola, who would make a great A.D.A.), and I liked her fine on Law & Order. People also sometimes argue that her character was portrayed as some kind of all-knowing genius, who could solve a case with a single clue, but I never noticed that either. I think that the writing of her exit line could have been better, but I don’t think it was at all inconsistent with her character.
I know I’m not really answering your question, but it’s definitely something that I’ve wondered about.
A big part of it, I think, is that her role on Law & Order was underwritten. I wouldn’t say that she’s a particularly gifted actress, but she was not given a hell of a lot to do in that role.
No lie: I stopped watching Law & Order because of Elizabeth Röhm. I’d been a never-miss-it viewer since the 4th season. Help yourself to my L&O reviews on Entertainment Geekly for details (and a whole lotta Röhm-bashin’).
I’ve only seen her on “Angel,” but she was fantastic there. Kate was one of my favorite characters from the start, and I was very sad when she stopped appearing after Season 2. I liked the concept of her character, and how she managed to walk (well careen around) the line between being Angel’s ally and antagonist without ever being less than a good person caught in a tough situation. Rohm’s last appearance (in the two-parter “Reprise”/ “Epiphany”) ranks among the best performances by a guest star on either Buffyverse show, IMO- pretty damned impressive considering the company.
I have a suspicion that many people have the inescapable expectation that acting shouldn’t be portrayed as ‘real’ and should instead be portrayed as ‘hollywood-style performing’. And any actor who comes along and then creates a performance that is actually very naturalistic and real can be accepted as a great actor when in amongst a similar calibre cast, or can look extremely wrong when in a different calibre cast.
I think she was going for realistic acting, and comes across to hose who dislike her as ‘inappropriately matched with her cast’ which translates to being ‘bad’.
I personally thought she was very good, and was just stuck with some inane dialogue that you can’t really get your teeth into even if you tried.
The problem isn’t her acting style, it’s the role of being a third banana and having nothing interesting to say, or an opportunity to say it in an interesting way, without fear of it sounding cheesy. She is reduccing the cheese factor and it comes out as being ‘bad’ (which is, of course, objective anyway)
Seriously though, I liked her well enough on Angel, but her character on Law and Order was just flat to begin with, and she certainly didn’t bring any life to it. Easily my least favorite recurring character that I’ve seen.
Until I read that thread, I had never heard that anyone other than me couldn’t stand her in Law and Order.
I can’t explain it. I just couldn’t stand her. And, that never happens to me. I’ve never had someone acting in a role that I couldn’t deal with. I know nothing of acting and can’t pick a good actor from a bad one, but I just know that I couldn’t stand her in that role.
They could have replaced her with a coatrack in a blonde wig and gotten a better performance on Law & Order. She has one facial expression - deer in headlights and her line readings are horrible.
She wasn’t necessarily bad on L&O; she just had the bad luck to follow three other actresses with more charisma and better “sexual chemistry” with Waterston. Sort of like Tara King on The Avengers, whose two predecessors (Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg) were tough acts to follow.
I think this is a big factor, given that her predecessor was Angie Harmon’s character Abbie Carmichael, whom many fans really liked for the realistic portrayal of her political views, her no-nonsense attitude, and her strength as a character. It could be that Rohm’s character paled even more in comparison.
I hopped on to the hating Elisabeth Rohm bandwagon fairly early in her career - when she was on One Life to Live in the late 90’s.
(Coincidentally, she was kind of Nathan Fillion’s love interest, but you couldn’t really tell because she sucked there too.)
She’s not good. Plus she’s annoying and not in an interesting way, but in the “change the channel and hope you don’t miss an important plot point” way. She’s bland and wooden, at times at higher volumes (and obviously when being prompted to use them), but that’s it.
I do not, however, blame her for the lesbian line. That was just generally bad writing. And actually, she’s not the one who made me turn off L&O - Dennis Farina did that 15 minutes into his second episode.
Put me in the category of thinking she’s only a middling actress who has yet to find a role for which she is suited. She simply hasn’t impressed me as anything more than ordinary – which in the shadow of people like Jerry Orbach and Sam Watterson can probably come across as bad. She didn’t seem as awful in Angel, but then, she was in the company of David B who is right there at the same level – though she’s probably just a step above him.
As an aside, David needs a juicy villain role – he did shine as Angelus and can handle those roles, but being a good guy, he’s boring–like Elizabeth.
